White Savior vs. White Ally

As a man I've always felt like it's my destiny to help people. Not because I am white but because I am successful. I'm a foster parent and I am a manager who prioritizes helping others get promoted and become financially stable. I don't think that mindset comes from being white in my situation although I'm sure there are those who do. One of my foster boys is Hispanic and one is biracial but we just wanted to help. We didnt even know their race until we met. Also trust me foster parents do not get the warm and fuzzy congratulations from the kids when you are helping.

If anything the kids try their hardest to make you hate them since they don't believe they can be loved. It's a lot of work and I don't think I did it for the accolades LOL. They are my kiddos now and every time I look at them I do feel quite a bit of pride.❤❤

Sometimes I marvel at how far from seeing past their own noses people can get while telling other folks to follow them, man. The sheer media saturation in terms of 'you're the hero, don't let the masses get in the way of your story' is agonizing.

Brilliant video

We are not meant to share culture. We were put together to fulfil nefarious agendas.

The entitlement is strong with that woman that wrote the article when she refers to her own hair as being "ANGEL-LIKE." I guess dark, frizzy hair isn't angelic enough for her. 🙄

I got two minutes into the video and an ad for save the children showed up 💀

A good example of what a white ally could look like is Marlon Brando not showing up to get his Oscar and instead stepping away from the spotlight to give space to a native American female activist (sorry I don't remember her name)

Live Aid and the song in 90' made something terrible to Africa. And an African image. I remember how strong the message was of the poor Africa – as a continent! Not Zambia, Rwanda, as separate countries, but suddenly the whole continent needed help. The identity of each separate country was wiped out. It was "let's help Africa". I think that whole 00' up to today is a giant work of African countries to debunkt this image. And NGOs to learn how to, in fact, help. But the message was so strong in the 90' that people still think with this pattern. Like we know that Joseph Conrad was writing from his XIX perspective, and now some books from that era feel awful. But we just started to realize that we were doing the exact same thing in the 90'. We were thinking in the same patterns.

I would like to know a legitimate alternative option to "white savoirship" among those who came into those interests (as you said, "well meaning") specifically BECAUSE OF the cultural outcry that people who are white, owe something to those who were wronged by those like them, or that white people as a whole have a responsibility to use their privilege to benefit those who don't have the same privileges etc etc.

The idea that it's white people's responsibility to "fix things" for everyone else, as a way to remedy or make amends for the actions of past white people etc, comes from every direction.

While there are absolutely some people who act as they do JUST because they want ass pats for being "good people", a lot do what they do because of a combination of actually giving a crap & wanting to do good, with being told by __ what "doing good" is supposed to look like, who is supposed to help, etc.

I think it's interesting that, if you take the poem to be said sarcastically/ironically and replace "white" with "rich" then it not only applies historically and to European colonialism, but becomes applicable to the majority of all modern people, globally, regardless of race.

It's a pet theory of mine that (a'la "Guns, Germs & Steel") silly "white exceptionalism" theory is (rightly) b broken down, and that everything seen in context shows that it has been, was, is, and (until something substantial changes) always well be more about MONEY/POWER than anything, and so, many things codified racially, could (either in the future with further diversity over time, or, had history been different and diversity existed already etc) be more properly recognized for their financial/power basis, that only UTILIZES race as a means to the true ends.

In my media world, I've never seen a two-story single-family residence or indoor plumbing anywhere in The Global South, including India and Brazil.
And so when we see the inevitable news coverage of war, famine, disease, or natural disaster, I'm left asking "What did it even look like before?"
Sure you see "We have tall buildings and cities…" But then you have to wonder if these are simply: Office buildings of invading corporations, tourist hotels, concrete and windowless crowded housing.
There's no mainstream media normalizing people in for instance, Côte d'Ivoire, with indoor plumbing and Toyotas. You gotta go look for this stuff yourself on Google street view.

I think you pointed out some important things there. I also resent how many of these charities present people in Africa as helpless little children, like the campaigns that tell you that they need the money to dig wells for example. That always gives the impression that Africans don't know the concept of wells if white saviors wouldn't tell them. I am not very familiar with the everyday details of charity work but I also think that you have to work with the people, not imposing on them things that don't work there. I recently read some part of a book about entrepreneur women and men in African countries. It was really impressive because often they didn't have the infrastructure or other basics that we have in the West, so they came up with really creative solutions that worked. It was a lemons to lemonade approach that I really liked.