A Small Place

“Every native is a potential tourist” Life and Debt. Tourism has been part of life for hundreds of years. Tourism is part of enjoyment, for education, and for business. Natives envy and despise tourist for the fact that they have the ability to leave there land. To some extent tourism is needed for these islands to survive. The island needs this support due to the fact that the tourist motherlands have made them in debt that’s to their interest rates that they loan the money at. Tourism is a sign of power that overwhelms nations that are full of poverty.
Is it wrong to go and visit other countries for entertainment? From personal experience natives despise tourists because they truly have no true understanding of the country. There more concerned with what the weather is going to be than what are the hardships taking place. As the story describes an example of this is when she’s looking out the plane and sees how green the land is and wonders if it rains a lot and questions if the vacation will be worth it. The ethics behind taking someone’s poverty as your entertainment isn’t ethical. In Slum dog Tourism they site an example that they wanted to take a picture of one of the locals and the local asked for money in exchange for a picture of themselves. In the sense of touring slums I would say that entertainment equals cruelty for the fact that they rarely try to help these slums out. Once you leave this little day adventure you forget about these people and move on.
Jamaica Kincaid paints a picture of what tourists see when they come to Antigua compared to what the natives see. Little do they know how much their native countries affect Antigua and its businesses. After the slave trade ended the Englishmen that controlled the plantations started the Barclays Bank. Later other foreign involvement came into the island to make it resemble what they except in their native countries. Countries like Antigua were once colonies and once they gained independence came in contact with economical issues. Banks controlled what the nation could spend their money on. With having such high interest rates local business had to foreclose. This cycle helps powerful nations reap the benefit of these islands and the islands stay in economic trouble. The business aspect in Antigua is foreign and no local business benefit from this tourism. In example from Life and Debt local business offered to supply meat to these foreign franchises and the business still import their own so the local resources are being destroyed so that these foreign powers can have complete control.

Fun Facts: http://www.nycgo.com/?event=view.article&id=78912

Response to #2

I would have to agree with Richard Wright because American people always speak of how much freedom we have but we really never see it. In my own personal travels to Europe no one speaks of how free they are or what rights they want. The problem that Richard Wright targets is how flawed the American government is. In his quest to receive an American passport he was denied twice. Through further investigation by getting lawyers involved Mr. Wright found that the government had no right not to distribute an American passport to him. As the piece further developed he explained another problem with America and freedom and that is America's age. Even in today’s time we are still a young country with not much history at all. In Mr. Wrights travels to France he explained in detail how much more sophisticated and proper the people are.
Americans lack the true definition of freedom and do not strive to live up to what freedom really is. Freedom is the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without. We leave these choices up to our government which has corruption inside of it. All governments have corruption but with America being such a large nation it is hard to see where it hides. This further explains why Mr. Wright had so much trouble receiving his passport. With corruption in mind people will choose personal interests over interests that help the whole public or even business. Another example he gives us is when he is trying to purchase the house in New Hampshire thinking there will be no issues that he is a black male. After waiting for a few days with no response he asked his friend to find out why there has been no response. It was exactly what Mr. Wright feared of and it was because he was black. Later on it’s the same issue but the white man in France sells him the apartment.
Overall in "I Choose Exile" the point Richard Wright is getting at is that America is still to young and naive to reach for such a high goal of true freedom.