Latoya talks to Newsweek about MTV’s Exiled

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Our favorite editrix drops some knowledge in the latest issue of Newsweek in an article that examines the impact of the MTV reality show “Exiled” — you know, the one that punishes the spoiled kids from “My Sweet Sixteen” by sending them to developing countries?

Here’s what Latoya, as well as Miriam from Feministing, have to say about the show:

Several posters noted that the host families on the show seem like props. “The show falls into the theme of using other countries and cultures as teaching tools for people in the U.S.” says feministing.com blogger Miriam Peres. “These people are being used as a teaching tool for mostly white, privileged girls. Why was this girl honored? Because she stopped crying after a few days? She was offensive. She wasn’t appreciative.”

Latoya Peterson, blogger for Racialicious.com, has a similar objection. “They’re taking these extremely spoiled kids and going, ‘OK, what’s the worst thing we can do to them? Send them to Africa!” she says. “That’s a terrible mind-set to have. It’s the First World balking at the Third World.” But Peterson is encouraged by the kind of comments the show is generating. “For every comment that was like, ‘Aha! They got what they deserved,’ there are a lot of others from people who are hungering for a real, deep conversation.”

Edited to add: Okay, something is sticking out a bit strange to me about my quote, so let me clarify. I generally don’t use the term “third world.” There are a host of reasons why, generally having to deal with colonialist thinking in world trade. So I tend to say “global south” or “developing nations.” Now, I’m not saying I was misquoted, but I think that sentence was shortened, because I do recall running my mouth off to the interviewer for at least twenty minutes. (And I’m sure she had a space limit.) Anyway, if any of my peeps in the global south are reading, I get it y’all. – LDP

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Comments

Brianjkoscuiszka wrote:

Thanks for your insight! When I first saw the commercial, I remember thinking, “Thank god!” and “Won’t Tim Wise be happy!” after personally seeing him rant against Sweet 16. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought about how the show was probably more harm than good, especially if it took the approach of sending them there as “punishment”. It is good to hear that there are others thinking/talking about this in similar terms.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 6:08 pm ¶
Black Canseco wrote:

LDP,

I know you didn’t mean it this way, but it comes off as condescending. And by “it” i mean “third world”.

What happened to the 2nd World? Is the west (i.e. white anglo-run countries) so much superior to poor countries of color that they’re relegated, not to the “2nd world” but the “3rd world”.

W.T.F.

For example, Kosovo and Bosnia are war-torn lands. Russia is filled with literally tens of millions of poor people. But never heard them or any impoverished european country (and there are a few) referred to as “3rd world” citizens.

3W seems to be a term of the US and the West to describe countries of black and brown, if not necessarily those of poor black and brown citizenry. I

It reflects an arrogance and detachment from a world in which the US with 310 million people is barely 5% of the total global population (6.5 Billion).

To the larger issue of Exiled or “Lord and Princess of the Flies,” as i call it—it seems like another example of “punishment thru culture” that made Survivor and The Great Race series so popular: We’ll sho you Westerners–you’ve got to deal with ‘foreigners’/'foreign lands’!”

As if other countries exist for no purpose other than to remind Americans how much better we are than everyone else.

“Eat your veggies, there’s starving kids in China and Africa!” Who hasn’t heard that one growing up. And more importantly who can say that “kids in Africa/China” were ever discussed in any other context?

Oh, where do we go from here?

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 6:28 pm ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:

::applauses::

The reporter, though, should have stated your proper title of “editor.” That’s Journalism 101.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 6:56 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@BC –

Did you not see my edited to add note?

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 7:29 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:

BC,

I know this is not the point of the post but originally 1st world meant those alligned with the US during the cold war. 2nd world was those countries alligned with the Societ Union. 3rd world was unalligned nations. Not that this makes the use of the terms any less offensive but just thought I would answer your question about what happened to the second world. Seems that only “3rd world” has stuck . . .

Great post, I hadn’t heard about this.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 8:06 pm ¶
Black Canseco wrote:

Latoya,

I saw it… my comments were as much for folks who say it without thinking it as much as those who acknowledge saying it. i wasn’t criticizing you as much as the general existence of the phrase itself.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 8:36 pm ¶
An Uninspired Muse wrote:

Why send them to third world countries?

