Please take a moment to read a guest post I have written for The Take Action Leaders Blog, which aims to provide insight from leaders into social issues and solutions, with a focus on youth leadership in social change. I appreciate the opportunity to contribute my thoughts about social change to their blog! You can read my guest post – Walking together towards social justice – here. Here’s an excerpt:
“If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, we can walk together.” -Lila WatsonAre you involved in any public service or volunteer work? Have you worked with non-profit organizations is the past? Have you participated in rallies, demonstrations, or other activist movements? At the very least, do you donate to non-profits occasionally? I suspect the answer is yes — especially since you’re reading this blog.
If you have any interest in social change, take note of the above quote. There’s a difference between seeing the beneficiaries of any philanthropy, volunteer work, or non-profit services as “charity cases” and seeing them as simply – human beings. There’s a difference between wanting to help someone through feelings of pity or compassion, and wanting to do the right thing because of a feeling of empathy, because you truly understand their struggle.
Do you see the poor, the abused, the marginalized as people you have to help? Do you ever think the poor are weak, helpless? If you do, you’re seeing yourself as a savior, and seeing the poor as people who need to be saved.
Such a viewpoint is not simply inaccurate, but actively harmful. By thinking of yourself as a savior, you’re building a barrier that separates yourself from the poor. The “savior complex” means that you start to think of the poor as the “other.”
Please click here to read the rest of the guest post over at the Take Action Leaders blog, to read about my personal experiences, and to learn how you can shift your mindset to one of togetherness, empowerment, and working together towards social change. Thank you!
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