Global Poverty
Institution on global poverty for its 2007 Blum Roundtable last month:
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20070801.htm.
I have to confess
some skepticism about how chic global poverty has become as a cause: a
black Africana studies prof humorously wrote earlier this year about a
young white woman shrieking to him as he passed her Africa table,
"Save Africa! Don't you want to save Africa?!"
Fortunately, people like Bono, Angelina Jolie, and Matt Damon are
surprisingly thoughtful and informed about the mechanics of global
poverty, and are doing what they can to use their celebrity status and
the doors it opens to fight a good fight against it. So while I might
roll my eyes at folks who are jumping on the global poverty bandwagon
because it's the cool thing to do now, I shouldn't; who knows who of
that group might take the time to get educated, and perhaps make a
huge difference in a battle in which we need all the workers and
dollars we can get?
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