"A small child from a developing country has the advantage, from a very early age, of having access to toys which structure his mind, which constitute a sure advantage over the little African child who has never even held a modern toy"
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Wade’s line is dressed up as development realism, but its real power comes from how calmly it naturalizes a hierarchy. The phrasing “has the advantage” and “sure advantage” turns global inequality into a head start that simply happens, as if childhood were a race and the starting gun is manufactured in Europe. “Toys which structure his mind” borrows the language of cognitive science to give the claim a technocratic sheen, yet it smuggles in an old colonial assumption: modernity is a thing you hold in your hand, and some children are born closer to it.
The subtext is more revealing than the surface. The “small child from a developing country” is implicitly not African; Africa becomes the exception, the bottom rung, singled out as the child “who has never even held a modern toy.” That “even held” is doing ideological work, making lack tactile, intimate, almost shameful. It also converts a complex ecosystem of play, learning, and socialization into a single commodity test: possession of the right object equals mental structure.
Context matters: Wade, as a postcolonial statesman, spoke in an era when African leaders were pressed to justify modernization projects to donors, NGOs, and domestic constituencies. The quote reads like a pitch for investment in education and consumer infrastructure, but it lands as a confession of the terms of the debate: to be taken seriously, Africa must be narrated through deficit. The tragedy is that it frames dignity as imported plastic rather than as policy, pedagogy, and power.
The subtext is more revealing than the surface. The “small child from a developing country” is implicitly not African; Africa becomes the exception, the bottom rung, singled out as the child “who has never even held a modern toy.” That “even held” is doing ideological work, making lack tactile, intimate, almost shameful. It also converts a complex ecosystem of play, learning, and socialization into a single commodity test: possession of the right object equals mental structure.
Context matters: Wade, as a postcolonial statesman, spoke in an era when African leaders were pressed to justify modernization projects to donors, NGOs, and domestic constituencies. The quote reads like a pitch for investment in education and consumer infrastructure, but it lands as a confession of the terms of the debate: to be taken seriously, Africa must be narrated through deficit. The tragedy is that it frames dignity as imported plastic rather than as policy, pedagogy, and power.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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