Mama's Back Summary

In his essay, “How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended up on Yusuf Mama’s Back”, George Packer points out an issue that has often been ignored in the society. People leave their used clothes outside the Salvation Army or church, but they do not know where the clothes will go eventually. George Packer did a lot of interviews and investigation into the used clothes trade. Based on this report, many cutural and gender issues have been raised. George Parker uses convincing data as well, since he followed closely the trail of one T-shirt to its final owner in Uganda.

The used clothing industry is staying off the radar from the people who donated the clothes, and is building up a very strong international trade net. However, the used clothes trade also

has a lot of negative influences on the local economy and culture in Africa.

Clothing donations have usually been sold instead of being given away, and people know little about it.

Americans buy clothes in a huge quantity each year, but afterward, many people like Susie Bayer don’t know where their old clothes go after they lug them off to the thrift shops. According to the various estimates by the ABC news reporter Mike Lee, the charitable institutions keep only 10 percent donations, and the remaining 90 percent is sold by the charitable institution to textile recycling firms. Packer also proved this point in his essay. In Packer’s essay, he traced back to the thrift shop. People who run the shop only choose the clothes based on their personal preference. In order to get rid of the “junk” clothes, they use the Trans-Americas Trading Company, and sell the clothes they do not like for three cents a pound. George Packer points out that Americans donate 2.5 billion pounds of clothes each year, but 80 percent gets trucked off to places like Trans-Americas. People are not aware that their donations had been devalued so much, and there is no way they can

know.

The used clothing culture has been spreaded out in Africa due to the reasonable marketing tactics, so it encourages the international trades. As the used clothing trade was getting more and more influential worldwidely, countries from Africa started to be the biggest customers. George Packer states that in 2001 used clothing was one of America’s major exports to Africa. Trans-Americas company differenciates the clothes into different levels by the qualities of the clothes. Since the demands of clothes are different from place to place in Africa, the company assigns varied level clothes to different places. In this case, the Trans-America Company builds up a huge marketing net all around Arica. It is a good phenomenon that speed up the international trade, and the market of used clothing helps America start a new industry that can make a huge difference on the economic development.

The international trade will influence the local economy, and to some extent, destorys the local capital frame.

In Packer’s essay, the used clothes are selling in a higher price in Uganda than they were bought from the Thrift Shop, and that is where the profits coming from. Natelie L. Hoang from Claremont College pointed out that used clothing is increasingly becoming the major source of garments in many African nations. In Uganda in particular, they account for 81% of the country’s total clothing purchases. BBC News stated that the imported clothes are so cheap that the local textiles factories and self-employed tailors can't compete, so they either close down or don't do as well as they could. Therefore, the local government tries to ban second-hand clothes, because they want to give a boost to local manufacturing, and help the

economy.

In addtion to the economic concerns, the used culture starts to replace the Africa local cultures. The clothes imported from America symbolize the American culture, so the cultural invasion is one of the factors that emcourages the local government to ban the import of second-hand clothes. As locally made clothes are rarely worn by the local people, many other daily items other than used clothes start to become used items in Uganda, from the car to the furniture. The main obstacle for the spread of Uganda’s local culture is money. During Packer’s interview, he found out that people in Uganda prefer what the white people had once used, and the local business raise the price when they notice it. The phenomenon of people’s appreciation to the exotic products breaks the local manufacturer. Now look back to Susie Bayer’s T-shirt, which America made, with “University Pennsylvania” on it. An old man in Uganda called Yusuf Mama bought it eventually, and the reason he said about buying this shirt was really simple: He had only one shirt. When he is running out of clothes, the first decision he made was to buy used clothes from America. There is a long way to go for the Uganda government to recover their local cultures and economy.

In conclusion, George Packer specifically reveals the business behind the charity of used clothing. This used clothing industry will still exists, and the broken local culture and economy in Africa are hardly recover, because the gap between the rich and the poor cannot be filled in a short time, and the mindset is also hard to be changed. Thus, when people donate their used clothes next time, they should care more about the destination of their clothes. Companies like Trans-Americas will save them a huge expense on shipment if they pay more attention on the United States local needs. For the countries in Africa, the first thing they have to do is importing fewer used clothes, but not banning it completely, which will creat a benefit balance between the exporter and importer.