We have a wonderful selection on homeless in the USA.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 8:41 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:

Latoya, great job! I was totally thinking the same thing, and had planned to write a post about it, except that I forgot to watch the show. :/

Anyway, clap, clap, clap!

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 9:15 pm ¶
Nina wrote:

to #7 I totally agree. send them to the west side of whatever town they are from and let them figure out how to make it home with a dollar andno cell phone. Could be just as eye-opening to them. And much props to all these people in developing countries who speak English in addition ot their own languages. My favorite part is the comments they make about these rich kids.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 9:22 pm ¶
Whitney wrote:

I watched one of the shows today and it really bothered me. I agree with what you said, Latoya, about sending them to these other countries as punishments.

I think part of what makes this show offensive is that these spoiled kids don’t want to go to these other countries (ironically, the one episode I watched of Ava, she said she was a global studies major yet she didn’t seem interested at all in learning about Thailand or her host family, only about what they did every day, not about them themselves). She kept saying “We don’t do this in Beverly Hills” and “Ewww!” She was given an incredible opportunity to learn first-hand about another country and culture, and she was rude and whined.

The thing is, it just seemed to me that the host families were there as props, as the Newsweek article notes, and it’s almost as if they’re there to cater to the needs of the spoiled teens. Why should THEY be the ones to teach these spoiled teens a lesson? Why can’t their parents teach them to be grateful? Besides, why on earth is MTV giving these spoiled brats more media attention? Do they think that putting them on TV is helping, and at the same time, exploiting families in developing nations?

If these kids need an impact, take away their material possessions. Have them work in a homeless shelter or elderly care facility or with the disabled.

“Exiled” = epic fail.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 9:48 pm ¶
geo wrote:

i second uninspired muse’s sentiment.
i don’t plan on watching the show. however, i don’t understand why they had to go to foreign land to learn humility and empathy. in fact it may make them less sympathetic to disenfranchised Americans. they may see Americans having more opportunities than those abroad, which may cause them blame the less fortunate for their circumstances.

i hope my point is lucid. i’ve had a long and am quite tired.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 10:19 pm ¶
browne wrote:

I agree with uninspired muse. I live in downtown LA, which has one of the largest (if not the largest) homeless populations in the US.

There’s no need to spend all that money being self righteous you can be self-righteous outside of my window. I think I hear someone who needs help screaming right now. And unfortunately I’m being completely serious. Someone is literally screaming bloody murder right outside the building that I live in.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 10:47 pm ¶
KuriusJurge612 wrote:

I saw dis ish. The episode follow the same pattern.

1. talk about the spoiled brat
2.Have a fake intervention with the brat you spoiled (and continue to spoil) to tell them that you’re sending them to GAASSSSSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPP Africa or Thailand.
3.Show the brat packing
4.Have them travel after a fake tearful goodbye
5.Arrive in to-be-exploited village or town in the countr, and meet the to-be-exploited host-usually of the same age.
6.Brat proceeds to disrespect the host’s culture, customs, housing, ceremonies (even when these people have set up them up to honor said brat and spent much of their valuable time doing so)
7.Brat whines about being so far from home “it’s so different”
8.brat has a fake ephiphany “I’m tired of being miserable”
9. on the last day brat does some fun pre-scheduled activity and claims to have opened their eyes.
10.Brat prepares to leave, and gives a fake speech on how they’re so glad for the experience, glad they met the host, etc.
11. After their long, grueling WEEK (just a week) they return home and reveal what they learned. They usually say some version of “I learned people from different countries lead different lives”
12.They go to their luxury homes, cars, etc.

That’s some bull

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 8:53 am ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

“Why can’t their parents teach them to be grateful?”

Because that takes actual work and MTV won’t pay for that. Not sexy enough.

These ‘exiles’ will not exact authentic, lasting change after the show and I think both the parents and the production staff know that. This is pure entertainment patting itself on the back for being progressive/educational when it falls ridiculously short on both accounts.

‘I Love Money’ is less problematic, for crying out loud.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 9:01 am ¶
Will wrote:

O.K someone from the developing world speaking over here. I may curse a bit in my post but I’ve been carrying a lot of anger so bear with me. I’m leery whenever the West, especially the U.S tries to portray the developing world. It always comes out really bad. The amount of paternalism, ignorance and outright racism that comes spilling out just boggles the mind. I’ve reached the point where when someone asks me where I’m from in my mind I go (”not this shit again!”).

Questions I’ve been asked (yes, people seriously ask this!!)

