Can People of Colour Fall Prey to White Saviour Complex?
By: Neha Doshi
Tags: White Savior Complex, Diaspora, Charity, Race, Community

Image courtesy of Barbie Saviour, Instagram

My family (which, as someone of Indian origin, includes my extended family) has a policy of donating 5–10% of our income to charity. This is an honourable practice, in theory. Much, if not all, of this money goes towards charities operating in our native Indian state of Gujarat, supporting medical clinics, eye hospitals, schools for the disabled, micro finance initiatives and food donations. But as a well-off family living largely in the West, are we falling prey to white saviour complex, believing our donations to be vital to the smooth running of organisations in India?

White saviour complex or ‘The White Man’s Burden’

White saviourism or white saviour complex derives from Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem, ‘The White Man’s Burden’, in which Kipling encourages the United States to colonise the Philippines in order to civilise it. In the poem, Kipling openly refers to the colonised as ‘half devil and half child’, suggesting that the Philippino — or anyone of colour who has been colonised — desperately requires moral and paternal assistance. He argues that it is the duty of the privileged white man to come to the rescue of the savage Philippino, to educate him, to teach him Christianity, and to ensure that he does not pursue thankless and needless war. The poem suggests that the civilising mission will require much sacrifice on the part of the missionary who seeks to civilise, and therefore presents him as a self-serving sage. Crucially, thus, the poem’s premise is to ensure that that Western Europeans understand their role in empire — their role as saviours. (My use of the term ‘man’ and ‘he’ are deliberate here to outline that the discussion, was of course, limited to men at the time of Kipling’s writing.)

Despite more than a century of anti-colonial uprising, the white saviour complex has far from disappeared. If you live in a Western country — which here includes countries in North America, and Australia — you are very likely to come across advertisements for charities featuring impoverished black or brown children desperate for food, water, shelter, health care, or any such basic facility. You will probably be introduced to the subject through a white (male) voice explaining why your donation is vital to ensuring these poor black kids have the basic needs that they deserve. Indeed, this patronising sentiment of white saviourism is widespread, with ‘Africa’ becoming synonymous with poverty, poor infrastructure, lack of education, malnutrition, unstable governance and so forth. We consider Africa as the benchmark of deprivation and feel grateful that we are not one of the continent’s destitute and needy — “think of the starving children in Africa” we might casually say. The least offensive marker of our white saviour attitude is the manner in which people continue to refer to countries within Africa as merely ‘Africa’ implying a dismissive homogeneity, as if regions within Africa hold no cultural or economic variance (we do not refer to Europe in the same manner).

White saviourism and charity

So what does this have to do with people donating to charities? The problem with many non-governmental organisations is that they rely on such narratives to ensure funding and financial support. They employ the sympathetic gaze to encourage donations. In fact, many who work for such organisations are led to believe that their actions are no less than virtuous. I raised the issue during a discussion of the media representation of people of colour at a tutorial in my undergraduate degree and was largely met with arguments suggesting it was not wrong to exploit the white saviour narrative if the end goal was met. In other words, if people require help, what’s wrong with presenting them as pathetic, feeble and miserable if such a representation enables them to find funding? The point that such narratives are inherently flawed — that ‘Africa’ is not in need of the kind of aid that is provided, but rather requires structural change that begins at local government and international policy — was largely ignored.

The problem with discussions around white saviourism and perceptions of ‘Africa’, (or two decades ago, ‘Asia’) however, is that the matter is not straightforward. Statistically we can argue that there are more people and greater population percentages living in extreme poverty in the continent of Africa than in any other continent on the planet. We can also clearly observe the lack of urban infrastructure, with many communities struggling to access hospitals, schools, roads, even running water and electricity. So it wouldn’t be false to state that many people in African countries are not able to have their basic needs met. Whose fault this is is a separate matter — there is a violent and fraught history here that I can discuss in a future article. The question becomes, how do well meaning people address these issues of inequality and poverty without falling prey to the white saviour complex? It would be unfair to suggest that people with a mind to give back what they have taken for granted are inherently patronising for doing so. So what is the best means of providing support without doing more harm than good?

Charity and the diaspora

This moral conundrum returns to the question I began with at the start. As a family of diasporic Indians, we feel a pull towards India as our ‘native’ land. Though the majority of us were born outside of India — in countries like the UK, USA and Kenya — most of us, in some way, feel Indian. So like many other people of Indian origin, we desire to use some of the wealth we have earned outside of India to improve conditions within India. But in doing so, are we taking on the ‘White Man’s Burden’? Are we considering ourselves superior for having lived in the West and benefited from established capitalist systems?

How do we avoid the white saviour complex when donating to charities?

I suppose the answer to this question depends on the manner in which our charities operate. Here are some points we might want to muse on when considering donating to charities:

Who is running the charity and was it established by members local to the community?

This is crucial. Poverty and deprivation are often presented as easily fixed. However, no one is better placed to recommend changes than those who are local to the area, who have lived in and developed these communities — they are more likely to understand the culture and know how systems operate. They are able to find ways to achieve their goals.

When we consider ourselves to be familiar with a culture despite never having lived there, it is particularly easy to assume a greater awareness than we actually possess. So here it is essential to ensure that charities are locally established and that we don’t make presumptions about what is best for local communities.

Is our funding going towards initiatives that are supported by communities?

When charities operate for individuals, they are more likely to fail. For example, if a charity’s premise is to send individual children to school, it may overlook the foundational change that is required to empower these children to flourish. In other words, if, community attitudes have not moved in line with supporting education for girls, charities that send individual girls to school will only see these students eventually return to their predetermined positions as wives and child-bearers.

How do we know that communities support these ventures? Again by looking into the background of those running the organisations. If the charity is led and run by people from within the community, this may suggest at least a basic level of community support and therefore greater promise for long-term change.

Is the charity providing holistic support?

I think we can observe whether the organisation means to take on a supportive rather than heroic role. Continuing with my previous example, is the charity shipping off individuals to schools outside the area and therefore washing its hands of the problem, or is it establishing schools within the area that are more easily accessible and address the educational needs of the many rather than the few?

Furthermore, it is doing the background work to help to change attitudes? For example, is it running workshops with parents that explain the benefits of education? Or is it providing basic literacy lessons for parents to support their children through school?