You may have heard about how the Barbados racism conference expeled non-blacks from participating.
According to a FOX News story "[U.S. Delegate Jewel] Crawford said "the motion of exclusion was the will of the majority."
Ghanaian delegate Maya wa Taifa agreed, arguing that Africans often are too generous for their own good and that "our over-hospitality" backfired on the conference. "
I'm not really sure what that means. Jewel Crawford's statement (if meant to justify the decision) is ridiculous, as a majority does not guarantee that an action is ethically defensible... for example: slavery & segregation were also "the will of the majority" at one time.
Maya wa Taifa was (I think) commenting on an "over hospitality" that led the conference organizers to process the registrations and (assumedly) accept the money of non-Africans who wanted to attend. And then kicked them out once they had flown to effin Barbados.
Graciously, the conference decided later to allow non-Africans who were there for work (a journalist, some interpreters) to come back in.
Actually if I was there for my job, I guess I would have been all like "no, don't worry about me...I wouldn't want to make anybody uncomfortable" and gone and kicked back on the beach or went swimming or something.
This really made me mad. I don't know why it did any more than any other incidence of racism. Probably because it was directed at white folks, so it hits close to home, cause I'm, y'know, white and eveything. And because it was a confeence against racism, which was like, um.
ironic.
Posted by illovich at October 14, 2002 02:30 PM