White Saviour Complex/grad school

[Anonymous]

I’m truly not trying to start something, but as a 60 yr old liberal who sent my kids to public schools that weren’t predominantly white, and ended up with kind level headed young adults who i think/hope are pretty solid humans- one presented a paper on mitigation of gang cartels and resources in Central America etc affecting migration. The mom white students have gone after his ‘white savior’ attitude being ‘problematic’, now I’ve looked it up and there are real important reasons we recognize the difference between patronizing causes and championing. But are we getting to a place where it isn’t acceptable to represent potential solutions in a browner world without justifying why? Anyway, just wondered if anyone has found this labeling uh... problematic.

[Anonymous]

OP here - oops not the MOM white students the NON whitr classmates

[Anonymous]

What I see is an increase in thinking of POC as a monolith. On the Politics forum right now there's discussion on getting the Real ID and requiring ID to vote. It comes across as "we have to help these poor POC because only white people know how to navigate the DMV or understand how to get an ID." It's about thinking you have to help someone simply because they are a POC, not because they are a human being.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is problematic. Mob mentality has taken over. White people aren’t permitted to speak on any topics involving Latin America. I used to regularly volunteer services but have now stopped bc I can’t handle the woke-isms. No good deed will go unpunished. Good lesson to learn early

[Anonymous]

Well, if he -- or you -- are taking it upon yourselves to define other students as "non-white" instead of as individuals with individual opinions, that's already, as you would say "problematic". It's also interesting that if, indeed, the students who are POC , without exception, are calling your son out for having a "white savior" attitude, your thought is to post anonymously on a forum that skews decidedly white and UMC to get support for this viewpoint being problematic-- instead of trying to understand and directly address the attitudes and possibly the behavior that your son's classmates brought to his attention.

[Anonymous]

Ok PP- I’m just a middle aged mom who probably misrepresented grad school kids words- I actually don’t know if the classmates were POC or not, just that this label came on swiftly - i promise he would be more aware than I - as for an anonymous forum well of course! It is a sensitive subject and he wouldn’t want mom meddling or taking about private conversation he had across the ocean in 5 minutes. For hi it was an observation of how to discuss his solutions on a topic without offending. By the way they are all under 25 and trying on how to be in the world and the discomfort is probably healthy- so long as they communicate. As for this forum, well it is DCURBAN MOMS and exactly the place to get a vibe. From all races who share schools and the city.

[Anonymous]

I have been teaching at the college level for 20 years, so I have some perspective on how things have changed over time. We are currently in a very difficult moment for the exchange of ideas and many, many students feel that they cannot express very legitimate ideas and perspectives in academic settings right now. That is true for both white students and students of color who deviate from a very specific ideological orientation. It is absolutely not a healthy moment for intellectual rigor or nuanced ideas. However, it won’t last forever. When power structures change, there is often on overcorrection. The pendulum will swing back towards move open, flexible debate in time. Such swings towards strident viewpoints has happened before in academia. This swing is a bit more troubling because the terminology has escaped from academia and is being wielded by people who are applying it in a variety of non-academic settings that it was not designed to adequately explain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, if he -- or you -- are taking it upon yourselves to define other students as "non-white" instead of as individuals with individual opinions, that's already, as you would say "problematic". It's also interesting that if, indeed, the students who are POC , without exception, are calling your son out for having a "white savior" attitude, your thought is to post anonymously on a forum that skews decidedly white and UMC to get support for this viewpoint being problematic-- instead of trying to understand and directly address the attitudes and possibly the behavior that your son's classmates brought to his attention.

To be fair to her, the whole push behind white fragility is to call out racial groups as a monolith and assign blame on the basis of undifferentiated racial identification. That is sort of the whole problem right now on all sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m truly not trying to start something, but as a 60 yr old liberal who sent my kids to public schools that weren’t predominantly white, and ended up with kind level headed young adults who i think/hope are pretty solid humans- one presented a paper on mitigation of gang cartels and resources in Central America etc affecting migration. The mom white students have gone after his ‘white savior’ attitude being ‘problematic’, now I’ve looked it up and there are real important reasons we recognize the difference between patronizing causes and championing. But are we getting to a place where it isn’t acceptable to represent potential solutions in a browner world without justifying why? Anyway, just wondered if anyone has found this labeling uh... problematic.

My kid who entered college wanting to do international humanitarian work has abandoned that goal because "you just can't be a white person in that field." Just being white and wanting to apply yourself to global poverty or women's empowerment in other cultures makes you a "white savior" apparently. I do think it is a cultural moment and that the pendulum will swing again, but it makes me sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been teaching at the college level for 20 years, so I have some perspective on how things have changed over time. We are currently in a very difficult moment for the exchange of ideas and many, many students feel that they cannot express very legitimate ideas and perspectives in academic settings right now. That is true for both white students and students of color who deviate from a very specific ideological orientation. It is absolutely not a healthy moment for intellectual rigor or nuanced ideas. However, it won’t last forever. When power structures change, there is often on overcorrection. The pendulum will swing back towards move open, flexible debate in time. Such swings towards strident viewpoints has happened before in academia. This swing is a bit more troubling because the terminology has escaped from academia and is being wielded by people who are applying it in a variety of non-academic settings that it was not designed to adequately explain.

