Black Looks Green on Me

Growing up in a poor town in Nigeria, the United States of America or Obodo Oyibo (which by the way translates to foreign lands or more specifically, the land of the Caucasians) was heaven on earth. A place where there's electricity 24/7, the streets are paved with gold, there are only skyscrapers, the cars never rust and money practically grew on trees. Furthermore, the people don’t even sh** and if they did, their sh**s would be valuable. And of course there were no poor people. Hence, everyone dreamt of coming to America, The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey, and capturing riches beyond their wildest dreams. Upon arrival, that perception gets smacked with brutal reality as you learn that the hustle is only just beginning and its extremely expensive to be poor in the US. There's no turning back either since you've sacrificed everything to get to the United States and now you have to deal with it.

Welcome to the very 1st Episode of Black Looks Green on Me. In this episode, we take a look at common types of poverty porn and how to avoid that trap. Poverty porn is when any type of media exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate enough sympathy to sell you something or to raise money. They do this by oversimplifying poverty with an image or short videos that not only paint incomplete pictures but demoralizes those in need. At the end of the day, guilt and pity will lose their effectiveness over time as we get desensitized to poverty porn. So the most important thing we can do is to help equip and empower those that need help to become agents of change rather than empowering ourselves, celebrity ambassadors and the middle men (non-profit organizations.)