[heywhatupboys]

This article screams "white american saviour"

WHO in 2023 writes like this??

> Food Safety authority representatives, flanked by soldiers in camouflage uniforms, magenta berets and guns slung over their shoulders, strode down the center of a busy street market in Dhaka, the capital city. The crowds parted.

> Men riding three-wheeled rickshaws pulled over. Street vendors stopped stirring their aromatic curries. The spice sellers wearing parti-colored lungi skirts fell silent. Some curious merchants, sitting atop stacks of potatoes, ginger, onions and garlic, jumped down to follow the entourage.

[ziml77]

Did you even read the context around that? Everyone involved in the scene described was Bangladeshi. And the point of writing it like a dramatic scene in a movie is made clear in the giant quote and paragraph that follow: it was law enforcement theater. They didn't have the capacity to enforce food safety at the scale necessary, so they used this tactic to instill fear in people who were still using the outlawed lead-based pigment.

[ramesh31]

>WHO in 2023 writes like this??

All websites do, as their staff is entirely comprised of 23 year old English majors who equate this style with "good writing". The entire internet reads like a C+ sophomore term paper now.

[heywhatupboys]

oh my, I feel sheltered from bad blog posts-as-news, you have ruined the allegory I had of modern articles

[adultSwim]

I was also uncomfortable reading the article. It presents the Western scientist as the only one who knows that lead is dangerous, instead of grappling with the material economic issues at play.

[adultSwim]

The story makes it sound like the American scientists never asked local officials or scientists about lead exposure and where it might be coming from. Was fingerprinting isotopes used instead of cooperating and learning from the people being affected?

[heywhatupboys]

yes exactly. "Asking for help" vs "no clue you would need help".

Some countries are disadvantaged. To say they are stupid and naive is another thing.

[EricE]

So I wasn't the only one that was unimpressed with the flowery anecdotes either?