This is an interesting and hopeful post, but at what point do you see the pendulum swinging back towards more open, flexible debate? The thirst for power and status, once acquired, is hard to quench. You basically have very wide swaths of academia and increasingly government that embrace race-based approaches to every issue and employing an entire vocabulary intended to reallocate power from whites (and, in some cases, Asians) to other minority groups. If you are a young adult caught up in the crossfire, you are just treated as collateral damage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been teaching at the college level for 20 years, so I have some perspective on how things have changed over time. We are currently in a very difficult moment for the exchange of ideas and many, many students feel that they cannot express very legitimate ideas and perspectives in academic settings right now. That is true for both white students and students of color who deviate from a very specific ideological orientation. It is absolutely not a healthy moment for intellectual rigor or nuanced ideas. However, it won’t last forever. When power structures change, there is often on overcorrection. The pendulum will swing back towards move open, flexible debate in time. Such swings towards strident viewpoints has happened before in academia. This swing is a bit more troubling because the terminology has escaped from academia and is being wielded by people who are applying it in a variety of non-academic settings that it was not designed to adequately explain.

This is an interesting and hopeful post, but at what point do you see the pendulum swinging back towards more open, flexible debate? The thirst for power and status, once acquired, is hard to quench. You basically have very wide swaths of academia and increasingly government that embrace race-based approaches to every issue and employing an entire vocabulary intended to reallocate power from whites (and, in some cases, Asians) to other minority groups. If you are a young adult caught up in the crossfire, you are just treated as collateral damage.

I have been in academia for 30 years (with my grad school years) and know the experiences of older colleagues. These ideological movements have about a 10 year shelf life. Most of my mentors came of age during the years when Marxist theory dominated. I entered grad school at the height of deconstructionism. By the time I graduated, it was largely passé. Next came post-colonialism, which sat atop the field for about 10 years and pushed its way into everything so that every group was somehow reclassified as post-colonial. That faded to the fields of identity politics (feminism, queer theory, critical race theory). The latter is right now outpacing it’s compatriots, but we are already half a decade in. It’s about hitting it’s peak, which is when each theory becomes so attenuated from lived experience and common sense that a backlash starts. I have a few suspects as to what will replace it based on new ideas that are percolating out there in the journals, but only time will tell. The only surety is that this to shall pass.

[Anonymous]

Without seeing your son's paper, I can't opine on whether it was problematic. But...it might have been.

Just because your child attended global majority schools does not inoculate him from neo-colonialist or US-centric thought processes and reflexes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m truly not trying to start something, but as a 60 yr old liberal who sent my kids to public schools that weren’t predominantly white, and ended up with kind level headed young adults who i think/hope are pretty solid humans- one presented a paper on mitigation of gang cartels and resources in Central America etc affecting migration. The mom white students have gone after his ‘white savior’ attitude being ‘problematic’, now I’ve looked it up and there are real important reasons we recognize the difference between patronizing causes and championing. But are we getting to a place where it isn’t acceptable to represent potential solutions in a browner world without justifying why? Anyway, just wondered if anyone has found this labeling uh... problematic.

My kid who entered college wanting to do international humanitarian work has abandoned that goal because "you just can't be a white person in that field." Just being white and wanting to apply yourself to global poverty or women's empowerment in other cultures makes you a "white savior" apparently. I do think it is a cultural moment and that the pendulum will swing again, but it makes me sad.

I am a international development professional, and you can absolutely do this work as a white person. The idea that you cannot runs 100% counter to my experience in this field, my experience as a hiring manager, and a look around my own organization and those of our peers.

If your child didn't want to do this work, that's fine, but there's no nationality or racial check. However, as white people, we need to work hard to transfer power and authority to local communities, to lift up local voices, etc. That sometimes means that we (North American, Western European, white folks) end up playing a background support role to local leadership. That is as it should be.

[Anonymous]

I think it is a new twist on noblesse oblige. Somewhat an extension of 'to whom much is given, much will be required'.

[Anonymous]

As a multiethnic, multicultural but foreign person living in the USA, I am constantly surprised at the low level of understanding of racial issues in otherwise open-minded and cultivated people. It's racially prejudiced to say that someone who looks white may not address issues pertaining to people of color. This is because making assumptions based on one's appearance is wrong. Period.

For example: I look a certain ethnicity, but am culturally another: people always make incorrect assumptions about my origins, habits and proclivities based on my looks. Were I to write something about the culture I know best, would some idiot criticize me for daring to tread where I shouldn't? How stupid.