A few weeks ago, many of you received an email from the Office of the President concerning the arrival of a patient to the Medical Center.
It stated:
“A person who had recently traveled from Africa arrived at the U.Va. Medical Center this weekend with symptoms that could be consistent with many illnesses. A preliminary test was negative for Ebola; however, we continue to monitor the patient and conduct additional testing.”
That email was careless on the part of the original sender and on the part of the President’s office, which chose to forward it to the entire University community. Its intent is a display of a disengaged, disregarding administrative body’s lack of awareness and reflects poorly on our University.
The first issue with the email is the sender’s choice to homogenize an entire continent to create relevance in a situation that would have otherwise not warranted a community-wide email. I’m sure many of you in our community asked, “Which of the 54 countries in ‘Africa’ had this person traveled to?” If not because you understand the implications of characterizing an entire continent in such a problematic way, you asked this because you have been watching the news and know Ebola is currently in Western Africa — a fact irrelevant to the issue at hand if this person had traveled back from, say, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania or Morocco. The email demonstrates the Western viewpoint of hegemony that still looks at the world as “haves” and “have-nots,” developed and undeveloped, and many other binaries circulating in Western discourse. “Othering,” common in both Western binaries and academic studies, underlies the email’s execution. How often do those of us in our community who recognize the problematic use of colonizing words have to call attention to our peers’ disregard for precise language? This generalizing speech is, in the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an exercise in “flattening the experience” of an entire group of people.
Having no context as to where this person traveled, the email mentions the hot button disease of the moment that is (as we are to assume) ravaging all of “Africa” — Ebola. If you want to scare people, please send a vague email about a person who traveled to an unspecified location in Africa and make sure to tell us all the diseases they could have, and that you’re testing to make sure it is not Ebola. This is another example of the aforementioned “flattening of experiences.” Medical professionals involved point out that the symptoms are consistent with many illnesses. Yet, the email carelessly uses the word Ebola. It was intended to cause alarm and draw attention to our community. The Center for Disease Control clearly specifies where the outbreak is. To send such an alarmist email before tests are run solely based on the fact that the patient had traveled to “Africa” and was showing symptoms of an illness is reckless. The email was so broad that it may well have said a sick overseas traveler had arrived at the medical center.
This situation demonstrates worrying carelessness. We assume the intent of this email was to mitigate fear or even to inform. If the aim had been to mitigate fear then it is irresponsible to play along with a prejudice that attaches reactionary sentiments, like fear and pity, to what should have been a routine hospital visit. Perhaps this was not a routine visit for the person in question — and hopefully he or she is well today — but in terms of what the email conveyed, for a hospital, the arrival of a patient with “symptoms consistent with many illnesses” does not warrant an email to the University community. If its intent had been to inform, then reporting with precise language and location would have been the responsible thing to do.
This email falls into a narrative we are tired of hearing much too often. Call it our generation, but I’m bored. This is neither the first nor the last time our school has and will fall into this trap. We need an active agent who understands the nuances of the position of the traditional “Other,” and who chooses not to continue to take part in this active “Othering” and the role it plays in perpetuating false and misguided stereotypes. It is our responsibility as an academic institution to be better.
Jacqueline Akunda has written this piece on behalf of the African Studies Initiative at the University for which she serves on the Executive Board.
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