Slum Dog Shill-ionaire
Shill - an accomplice of a confidence trickster or swindler.
History is filled with people choosing to exploit others, or even themselves for a bit of extra cash. Whether it be the heinous act of shipping humans across oceans to serve as slave labor or selling yourself to record companies, people have been selling out their communities for centuries.
If you've ever seen a picture used for charity, or most images used to gain your sympathy or garner donations you may think that certain communities are much worse off than they actually are.
Despite this, there is a huge market for people who want to see this poverty, to know how those in poverty live. So those living in these neighborhoods chose to create tours, identifying the worst of places and letting those of middle to upper income gawk at those in slums.
Much like how we become tourists in other countries and appreciate their culture, to these tourists looking at the impoverished is as if they were part of an entirely different culture.
And we don't even have to look to far to see communities that open themselves up to slum tourism.
Hannah Reyes Morales