saltfishandbake:

la-vita-ebella:

individualplasticity:

sacheu:

full offense but when white ppl say developed countries, they really mean white or imperialist countries, and when they say developing countries they really just mean countries that suffered from centuries of colonization

fun game for the whole family: replace the phrase “developing nations” with “overexploited former colonial states” in conversations about global politics, and observe the reactions of you get

In all seriousness though, I’ve heard that saying “third world countries” was also incorrect and problematic. Is there a better, proper term?

So let’s have a brief history lesson

During the Cold War, an American political scientist wanted to label the sides in the war in order to define exactly who the communists were

Because America always has to be fucking number one, America and its “democratic” allies were considered the “first world” in this system

The Soviet Union and its allies were the “second world”

And everyone else who chose not the participate in that shitty pissing match became the “third world”

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the second world no longer really existed, creating a dichotomy between the remaining first world and third world

Third world is a term that encompasses constituents that were pretty arbitrarily designated as such but the juxtaposition of the “third world” against the “first world” created this notion that, developmentally, the third world is the polar opposite of the first world. Where the first world is seen as progressive and advanced the third world is seen as backwards and underdeveloped, when we know that’s not necessarily the case. This dichotomy is based in racism, which is why many people don’t like the term

Now on to your question. Because I’m a piece of shit who likes to challenge the privileged constantly, I refer to the “third world” as “previously colonised countries” and watch people flounder when they realise that’s actually a more accurate term

But really, I don’t see why people can’t just refer to the country they mean by its own name. Calling all these previously colonised countries “third world” merely homogenises their varied experiences and histories and contributes to the unfair juxtaposition between the first and third worlds. There’s literally no reason to use the term “third world countries” (as opposed to just stating the country you mean) unless you want to reinforce the racism that permeates the term