Scarleteen

Every time I see a friend or someone else doing mission trips in places like Africa, it's mostly white people. And I know it's good to help those in need but a lot of times people write about how inspiring it was to work with people and how God wanted them to do it, etc. And it just bothers me. I'm trying not to let it bother me, but there's always something about it that makes me feel uncomfortable. Objectively it shouldn't be, I mean they are helping people, but I just get this vibe of a white savior complex where they feel they need to help out these poor black people. And then I guess there's the issue of going overseas to convert people - I think it's good to help again, but sometimes I feel like people think it's their mission to convert people to their religious beliefs, which just strikes me as ethnocentric and really shows off how much Christian privilege we have in the United States. Again, I know missionaries help people but this still bothers me and I didn't know if anyone else felt that way.

I definitely relate to this uneasiness! It's a complicated topic that I don't feel very clear on yet - it's definitely valid that people are comforted by their religions, and that shouldn't be demeaned, but there is such a heavy history of conversion without consent and white people inviting themselves into poc spaces and prioritizing white cultural experiences, which is pretty ethnocentric, like you said. I don't think there's anything wrong with having reservations about people who pride themselves on helping "those poor black people", because it is a pretty harmful and tone-deaf thing to do. I have a lot of trouble confronting friends who do mission trips or family who encourage me to join the Peace Corps and stuff because I haaaaate people having judgements of me, even if they're racist or insensitive or just uneducated people. Have you ever had experience with confrontation around this topic?

I haven't yet only because I don't know if they're under the mindset of black people needing to be saved by white people. It's never explicitly said, I guess just because I often see them with black people, or anyone who's not white, I just get that vibe at times. I think too because of history I'm always wary of that sort of thing. On a larger note I have a problem in general when the United States takes an ethnocentric view on other cultures, but that's a whole other rant I respect people's beliefs but I do have a problem with trying to convert people, as you said it just strikes me as ethnocentric, but since that's apart of some people's beliefs systems, that they have to convert people to save them, I don't know how I'd go about it without offending someone.