Reflecting on White Saviourism, Moving Forward Together

It’s been our goal for over 20 years at Engage to get Volunteer Engagement Professionals to interact with our content and each other. On our "About" page, we state clearly that our articles are "interactive, inviting you to contribute comments and additional materials.”

We know, however, that this rarely happens. Sure, we get the occasional comment about content we publish, but that rarely gets any kind of conversation going.

So in this issue, we are trying something new.

Instead of presenting Erin R. Spink and Rob Jackson’s musings on topics, trends and issues they see as relevant to the profession, this Points of View turns inwards to examine an article previously published by another author in Engage. We look at what Points of View agrees with, disagrees with, what could have been taken further and – depending on how long ago the original article was published – how Points of View might recontextualise it for today and explore what else needs saying now.

Erin and Rob don’t plan to do this every quarter, and they certainly don’t want to put anyone off writing for Engage because they think we might critique them in future. The goal here is simply to foster debate and discussion, to get more of us chipping in with thoughts, ideas and opinions – and to truly get a conversation going.

For their first foray into this new approach to Points of View, Erin and Rob are turning the clock back 20 months to look at Karen Knight’s feature article, “Volunteering Without White Saviourism.” In the spirit of the excellent quote that Knight included at the end of her article – namely, that “White women have to hear this from other White women” – Erin agreed to take the lead in this Points of View, writing her thoughts on Knight's article while recognizing that we’re all on our own journeys and hopefully moving forward with growth.
 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – and Some Biases

Before diving into Knight’s article in more depth, let’s acknowledge some biases. Rob and Erin are both White, middle-class people who have lived and grown in White-dominant societies in the UK and Canada. Although we come from different countries and are of different genders and sexes, our experiences as White people are of primary importance in how we read and understand this article, given its focus on White saviourism. As a result, there are biases and learnings we share with Karen, who is also White. For example, Erin also recalls growing up with Archie Bunker playing on the TV at her grandparents’ house. 

It’s also important to note that the Volunteer Engagement profession and the audience reading this article – those  we are speaking to when we talk about the role of a leader of volunteers in interrupting White saviourism in volunteerism –  is overwhelmingly White (83 percent – 91 percent, according to different years of the Volunteer Management Progress Report) and female. The overlapping identities of being White and female are the bulk of the profession. 

Why does this matter? In the 2020 American Presidential election, “53 percent of White women voted for Donald Trump. That political fact underscored the reality that White women exist at the intersection of race and gender in ways that can either challenge White supremacy or support it.”

The overlapping identities of being White and female are the bulk of the profession. If we additionally filter by things like socioeconomic status, age and education, what we see is that the people in our profession trend towards social positions of power (except for gender). Given that White saviourism is defined as “an ideology that a White person acts upon from a position of superiority to rescue a BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, or person of color—community or person,” the likelihood of us engaging in and/or not seeing White saviourism in our organizations, and even our own work, without critical examination and reflection is that much higher.

Now, on to “Volunteering Without White Saviourism.” Much like the meaning behind the title of the classic movie, “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’ (1966) starring Clint Eastwood, the article is a complex mix of “both good and bad elements, layered with complexity and moral ambiguity.”

The Good

The most important aspect of this article is that we’re acknowledging the existence of White saviourism in volunteering. Thankfully, there has not been significant push back from Volunteer Engagement professionals accepting that White Saviourism exists and can be a driving factor in some White people’s motivations to volunteer. It can be very predominant in some forms of volunteering (see the April 2024 Ethics article on “The Ethics of Voluntourism”, especially when discussing volunteering in foreign orphanages) but can be found in any volunteering setting. 

When we consider not only who makes up the majority in our profession, but also the research that documents the general employee demographics in the non-profit and charitable sector, we see a broader mirroring of the same trends. It’s not a coincidence. The foundation of the sector is based on racial and other inequalities. As Voices’ writer Breauna Dorelus notes, “to name and know the root causes of why and how formal volunteerism exists in the first place, and how it currently upholds supremacy and White saviourism” must be central to the work all of us do as Leaders of Volunteers. 

