So, you don’t ask, what do I think about the debate about whether the world needs anymore white saviours? This was the term used by the MP David Lammy when commenting on Strictly Come Dancing winner Stacey Dooley holding a young Ugandan child as part of a visit on behalf of Comic relief. It’s impossible to mistake what Lammy is saying: “Comic Relief is a 20-year-old formula that asks comedians to perform and sends celebrities – most often white – out to Africa, and that image evokes for lots of ethnic minorities in Britain, a colonial image of a white beautiful heroine holding a black child, with no agency, no parents in sight,” he says. As a white man in a white world, what am I supposed to think?
On the face of it, I loved seeing the pictures of Ms Dooley in Africa. I am not unaware of her colour, nor that of many of the people she has met. I didn’t think it was a bad thing, though. In fact, I saw absolutely nothing negative about a white woman holding a black child. Her motives are entirely good and decent. And yet I could see what Lammy was on about. Sort of.
I remember back in 1984 when the world slept as children were dying in Africa. A couple of fading pop stars, namely Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, made a record to help ‘feed the world’. I was, briefly, moved by it, as I was by the massive concerts the following year. As time went by, it gradually began to dawn on me that whilst the fundraising efforts were entirely worthy and definitely saved a lot of lives, in the long term nothing changed.
Comic Relief began to take over the work band Aid started and since its inception over 20 years ago, some £1 billion has been raised for good causes. The charity has saved lives and invested in long term solutions. However, if we are being brutally honest, the surface is only being scratched. So, here I am having some sympathy with Lammy’s argument. But then he says this:
“Stacey Dooley has done some fantastic journalism but the image she wants to promote is her as heroine and black child as victim”. Woah! For all my great admiration of Lammy, he loses a shedload of Brownie points here. I would say it’s questionable that Dooley has done some “fantastic journalism”. She’s decent at what she does, but Richard Dimbleby she isn’t. A far bigger issue is what Lammy accuses her of. Obviously, I do not know Dooley. However, is she really promoting herself as “heroine and black child as victim?” The accusation is that Dooley is cynically using her image for self-promotion and moreover is exploiting a young black child in order to do so. I’m not sure that’s fair.
I am happy to believe that everyone who is helping Comic Relief is doing so out of a sense of kindness and a desire to help. Short of getting everyone to think that Dooley is a lovely person, which people think anyway, what would be the purpose of her getting involved anyway? To be thought of as even nicer? Her involvement, surely, as a prominent and successful TV personality, would encourage others to get involved in the charity campaign. It’s a positive thing.
Lammy says one more thing with which I take issue. “Charity is a good thing, all of us understand that,” he adds. Well, yes it is because charity exists to pay for things we, the taxpayer, do not think are worth paying for through taxation. That is a simple fact. The public believes that crises such as homelessness are dealt with by charities, that sick and wounded soldiers are best looked after by charities, that desperately needy people all over the world can only be cared for by charities. So, yes, charity is a good thing because it makes some people’s lives more bearable and makes life worth living for others.
David Lammy is one of the good guys and I don’t want to pour scorn on him just because I think he has the wrong end of the stick. I believe Stacey Dooley is a good person, too, and it’s very sad that her involvement in something so worthwhile has been questioned. The world has enough problems as it is without good people falling out.