Do you live in trees?

Do you have streets?

How do you speak English so well.

etc etc, a recent one, I ride with a group and a new member upon hearing that I was from Africa and I had gone to college here asks ’so, did you have to go to special school here before college”. Another cyclist, who ironically was white but originally from Zambia almost fell over laughing and then jumped in and corrected him that a lot of African countries have great primary and secondary education systems. When I came here I tested and skipped a year and a half of college because I had already done it in high school (Algebra, Calc1, Calc2, Physics etc etc).

If I don’t run into the woefully ignorant I run into the paternalistic sons/daughters of bitches who absolutely insist I bend over and kiss their feet because of all the massive amount of Aid that the U.S sends to Africa (sarcasm).

The EU and U.S farm subsidies cost Africa 6 times what it gets in Aid and almost all that aid is tied to conditions that the work be done by U.S and E.U companies. Aid to developing countries tends to be a massive kick-back from Western governments to Western companies because IMF and World Bank rules essentially mandate this). The only sub-saharan country that told the IMF/World Bank to take a long hike off a short bridge was Botswana and they are the only middle-income country in that region. Other African countries that either bought into the IMF/World Bank free trade crap or had it shovelled down their throats have seen their GPD fall incredibly, a massive rise in inequality and a plunging standard of living. African countries have tried time and time again to take Western governments before the WTO but since the WTO is controlled by the West that never goes far. So Western governments can raise tarriffs at will but lo and behold the African country that attempts this. In the early 1990’s the US raised barriers to Kenyan textile imports and this was a contributing factor in plunging Kenya’s economy into a recession.

Do you want to see where neo-con policies and the absurd idiotic economic ideas fostered by the Chigaco school will lead the U.S to? Just look at what IMF and World Bank policies have led to in Africa. I’ll give one personal example from the city of my birth (Nairobi, Kenya)

The IMF/World bank mandates that everything should be privatized. They hold loans over governments heads and if those governments don’t fall in line the loans get re-called, interest rates raised etc etc. This is enough to destabilize a government. So governments (and African governments are not innocent, yes there is some corruption but as long as those in power do what is good for Western companies then a blind eye is turned). So the IMF/World Bank dictate that the Nairobi water supply has to be privatized and turned over to a French company (no bidding involved). When I was growing up, you could open the tap and drink water. Since the French company has no incentive to keep up the system (they are not beholden to citizens like public utility corporations are) they raised the water rates massively, let equipment fall into disrepair etc etc. They made off like bandits, but today in Nairobi, only the suicidal drink water straight from the tap before boiling. You will get typhoid (and tons of my friends have). In fact, if you go a restaurant, don’t order salad (its been washed with tap water).

This is also similar to what happened in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The same thing happened, and a U.S company (Bechtel if I remember correctly) got the water contract (once again mandated by the IMF/World bank). They raised rates, cut a ton of peoples water because they weren’t profitable etc. When some Bolivians began collecting rain-water, Bechtel had it written into law that Bechtel owned all water in the Cochabamba area, even that which fell as rain. Collecting rain-water became a crime punishable by prison! There was an uprising and Bechtel eventually got forced out but that is very rare.

The push to privatize everything (education, health, water, electricity) is essentially treating the developing world as one big petri-dish of neo-con, neo-liberal economic theories that would never fly with Western citizens. But ‘those’ guys over there, who cares about them?

Just to see exactly how the guys who run the IMF/World bank think, here is a small snippet from a memo written by Lawrence Summers (then Chief Economist of the World Bank, who then went to lead it and became chairman of Harvard University until his ill places statements about women being genetically not as smart as men forced him out.

‘Dirty’ Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:

“1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

“2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I’ve always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.

“3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.

The one person who responded to this and criticized it, Brazil’s then-Secretary of the Environment Jose Lutzenburger, was fired shortly after at the World Banks urging for responding as follows.

“Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane… Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional ‘economists’ concerning the nature of the world we live in… If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility. To me it would confirm what I often said… the best thing that could happen would be for the Bank to disappear.”

So essentially, Summers argument is since Africans and other people in the developing world live shorter lives and their lives are not worth much, why not dump bad stuff there as the cost would be less?

