In Washington DC, my host showed me this unsettling monument, known as the Emancipation Memorial. It shows a beneficent Lincoln freeing a grateful slave, who is shackled and half naked, and kneeling before the great emancipator. You wonder what Lincoln would have made of this.
It was funded entirely by contributions from freed slaves, according to a plaque on the monument – but the design was by a commission set up by white people. You wonder if the end result is entirely what the freed slaves had in mind.
The striking thing is that everyone probably had good intentions – yet there’s definitely something wrong with the end result. Many people find it offensive – it only seems to underline the oppression, rather than presenting an image of empowerment.
It makes me think of my current involvement with the Nike Foundation. Their Girl Effect project aims to empower girls across the developing world – but we have to be really careful how we do this. There’s something wrong with the idea we can empower someone else… in a way, they have to do it for themselves. That’s the point.
I’ve come across the following quote a handful of times in the past year – it seems relevant here. It’s by an indigenous Australian called Lilla Watson:
If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, we can walk together.
Or as Mandela put it, more succinctly: “your freedom and mine cannot be separated”. Working with Nike, we need to be conscious of this. We need to avoid putting Nike into the role of magnanimous global mega-brand, bestowing empowerment upon the grateful young women of the developing world. This project needs to be approached with genuine humility.
The parody of the Girl Effect film is a harsh reminder of the need for Nike to have humility here. It’s worth watching – not because it’s accurate (it’s cynical armchair criticism by people with nothing better to offer), but because it makes us think about what we’re doing. And actually, it’s kinda funny….
Image from the Wikimedia Commons.
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