Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Scapegoating



It is normal for people to push blame to others, especially when there are voiceless.

Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame as a scapegoat. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. "he did it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., "I couldn't see anything because of all the tall people"), groups against individuals (e.g., "Jane was the reason our team didn't win"), and groups against groups.

For many years, donations have been the default model to help people living in poverty. Nothing much has changed to improve the lives of the recipients of aid, and they are often blamed for it. Many social enterprises give jobs to people from marginalized communities. Some of them pay only minimum wage, and others who hire the elderly or disabled may only hire them part time denying them benefits. There is also often no progression in the jobs, and when these people leave the job, they are often blamed for not sticking to the job. Without engagement many NGOs and governments think of solutions to help these communities. And the communities are told to be grateful and just accept what is given to them. The solution may not work as usually foreign experts are used and no consultation is done, and there is also very little buy in from the community. When the project fails, the communities are blamed for the failure.

-- Robin Low

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