So the discussion between the Developed and the Developing countries can never really be open while the West is pissing on us and telling us that it’s raining. A lot of African countries debt is illegitimate (like the $3 Billion pounds Kenya had to ‘borrow’ from Britain at independence to buy back land that had been stolen by the colonialists) to loans given to know corrupt leaders during the cold war in order to buy their allegiance (leaders who didn’t fall in line suddenly found themselves dead courtest of the CIA and Carlucci, who now head the Carlyle group). I have to stop myself from yelling and doing serious bodily harm to every idiot who wants to start a conversation about Africa with

A: How poor and backwards
B: How ungrateful after all we’ve done for you (you know, all the nice stuff like Imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism etc etc)

Anyway, I’ll end my rant now.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 11:02 am ¶
Jess wrote:

“Sweet Sixteen” and “Exiled” just plain offensive (I know folks here have said it is, I am just sort of thinking out loud as I watch the ads). What the hell were the folks at MTV thinking?

Jesus tap-dancing Christ, one of these girls gets to go to Paris to buy a frickin’ dress and seems to think a 15-year-old dressing like a high priced Vegas hooker shows maturity.

Is our country really producing these brats? Did MTV go on a lookout for girls with as little self-awareness as possible? I weep for the future when I see these girls. We are all going to hell in a handbasket when these kids run the country. And they will, because they have the money. I feel like the best we can hope for as a species is if they are denied the ability and opportunity to reproduce.

Y’know, MTV does just so much f-ing damage. A good buddy of mine did a three-week trip to Guatemala to learn Spanish in an immersion program. He’s black (and a big tall guy) so he’s got these Guatemalan kids following him around because compared to everyone else he is Shaq-sized and they don’t see black people in the highlands very often.

So, he is hanging around and talking and finally gets why some of the kids stare at him. They show him Flava Flav on satellite TV. They show him all the hip-hop trash TV that gets exported (and cheaply dubbed, he said it’s like some dude got the tape/disc and just babbled over the audio track. Given that some words have no Spanish equivalent it sounds pretty odd). It’s all got the MTV logo in the corner.

He said (half-joking) that Flav is not exactly helping with representations of black folks abroad. Nor is MTV, given what they seem to export a lot of. But the Guatemalans in this small town were really wondering if black folks were like on TV, since that was the only place they usually saw any.

Then we get sweet sixteens. So the whole f-ing world thinks American girls are aspiring hookers and trophy wives (is there a difference?) with a combined IQ somewhere around freezing. And they send them to these developing nations where they get to strut their stuff among the primitives.

Stick a fork in it, our culture is dead and done.

I alternate between hoping that my own future kids are better and wanting to put a bullet in my own head.

/rant

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 11:17 am ¶
sly wrote:

I have to disagree. Living in a 3rd world country is hard & very different than living in a 90210 world.

3rd world is a technical, economic term. It means precisely the same as “developing world”. I say this as Peace Corps volunteer in a 3rd world nation. There are plenty of 2nd world countries & 3rd world isn’t exclusive black/brown countries. Albania is a white 3rd world country, as S. Africa is a black 1st world country. Nigeria, Brazil, India, and Kenya are examples of 2nd world countries.

So the problem is not the term “3rd world” but the underlying sense of condescencion of some in the West. Call it developing world, or global south, if you want, but its all in how you say it.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 1:47 pm ¶
Mira wrote:

For historical background: Anonymous is right. 3rd world is a Cold War term, and originally it didn’t have anything to do with how rich or poor you were, whether you were a colonizer or colonized, or where you were located; it just meant that you weren’t allied with the US or with the USSR. It was a geopolitical term. Many of the non-aligned countries were post-colonial, and the Non-Aligned Movement was an international organization that thought of itself as an anti-imperial body representing formerly colonized peoples, so “third world”, “poor countries”, and “former colonies” sort of became conflated. Anyway, the whole Third World movement was pretty interesting, but it was an attempt to create unity among poor and post-colonial countries during the Cold War political situation, and now the Cold War is over, so it seems to me like if we’re talking about poor countries, exploited countries, post-colonial countries, or whatever, we should just say that.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 3:05 pm ¶
Whitney wrote:

@ Will: Thank you for the awesome post.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 3:16 pm ¶
Adriella wrote:

@ An Uninspired Muse:

Why send them to third world countries?

We have a wonderful selection on homeless in the USA.
__________________

My sentiments EXACTLY!!! They should them to New Orleans!

