{"id":12018,"date":"2014-01-28T11:51:26","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T16:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/?p=12018"},"modified":"2015-01-10T22:01:12","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T03:01:12","slug":"just-enough-gores-and-gateses-too-many-africans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/2014\/01\/28\/just-enough-gores-and-gateses-too-many-africans\/","title":{"rendered":"Just enough Gores and Gateses; too many Africans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In the interest of environmental responsibility, <\/span>Al Gore suggests<\/span> that all African women should bear four children.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is, at least, what Al Gore surely anticipates when he speaks of \u201cmaking fertility management ubiquitously available<\/a>\u201d to African women. \u00a0He says that\u00a0\u201cIf you get the health improved, if you get the availability of contraceptives, then families will voluntarily choose to have less children.\u201d \u00a0Surely he and Tipper had good health and access to contraception when they bore their four children. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Following Gore\u2019s example, African women should also, presumably, voluntarily choose to\u00a0live in a 20-room, 10,000 square foot mansion that uses approximately four times more energy than the typical home in the neighborhood. \u00a0In addition, each African mother should maintain a luxury apartment in San Francisco. In order to save the environment, Mr. Gore encourages all African women to take several plane trips every year, and only to charter a private jet \u201cwhen necessary.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PIC African woman carrying baby and firewood \u201cAnd don\u2019t forget to buy some carbon offsets to make up for that cooking fire you\u2019re planning, missy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, pish tush, you will say. Al Gore\u2019s racist hypocrisy is old news, low-hanging fruit, as it were. \u00a0It\u2019s easy to pick on a bloated lout like him; but his point still stands, yes? \u00a0Even if the first world did their fair share to reduce environmental costs, rather than palming it off on impoverished villages on the other side of the world, those third world women would be better off if they\u2019d just put a cork in their outrageous, unthinking fertility. \u00a0They\u2019d be healthier, wealthier. \u00a0They\u2019d be happier<\/em>. \u00a0Why not<\/em> flood them with contraception?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why, according to\u00a0Obianuju Ekeocha<\/a>, a Nigerian woman who actually lived in one of those impoverished African villages \u2014 \u00a0and who actually knows what it\u2019s like to see the kind of aid that Westerners want them to have. \u00a0Her open letter to Melinda Gates<\/a> is from 2012, but it deserves to be read over and over again. \u00a0She says:<\/p>\n

I see this $4.6 billion [in contraceptive aid] buying us misery. I see it buying us unfaithful husbands. I see it buying us streets devoid of the innocent chatter of children. I see it buying us disease and untimely death. I see it buying us a retirement without the tender loving care of our children.<\/p>\n

Please Melinda, listen to the heart-felt cry of an African woman and mercifully channel your funds to pay for what we REALLY need.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She then goes on to describe the true needs of African families<\/a>. \u00a0And here is Ekoeocha\u2019s follow-up<\/a> from August of 2013. \u00a0She explains:<\/p>\n

[M]ore educated African women almost always choose to have fewer children (but mostly by natural methods rather than artificial contraceptives). So rather than fill our defenceless under-aged brides with Depo-Provera \u2014 which is more like a general anaesthesia that will numb them to the brutality of their reality \u2014 we can better empower them by giving them an education, which becomes the lifeline by which they can climb out of poverty one girl at a time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is that what the likes of Gore and Melinda Gates really want \u2014 truly educated girls? \u00a0Do they respect African women and African culture enough to help them make their own choices? \u00a0Or is that too much trouble to go to for a bunch of dark-skinned global parasites? \u00a0Do Gates and Gore and their ilk show any interest in listening to the true concerns of actual African families? \u00a0Or is all their wealth just funding another chapter in Western imperialism, where, rather than exterminating Africans directly, we brainwash them into exterminating themselves?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the interest of environmental responsibility, Al Gore suggests that all African women should bear four children. This is, at least, what Al Gore surely anticipates when he speaks of \u201cmaking fertility management ubiquitously available\u201d to African women. \u00a0He says that\u00a0\u201cIf you get the health improved, if you get the availability of contraceptives, then families […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJust enough Gores and Gateses; too many Africans<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the interest of environmental responsibility, Al Gore suggests that all African women should bear four children. 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