Feeling Good Inc: Misery Tourism Needs To End

“You got a new horizon, it’s ephemeral style
A melancholy town where we never smile
And all I wanna hear is the message beep” — Feeling Good Inc by the Gorillaz

Growing up in the early 80s, my Saturday cartoons were routinely interrupted by commercials begging us to save the hungry kids in Africa. These commercials were designed to tug at your heartstrings. They pitched the idea that for the cost of a cup of coffee (this was pre-Starbucks), you could feed a dirty, miserable Black child in Africa. There were evocative images of Black children wasting away covered in flies. The music was stirring. This was juxtaposed by the blonde-haired White woman with her porcelain-colored skin. She was clean and dressed well but modestly. She was pleading for the change in your piggy bank.

These commercials were a source of embarrassment to me as they provided my White schoolmate’s fodder to harass me with. It also was a tool used to make slavery seem more benevolent than the nightmare hellscape filled with rape, beatings, torture, murder, and family separation. People could point to Africa and say how horrible it must be not to have enough food or clean water. Never even attempting to explore colonialism and the devastating trauma it sowed around the globe. People never asked if Africa was so blessed with natural resources; why are many Africans in poverty? Even better, why are most of the precious metal or stone…