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 3:21 pm ¶
Black Canseco wrote:

my point is “third world”, regardless of its origins, is now and has been for quite sometime a backhanded slam against countries of color.

Again, name a European country or one with largely anglo- populations that gets called “third world”?

It’s about coded-language that passes for honesty way too often.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 4:09 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

“Again, name a European country or one with largely anglo- populations that gets called “third world”?”

Ireland. By the Irish.

But that is beside the point. While I find the first- and -third designations problematic for the same reasons you do, sometimes in practice they are actually clarifying. In the context of this post for example, which is about spoiled, bitchy, rich, Western girls acting out a colonial nightmare by getting dumped in Africa, I think “third world” sums up the subtext nicely.

I never had the impression that it was being used uncritically.

Posted 05 Sep 2008 at 5:14 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

Good post. Shows like these will mainly help to perpetuate a false sense of superiority among Westerners because it always highlights the hardships of living in poorer countries. As Americans start to experience some hardships themselves due to the worsening economic situation and funding a useless neocolonialist war, racism and xenophobia will be on the rise here. Shows like these will only help to keep the racism alive and well among Americans as they come to feel that they would never want to live like “those people” but if they don’t stop “those people” from stealing American jobs then Americans will start to suffer. I see this racism pop up whenever I read the comments to news articles dealing with countries like India and China for example. This racism and xenophobia will also be exacerbated by the anti-intellectualist trend currently in vogue here among the American youth. Fear and ignorance of others is what breeds hatred towards them.

@ Will

Thank you for highlighting the neocolonialist economic policies of the West towards the developing world. Didn’t the Doha economic talks just fail two months ago? It seems like the developing nations should just expect to become dependent satellite economies to the West. This means that instead of industrializing, these developing countries should just stick with agriculture, tourism, natural resource extraction, and being a cheap source of labor for the West. If they do industrialize it’ll only be to manufacture simple things like car parts or textile goods.

Posted 06 Sep 2008 at 11:29 am ¶
the izza wrote:

Wow, Latoya, you were misquoted or had a comment you made taken out of context?

Jesus.

Mod Note – Funny, Jimmy. Nope, I wasn’t taken out of context. I explained something really long and technical and it got condensed to the more regularly used terms. The first/third world dynamic probably works for the Newsweek purposes, but it’s not terminology I use, particularly as on this blog, we have a lot of readers from various nations. – LDP

Posted 06 Sep 2008 at 12:38 pm ¶
Lea wrote:

Ugh. If someone sent people to my country to “punish” them, I’d be pissed. They ought have just sent them to be maids in households like their own, preferably populated with rich people who don’t speak more than ten words of English. Then maybe they’d have learned something.

Actually, they probably wouldn’t have, but still.

I suppose the good news is, kids like that only represent a small percentage of American youth. The bad news is, the media’s been marketing this vision so well for so long, that out here people think all Americans are like that.

Posted 07 Sep 2008 at 2:06 am ¶
Brianjkoscuiszka wrote:

The fact is, with the common uses of the world, there are MANY Euro countries that would be considered “third world”, mostly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I had friends travel to Ukraine and Bulgaria and what they described was much like what you see Sally Struthers pimping on TV. Unfortunately, because there are now white faces attached to it (not necessarily the right kind of “white”, as there are large quantities of Muslims and other groups identified as “ethnic”, but still white), terms like “Developing Nation” have become popularized. It was only after seeing white people described as third world that the offensive nature of these terms was realized.

I propose a new system: D-bag World and non-D-bag World. This is not to say that all Americans are D-bags. Most importantly, it is to point out that certain NATIONS act like D-bags on a global level and piss many people off and others don’t. Any takers?

Posted 07 Sep 2008 at 8:26 am ¶
masdadsadas wrote:

i’ve only watched a bit of one episode so far…

i would just like to point out that I can think of 4 people this season that are of color on that show…

2 black (bjorn and Celoo’s daughter)
an Arab (Ava)
and a Persian

I don’t know how many episodes they are having, but i couldn’t imagine more than 10. So I don’t agree with what the statement about “most white privledge” girls entails. There are some pretty spoiled folks of color on that show too! lol

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 3:52 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@masdadsadas –

Yeah, I saw that! And I was reading some conversation on a blog where they were like “this is sexist because they are only punishing women!” and I was like “Did y’all miss Bjorn, the divo?” I live for his set…that will probably be the episode I write up.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 3:54 pm ¶