Continued discussion, reflection, learning and changes need to happen, but as a profession, we need to start somewhere.

The Bad

Knight’s article uses some problematic terms and often frames racism in a reductive manner. For example, the use of “recovering racist” in the article – versus choosing a term like ‘aspiring ally’ or even ‘anti-racist’ – is problematic for a number of reasons. Made most famous by Idelette McVicker’s book Recovering Racists: Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity (2022), the term conflates two very different things.

The word “recovering” is typically used in relation to a legitimate mental or physical health concern, and commonly used with addictions. Being a “racist” is a social and political construct and not the same thing. Racism is learned and can be unlearned. By conflating the two, the severity of addictions is diminished and an easy “out” is given to White people not to do the work we have the responsibility to do. For example, Knight’s article states that White people can "never break free, no matter how hard we try." Yes we can, and we must.

When racism is reduced to an individual level, and framed as binary (a person being either a racist or not), the systemic, structural and culturally embedded and pervasive nature of racism (and all forms of oppression) is ignored. As noted in a story in Scalawag Magazine on understanding White supremacy protests:

Conceiving of White supremacy as a problem of individual bad actors is too limited. It reduces a deep social problem to narrow questions ("Are they racist?" "Is this racist?") and shallow defensiveness ("I'm not being racist, but…"), while ignoring that White supremacy is not just a vestigial remnant of the past.”

As American feminist, academic and anti-racism activist Peggy McIntosh famously commented,“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.”

Knight rightly reflected that she’s “not free” from fighting the effects of her upbringing. After all, culture doesn’t stop indoctrinating us at age 18; it’s what happens when you’re raised as a White person in a White supremacist culture. Every day, people of all colours see and hear images, words and acts that reinforce racism and White privilege in the same way that we live in a patriarchal society. Even as a self-identified Feminist and woman herself, Erin has spent her life fighting negative assumptions and deeply ingrained beliefs about women. This is true of all of the ‘isms’ – because a dominant narrative never stops repeating itself. 

Finally, while seemingly sound on the surface, Knight’s recommendation made to recruit from the community, especially in a context of White Saviourism, skips the more fundamental actions needed to rebuild trust with a community. Before any recruitment is done, acknowledgement and reparations, as well as some fundamental changes may be warranted if your organization has been perpetrating harm in oppressed and marginalized communities. Trust takes time to build – recruitment will not resolve and address what may be decades of harm. Put simply, such an approach does not recognize the weight of the work required to change. It should never be an early step in reparation. Otherwise, recruitment is just another form of extraction. 

The Ugly

Erin completely disagrees with Knight’s statement "Trust me, I know. I'm well-equipped to talk about racism, even though I’m White.” Why? In Erin’s view, White people can't be "well-equipped" to talk about racism because they’ve never faced it; they’ve only perpetrated it, upheld it and benefitted from it. Again, a description from Scalawag Magazine:

“White folks must work to find ways to speak without absolving ourselves and without denying the fact we are continually at risk of failing…This kind of self-absolution is fundamental to the ways White Americans talk about race: Racism is always the fault of someone else, someone who doesn't know what I know.”

Finally, if Erin were to advise on how to improve the article, she’d propose to include a discussion of steps taken to unpack and unlearn White privilege in the article. This would provide legitimacy and credibility in a White-led conversation on this topic.

Final Thoughts

As Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

In this Points of View, what we’ve sought to do is provide an opportunity for a profession over-represented by White women to challenge ourselves and our professional practices by initiating a dialogue. Knight’s original article started this conversation and we want all of us to continue it.

This conversation needs to be rigorous, not just on this topic but on a whole range of issues Volunteer Engagement Professionals encounter. Granted, we all need to hold each other to a higher level of accountability – if we’re going to make tangible strides forward to create not only a more inclusive profession but more inclusive practices around volunteer partnership, including dismantling White saviourism.

The topic is a deeply complex one. And while we are thrilled to see White-led conversation on this subject, as a profession we have a very long way to go to move beyond discussion and into fundamental change.

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What do you think about our observations on Karen’s article?

What do you think about this different approach to Points of View?

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts and get a conversation going. That’s what this is all about, after all.