I thought this was self explanatory since you guys mainline a lot of starving African kids in your mainstream media atleast, but apparently contrarianism has meant Chapos going the full circle and denying that it is actually even worse there.
Sincerely, someone in the global south. If you disagree, post below, I have a lot of time to explain.
Adding an edit to copy paste a comment where I replied in terms of what I mean
The amount of precariousness someone poor in the first world might face is not really comparable to what poverty in the south looks like. Rule of law is absent, the government is also absent, so while the social security net may be failing or too small in the first world– it’s entirely absent in the third. There aren’t enough teachers or doctors even for the people who can afford them. Children are born into indentured labour, by which I mean they are born to work off their parents debt, usually working from the age of 4 onwards. While we are all comrades, under the same boot of the bourgeoisie, remember that the workers of the third world may view the way that first world workers live in poverty as basically the good life.
Quick story.
During the time of the shelter in place order in California, my DSA chapter did a mutual aid project to keep people fed who either couldn't go out, or couldn't afford food or what have you. I was mostly in charge of making sure we made enough food for a given day, that the cooks had supplies, etc., but occasionally I would make a delivery myself.
I took a bunch of food out to the middle of nowhere. It took forever to find the place, which turned out to be off of an unmarked dirt road behind a pomegranate juice bottling facility. There was a busted up house, like completely dilapidated, and behind it a shack assembled from a tarp and spare parts, with a little chimney and a propane stove inside - I didn't go in, but she'd requested propane, so I think that's a safe bet.
Anyway, some guy came out, high on whatever, said excuse me a bunch of times, told me to have a great day over and over, and left. The lady came out, probably around 30, with a bunch of well-done, colorful tattoos. She was obviously on something as well, but I gave her the food, said goodbye etc. It was a strange experience- I'd never seen that variety of poverty in the US before. I've been to Cambodia, though, and seen those sorts of shacks up and down the road, all over Siem Riep, just outside the Angkor Wot complex. It kind of fucked me up for a while. We had done a bit of work with the city's homeless population at that point, so I was familiar with that, but this was a new thing that kind of weirded me out.
Anyway -I've never figured out what this story MEANS per se, but the similarities between that and qhat I'd seen in one of the poorest countries in the world sticks out in my mind, and seems somehow relevant.
Sorry about the novel/effort post.
to you thats a deeply unique experience, for a huge chunk of mexico that's just life, especially places like ecatepec or just rural parts of the country
Yeah, I compeletely believe you. Maybe that was part of what made it so unsettling- seeing this piece of the overexploited world brought home like that, and my dumb ass couldn't figure out how to process it.