Let them eat cake!

There seems to be a storm in a baking pan brewing over some girl who bakes cakes and gives them to (in her words) "those less fortunate".

While on the surface it might seem like a lovely thing to do for someone, Nerine Gardiner or Girl With Cake (that’s the name of her blog) has garnered as much criticism as she has praise for her efforts. 

What she says in her blog is:

“There's something about a beautiful, over-the-top, delicately frosted cake that, for a few moments, makes all the bad go away. Maybe it's the time and care that goes into planning, baking, frosting and perfecting. Maybe it's because we associate cake with celebration and joy. Or maybe it's just the idea that something delicious is waiting for us. Whatever the reason, cake brings a unique happiness that everyone deserves to feel. So, for those less fortunate, for those who've been dealt a raw deal in life, and for those who just deserve some more love, I'll find them. And, for a few moments, they too will feel the joy of cake.”

Great sentiment, right? 

So the particular incident that is sparking this debate is her latest trip to Sandton with a Lindt chocolate ball cake and a goodie bag with toiletries and underwear and some clothing and soap - which she gave to a homeless man called Samson. 

People have taken to social media with lots of negative comments like: “It’s an expensive cake. Should you not have raffled it and paid for the man’s accommodation at a shelter for a year?” And so on

And others are saying, “It’s a great deed and even poor people are entitled to some luxuries sometimes – even if they can’t afford it!” 

But the thing that struck me was the comments about this deed being an exercise in self-promotion. This young girl has a blog that she seems to be promoting through this seemingly act of goodwill. 

And herein lies the catch 22.

Without having a blog that’s promoted and without having an audience, people would not have gotten cake. So she’s now managing to say to people that if they donate a cake and a goodie bag, then she’ll redistribute it to other homeless people. Seems like a good plan.  
But the flip side of this deed is that people are saying she’s making it all about her. Why doesn’t she just do it selflessly? And that was my initial reaction to this saga as well; that it was all about self-promotion. 

Why couldn’t she do it as a gesture, without the cameras following her? And why does it have to be a cake? Surely a more nutritious meal would have been a little more sustainable for him. So for one day he’ll have this massive cake, toiletries and underwear, but how long is that going to last him?

Perhaps the bigger picture would be to deal with the structural inequalities in our country and the fact that there shouldn’t be poor people! 

And people were also saying it was about white guilt. Here was another white person using poverty and the plight of poor black people to promote themselves. But looking more closely at it, perhaps it was just someone, who on a whim, decided to do something nice for someone else. 

Watch an interview with Girl with Cake below: 

The people who have a knee-jerk reaction to things like this, like I did initially, saying it was just shameless self promotion, need to look on the flipside. Without that platform, she probably would not have been able to help as many people as she has. 

So perhaps her critics should get off their high horses and ask: “What have I done to help somebody today?” And while many do good deeds for the sake of promoting themselves, there are others who do it with no one knowing. At least these people are doing something. They’re not sitting back and complaining about how bad things are, in between marathons of American soap operas.

The kind of thing I abhor though is what happened recently during that anti-xenophobia march in town. There were a number of celebrities, by their own estimation of their profile, who went down to the march in full hair and make-up only to take selfies and post them on social media. That didn’t tell me anything about the scourge of xenophobia or what they were doing to help. 

If they took and tweeted a picture of the masses of people that came out to support the cause, with a caption like: “Durban has come together to stamp out the scourge of xenophobia” that, for me, would have been a lot more powerful. 

There are so many people who donate to worthy causes anonymously. Not everything has to be a photo op! And at the end of the day I think it comes down to: what are people’s motivations? Can there be a selfless good deed? If what’s motivating you to get involved is the idea of raising your public profile, increasing your status or whatever the case may be, that’s not selfless! 

Do you think such a thing as a selfless good deed exists? ​

Leave your comments below, or email your thoughts to Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and engage with him there.    

(Photos via: Girl With Cake)