"With the recent widespread of protests for black civil rights and against racism across the Western world, the topic of white prejudice has risen to the center of public attention, of which one manifestation is the so-called ‘White Saviour Syndrome’.  Whether it is Ed Sheeran posing for ‘Comic Relief’ with a number of black children (Hinsliff, 2019), Madonna adopting children from Malawi (Hinsliff, 2019), or students going on adventures advertised for ‘young philanthropists’ within a multi-million dollar gap-year industry (Bandyopadhyay, 2019), numerous cases of altruistic acts of ‘White Saviours’ can be found throughout popular culture in the global North.

Whereas these practices follow an altruistic narrative, they are commonly criticized as serving to satisfy a ‘White Saviour Syndrome’, the phenomenon in which a white person “guides people of color from the margins to the mainstream with his or her own initiative and benevolence” which tends to render the people of color “incapable of helping themselves” and disposes them of historical agency (Cammarota, 2011: 243-244). "

- Felix Willuweit

The White Savior Complex! Let's talk about it! This is my family y'all! I'm excited! 

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