"The language of struggle: It is the universal language underlying all speech and words of our history. Struggle. Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us. In struggle is our history, our language and our being."
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature
I was reading this well-written article by a returned Peace Corps volunteer titled "Peace Corps's complicated relationship with the 'white savior' complex" and it inspired me to write this post on service work.
To me, service work is a way of creating the world we want to see by being a part of the solution in oppose to the problem. Service work does not necessarily mean piety or charity. It is not service you are obligated to do nor is it a way to feel better about yourself or your moral compass. But many of us have grown up allowing these ideas to define what service work should look like. Most of us have the privilege to make change wherever we are. In this regard, we have the power to break down barriers which separate our communities from the world. Why is this important? Because borders have been constructed and deconstructed all throughout history to exploit the many and benefit the few. Service work gives those who are able to serve the opportunity to relieve people who are in temporary distress of problems that they did not ask for. Most disenfranchised populations are just people unfortunate enough to be born in a place where basic human needs are not met, or people born in bodies which are discriminated against and under-valued by society. That is unjust, and service work allows us to do something about these injustices in order to move closer towards living in a more just world.
What does it mean to decolonize your mind?
Mr. Fidel Rodriguez says that to decolonize your mind is to "meaningfully and actively practice healing from the forces of colonialism that perpetuate the subjugation and/or exploitation of our minds, bodies, spirits and lands." This practice is deliberate, it is intentional, it is disciplined, and it is unapologetic. The forces of colonialism have remained in our countries and in our minds long after "independence," treating the land as a never-ending well to steal from while treating our minds as oxygen tanks to keep the ideologies alive. The decolonization process is rough, it is painful, but it is necessary to let go of these tired fairy tales written by white men hundreds of years ago. How do we go about this detoxification process? First by accepting to live a life of discomfort. Read some great decolonial books, listen to some great decolonial music, love yourself unconditionally, and take the time to understand this imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (in the words of the great bell hooks) which tells you how to think, be, feel, and breathe.
Where did we first learn about service work?
Either in school or from religion. Those are where we typically first learn about service work. But in these two cases, service work is often treated as either a moral obligation or a fulfillment of some academic requirements. So our first concept of service work is as a task that must be completed for personal or individual gain (this is not always true of religion, but many seem to interpret service work as a stepping stone to get what they want). We're told that helping those experiencing homelessness, the differently-abled, or the elderly will in turn do something of us. And this doesn't seem terrible. Kristen Fuller M.D. says that in the process of volunteering, she "strengthened ties within [her] community, learned gratitude, kindness and patience, [and] made new friends." The issue arises when you center yourself as the volunteer in oppose to centering the problem you are helping to eradicate, or the people suffering from said problem. The issue also arises when service becomes a one-time thing to gain what you need from the opportunity, neglecting the problem once again. I am guilty for this behavior in high school, but in my defense, it was what I was taught (not excusing the behavior by the way).
What were the major acts of "service work" in Western history?
Crusades, Inquisition, and most recently, colonialism. These "acts of service" remind me why we must pay attention to intentions as well as to acts. Everything done out of "good intentions" is not essentially good. During the colonial period, the British, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Germans stormed into the African continent on "civilizing missions" where their goals were greedy but rationalized and masked with good intentions; a gun in one hand and a bible in the other. Regardless of if the intentions of a few missionaries were good, every single colonizer, colonist, and colonial played a role in the continued usurpation and exploitation of the African people from the 1700s to today. The power dynamics from this period still exist today and this cannot be overlooked with regards to service work.
We must decolonize the way we look at service work by purging these ideas that others are in need of our savings because we have something great that they must need; that the solutions we came up with without properly understanding the issue should be imposed; that we should be praised for creating molds of ourselves using human beings who already had their own histories and ways of being.
We Do NOT do service work...
To save people
To make copies of ourselves
For the glory
We do service work...
So that we as a collective species have a better tomorrow
To save our home on earth
To save the future for our potential descendants
To save ourselves from ourselves (*We must not forget that the major atrocities seen throughout history are of human creation. One may think they rise by pushing others down when in reality they are shooting themself and everyone else in the foot)
"You know Chenise, some people are perfectly OK with benefiting off of our oppression."
Service works doesn't just mean lifting people up, but also policing people who want to knock us back down.
Yes, some people are very comfortable with this idea. But these people should be prepared to feel very uncomfortable because these systems are not holding up for much longer. There must be some form of education for those looking to aspire to greatness by aspiring to whiteness, or those looking to step on a few necks to achieve power over freedom. Freedom schools, for example, have been around since the 60s as alternative sources of education in the quest for truth.
We should be vigilant of this behavior because it is tempting to think "well I may be a man of color but I'm still a man, and I don't want to lose the advantages I'm entitled to deserve" or "us woman go through enough, and now you want to to adopt the struggles of black women too?" Freedom looks like a loss of power to those with relative privilege, and white supremacy creates this hierarchy that we've been taught to believe is fixed. But in the words of the revolutionary Toni Morrison, RIP, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.” If one of us ain't free, ain't none of us free.
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"A lady walks along the gum-ridden sidewalk from her nine-to-five. Her past eight hours were average at best, and she welcomes the prospect of some excitement in her next waking hours to mention at her next water cooler break. On the corner of 12 and K sits an elder gentlemen of a dark hue. He repeats 'do you got any change' in a monotone voice when he sense movement before him, since he no longer cares to lift his eyes. The woman stops at the corner as the blinking red hand comes to a halt. 'Do you got any change?' she hears. 'I'm tryna catch the bus soon.' She turns around and looks down at the man. The initial pity in her eyes suddenly turns to glee. She has two dollars as change from her coffee this morning at the bottom of her tote bag. 'If I give him this, he can get home and back!' she thinks. She throws the bag down and rumbles through her belongings to find those two dollars. These two dollars are the most important two dollars. These two dollars are what stand between her and a potential story to tell at the water cooler. She finds the two dollars and crouches down to hand them to the man. She looks him straight in the face and says 'here you go sir!' The man takes the dollars, thanks the woman, but did not give her the satisfaction of eye contact. He was tired. The woman, disappointed, stands up, picks up her tote bag, and begins to storm across the street. 'I wasted two damn dollars, on that man?' she contemplates."