Facebook Pictures with Impoverished Children to Help Prove Sophomore Girl is a Good Person

    Marissa Daniels ’12 was having a problem. She had been having fears that she was turning into the type of person that she never wanted to be, namely, a racist and a bad person. Daniels was from a predominantly white community in Kansas, although, as she was quick to point out, “[She] had a black uncle.” Daniels had been noticing that all of her peers had done something to prove that they were a good person, whether it was tutoring children in Ecuador or going on a Safari in Africa. And then Daniels had an idea for how to prove that she was a good person, not just to herself, but also to the whole world—take pictures with poor African children and put them on Facebook.
    “It can be just like the pictures of people in Europe at cafes with beers, but humanitarian!”
    At first the Tucker Foundation rejected Daniels’s request for funding to go take pictures with poor African children.
    “That’s not really what we do,” said Tucker Foundation Student Coordinator Carol Braunnose ’10. “Tucker is about service.”
    But Daniels was adamant.
    “I’ll even give you guys access to the Facebook album so that you can put the pictures in some sort of slideshow,” Daniels said to the administrators at Tucker. “And I’m not even friends with anybody over the age of 25. Except for that one guy I met in Cancun, but he was really hot.”
    Daniels spent hours gazing at Facebook pictures of other “good people,” surrounded by poor African children. She even let out a slight whimper when she saw a completely worthless tea cozy that one student brought back from Africa. The tea cozy had been made for the student by a six-year-old girl as a thank-you for teaching her how to apply rouge. When asked what a tea cozy was, Daniels had no idea.
    “Those kids were just so cute,” Daniels wailed. “And I’m the only person who can save them! I just want to bring them all home with me and have a little family. But at the very least, I can put up pictures on Facebook of me playing with them. Maybe we could kick around a soccer ball or I could show them how an iPhone works… Things that any person in today’s world needs to know. Miracles of modern civilization. Anyways, it’s the thought that counts, really. So what if I don’t cure AIDS or even teach one kid how to speak English? I’m trying. And I’ll have the pictures to prove it.”
    Tucker suggested that she actually find a purpose or an organization that appealed to her. Daniels asked what organizations had locations in “party spots” because, in her words, “[She’s] not trying to spend two months without partying. Where are the cute boys?”
    Tucker finally told Daniels that if that were what she wanted to do, she would be best served securing her own funding. Daniels contacted her parents and asked for the money. Tucker also asked Daniels to stop referring to people from Africa as “African-Americans,” to which she responded that they were being racist.
    “Africa?” said Sharon Daniels, Marissa’s mother. “Is it safe there? Well, I’m really glad that you want to help out. Any of your girlfriends going with you? Be sure to send pictures. Of course we can give you money if you’re using it to help people, honey.”
    Now that funding has been secured, Daniels is planning out the specifics of how she will put her pictures up on Facebook.
    “What am I going to call the album? Party in the Afri-Cay? No, I guess that theme was totally played out by Trips. But it needs to be something that emphasizes that I’m going to Africa, which is where all serious good gets done. I saw a Facebook album of this girl volunteering in an AIDS clinic in Ukraine, and she was helping all these Ukrainian people deal with the disease. I saw that and I just thought, ‘Why don’t you go do something worthwhile. Gosh.’”
    In her application to the various aid organizations that Daniels has applied to, she has indicated that she “really wants to help,” but “can’t do anything outdoors that doesn’t help [her] tan or anything in any building that isn’t air-conditioned.”

The issue of whether and how to print this article was one of great consideration amongst The Dunyun’s staff. The article touches on the issue of race, albeit indirectly. This is a sensitive subject. We’d like to stress that we are not attempting to make any racial commentary or to mock humanitarian efforts. We are merely trying to satirize dumb college students and their often misguided and Orientalist attempts at humanitarianism. And while saying, “Don’t be mad” and then slapping somebody in the face doesn’t justify the action, we sincerely hope that you will see this article for what it is: a silly piece of social satire.