Why might a Vincentian be tweeting (or using Instagram or Flickr, for that matter)?

Images of poor people as victims, rather than agents of change, and pornographic images dominate the internet. Vincentians can join in a movement to do something about that. Just like: #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou

from the Plaid Zebra

Typecast with bloated stomachs of malnutrition against a backdrop of intrastate warfare, most Westerners know the archetypal image of the unfortunate African other. And while it is true that forms of extreme poverty do exist in Africa, as they do on every other continent, the trouble is that we have been shown a single image of Africa— or as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says, we have been told a single story.

Poverty-Porn is the tactic of media and charities that uses sympathy as a catalyst for monetary gain, exploiting the poor and uneducated, to showcase desperate conditions for an emotional response. And while the tactic may be effective at heightening profits—by misrepresenting an entire continent as slum—the fate of an entire continent is stamped with pity. What this means is that outside of Africa, Africans are expected to look up.

Human tragedy certainly does exist in Africa, but it is only a half-truth. The story that often remains untold is a story of happiness, of talent and of hard-earned success.

There are lots of half-truths out there. People can be trapped in poverty, but valiant. And happy. Vincentians are simple. They speak the truth. They should tweet the truth, too!