White savior

The term white savior is a critical description of a white person who is depicted as liberating, rescuing or uplifting non-white people; it is critical in the sense that it describes a pattern in which people of color in economically under-developed nations that are majority non-white are denied agency and are seen as passive recipients of white benevolence.[1][2] The role is considered a modern-day version of what is expressed in the poem The White Man's Burden (1899) by Rudyard Kipling. The term has been associated with Africa, and certain characters in film and television have been critiqued as white savior figures. Writer Teju Cole combined the term with "industrial complex" (derived from military–industrial complex and similarly applied elsewhere) to coin "White Savior Industrial Complex".[3]

  1. ^ Cammarota, Julio (2011-07-01). "Blindsided by the Avatar: White Saviors and Allies Out of Hollywood and in Education". Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. 33 (3): 242–259. doi:10.1080/10714413.2011.585287. ISSN 1071-4413. S2CID 144651303.
  2. ^ Yu, Chunhua (August 2021). "An Examination of the Institutionally Oppressive White Savior Complex in Uganda Through Western Documentaries". International Social Science Review. 97 (2).
  3. ^ Aronson, Brittany A (2017). "The White Savior Industrial Complex: A Cultural Studies Analysis of a Teacher Educator, Savior Film, and Future Teachers". Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis. 6 (3). doi:10.31274/jctp-180810-83. ISSN 2325-1204.