First World Problems and White Whines
A while ago, somebody on LiveJournal linked to White Whines, one of several sites which collects “first-world problems.” There are certainly some spoiled, privileged, and sometimes humorous posts collected here … but the whole concept bugged me.
Partly, I hate playing Competitive Problems. Yes, it’s important to keep perspective, and to recognize that there are others out there with far more serious problems than mine … but that doesn’t make my problems unimportant. Jay Lake talked about it a bit on his LiveJournal a few months back:
Friend: “Man, I feel lousy. I have a cold.”
Jay: “Man, that sucks. I hope you feel better soon.”
Friend: (embarrassed) “Oh, wait. You have cancer. Never mind.”
Because cancer is the trump card of Competitive Problems. (Okay, now I’m tempted to write the rules of this game. Diabetes gives me a +3 to complain about health problems, but I also lose one point per published book for any writing-related complaints…)
Where was I? Oh, right. What bothers me more than the “Ha ha, your problems aren’t real problems,” attitude (and I will admit I don’t have a ton of sympathy for some of the problems posted), is the whole concept of lableing these things “white people’s problems” and “first world problems.” As it turns out, “third world” isn’t actually shorthand for “Everyone is poor and starving and diseased and waiting for the west to swoop in and save them.” Here, have a few images from third world countries like India, South Africa, Brazil, and Tanzania.
I could write a long-winded post trying to unpack the various problematic assumptions here, but I decided to go a different route instead. Feel free to substitute “first world” and “third world” for white and PoC in my comments below.
Four more modified White Whine images behind the cut…
kimberlycreates
July 18, 2011 @ 10:19 am
Oh my. At first I didn’t get it. Yeah, we complain about pointless stuff. I mean, stuff that really isn’t as big a deal as not having clean drinking water or not having a roof over my head or not being able to have food (never mind nutritious, socially-conscious food) for my family to eat or not being able to eat said food every day. But when you put it that way, it does put a completely different spin on things.
The third-world images thing gets me thinking, slightly off your point. What actually defines being a third-world country? And how much of third-world countries actually look like the images you presented versus the images many of us think of when we hear “third world”? I mean, what is the whole reality? What is the whole reality of the poverty-to-opulence ratio in a third-world country versus the poverty-to-opulence ratio of America or Canada or England? The internet has made the world smaller and more accessible, but many of us still have views of the rest of the world that maybe aren’t entirely in line with reality. Living in today’s internet age, there’s got to be an infographic on that somewhere, right?
Jim C. Hines
July 18, 2011 @ 10:20 am
Ask and you shall receive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
With the standard disclaimer that Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable source in the world, but I’ve found it a good starting point for research and such…
Anke
July 18, 2011 @ 10:43 am
I thought this video might interest you (and other people passing through): Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story – a Nigerian writer who also studied in the USA talking about preconceptions like that.
Sean Sweeney
July 18, 2011 @ 12:09 pm
Jimmy, if Diabetes is +3, where does Aortic Stenosis rank? 🙂
John Hoover
July 18, 2011 @ 12:09 pm
If we can perceive ourselves as victims – no matter of what – there is a kind of moral exoneration that allows us not to see our responsibility for the larger problems, or our complicity in creating them. This is the payoff for the status of being a victim – even if that is only in our own mind.
John Donne had it right four centuries ago. “I am involved in mankind.” A little sexist and politically incorrect language perhaps, but it was four centuries ago.
Jim Murrey
July 18, 2011 @ 12:58 pm
I made the mistake awhile back of mentioning the fact that my family was living without heat or water in our home. For financial reasons we had to live like that for 3 years until we were able to move. Some people complained I was whining about it. So I stopped talking about that situation, no matter how bad it got.
Jim C. Hines
July 18, 2011 @ 1:30 pm
Let me check the rulebook and get back to you.
Jim C. Hines
July 18, 2011 @ 1:32 pm
Sigh. If it’s your blog/Twitter/Facebook/whatever, you should be able to talk about whatever you’d like. If people don’t like it, nobody’s forcing them to read.
There are certain aspects about my writing career that I’m hesitant to talk about in public, mostly because if I vent here, then some people will come back with, “You’re a published author, what right do you have to complain?” or “I’d give so much to have your problems, dude!” It’s … frustrating.
kimberlycreates
July 18, 2011 @ 1:56 pm
All this time, I thought “Third World” had to do with economics, poverty, health standards, things like that. And it basically boils down to politics? I learn something new every day. Thanks, Jim! (Really. I’m feeling sarcastic so everything I’m typing sounds sarcastic to me, but I’m seriously grateful for the link. I had no idea.)
Jim C. Hines
July 18, 2011 @ 2:20 pm
And making it even more interesting, the U.S. usage of “first world” doesn’t necessarily seem to align with British usage.
Kevin
July 18, 2011 @ 2:31 pm
Sites like that and stuffwhitepeoplelike are peddling stereotypes and gross generalizations, of course, but they’re blatant about it and that’s why they’re funny. The danger is reinforcing those stereotypes by making them common and offhand, but the people who actually take these sites seriously are beyond help anyway.
Keri
July 18, 2011 @ 2:36 pm
Jim Murrey, can I just say that “some people” are jerks? If you’re living without heat or water and you’re my friend, I’m going to do everything in my power to rectify that situation, and I’m certainly not going to call you out for “whining” about it.
Jim C. Hines
July 18, 2011 @ 2:50 pm
I see. I guess my post proves that I’m beyond help. Good to know, thanks!
Jay Lake
July 18, 2011 @ 5:54 pm
I intensely dislike the ‘First World Problems’ meme, because it inherently devalues real issues in people’s lives. An adjunct professor who can’t get a tenure track position has a real, meaningful problem, even if it isn’t in a class with having no food or shelter, for example. ‘First World Problems’ is a race to the bottom that doesn’t actually benefit anyone beyond perhaps a tiny bit of consciousness raising. ‘Whitewhines’ doesn’t bother me as much because it’s so obviously satirical — the humor might be misplaced, sometimes badly so, but it’s humor. ‘First World Problems’ is guilt+social criticism.
Jay, cancer +10