#white saviour complex

[sunshineandlyrics]

Additional points about what happened at the Good Vibes Festival in Malaysia because of what Matty Healey and the 1975.

*thanks to them, the second and third days of the festival were cancelled.

x

22 July 2023 x

And good on Kid Laroi for performing at his hotel after his show at the festival was cancelled.

Other opinions from locals x x and the post by @awesomefringey x

[chronicallycouchbound]

What’s So Wrong With Having Heroes?

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a doctor or a veterinarian. I wanted to help heal. And even as a small child, it felt like my calling.

Most kids dream of becoming a hero. The firefighters, the builders, the astronauts. The one’s who get medals and standing ovations. There’s many very monetarily successful movies and comics about all the superheroes we dream of. The people we want to save us. At one point, I thought I could be a hero. I wanted to be.

Being a hero wasn’t an issue for me though. People started to notice acts of kindness in me, and when they held that in high regard, I did too. I did everything I could to help others. It came naturally.

I bandaged my siblings and pets and strangers up. I gave advice like a wise old man, my aunt thanked me for helping her to leave her abusive husband when I was 8. I saved two people from drowning when I was 10. I talked friends out of suicide a dozen times. I became a street medic. I have saved dozens of lives, often under extraordinary circumstances. By definition, I fit the one for ‘hero’.

And I have so many issues with it. This isn’t a humble brag.

I genuinely think that we, as a society, put certain people on pedestals that shouldn’t be. I don’t think anyone should be. The hierarchy of heroes is inequitable and unrealistic. I think we should do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not to win an award or a badge of honor.

I see headlines all the time that are just ‘hero firefighter does their job!’. They’re paid to do this, of course they’re going to do it. As an abolitionist, I see cops hailed as heroes, usually for doing the objectively right thing, and it seems to magically erase the realities of what they do, the systemic harm they perpetuate. It’s the entirety of the ‘there’s some good cops’ narrative. And it causes great detriment to our communities because it makes it seem like the police do more good than bad.

Society particularly loves to paint white, cishet, abled, rich, educated, affluent men as heroes. The ones who can save us. Our hero.

And yet we ignore the people who are saving lives left and right, like people who use drugs who Narcan their friends. Or trans youth who stay up all night with their suicidal friends. Or the street medics who set up civilian ambulances for their under-served and neglected communities.

No one’s giving them medals.

Beyond that, people aren’t checking in on heroes. I’ve heard “you’re incredible!” and “thank you” a million times, but rarely do people genuinely check in on me after I’ve rescued someone.

And I usually need it. I’m at my worst mentally and usually physically after a rescue. It often takes months or years to process those events— they are traumatic for the rescuer too. Especially those of us without formal training or those of us who have attempted to rescue someone and lost them. We’re left to drift among all of these confusing and conflicting emotions, sometimes never understanding why.

The worst thing I hear: “I could NEVER do what you did”. It breaks me apart every time.

I don’t want to be doing this alone. I don’t want to have to save people over and over. I can’t save everyone.

I have to repeat that last one like a mantra sometimes.

I can’t save everyone. And so often, I still try to. I jump in without thinking. I throw myself into danger and worry about myself last, or, never. And it usually ends with me being seriously injured.

When I’d bandage up my siblings and pets it was after our parents hit us. I stepped in front of them as often as I could. I swallowed so much water while trying to save someone from drowning because they kept pulling me under that I puked. My 20-something-year-old boyfriend I dated when I was 16 stabbed me with the knife I had just talked him out of cutting himself with. He went on to keep caving my face in and choking me until I was blue. And of course, I’ve been seriously injured dozens of times during rescues. My body physically hurts so much afterwards, let alone the emotional toll.

I have to wonder: What would happen if I didn’t step in? Would it be so bad?

But of course, my brain always answers with a thousand of the worst case scenarios— or, just with what happened anyways. Sometimes people die no matter how much you try to fight to save them. And that has to just be what it is.

I think sometimes people live, and that just has to be what it is too.

But when we ascribe people as heroes, the message we send is that some people are heroes, some people aren’t. And I feel so strongly that this isn’t true. I believe that everyone has the capacity to help others, and so often, they do so in seemingly insignificant ways, and their deeds are not recognized.

Small acts of kindness are never small.

Life saving happens in everyday, ordinary ways. Sometimes what has saved my life has been something the other person will never remember or know. The Christmas cards from the elementary schoolers sent to the homeless shelter I lived at. The partners and friends who sat with me until I was safe on my own. My friends who held my hand as my heart beat dangerously fast, their presence being all I could feel, replacing the tightness in my chest. My cat cuddling me, purring until she snores. Strangers holding doors, strangers carrying my groceries, strangers checking on me. The dozens of items from my Amazon wishlists that have kept me alive.

I wish I could say how thankful I am to the community that’s kept me alive. How every time they’ve called me a hero, it’s because they made me possible. That they’re a hero just as much as I am.

I read ‘Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (And The Next)’ by Dean Spade recently. In it, Dean describes “leader-less and leader-full” movements. It’s exactly what we need in the world. Hero-less and hero-full communities. We don’t need a select few— we need communities and societies structured around giving care. We need it to be standard, not extraordinary.

Personal responsibility can lead to community responsibility. We could have thriving, beautiful communities where we all care for each other so fully that no one single person is a savior, because we are all uplifted equitably.

I urge everyone I know to be more like the heroes they uplift. To think about what values they hold in high regard in others and to apply them to their own actions. To be what they already are, and acknowledge it.

You’re included.

[anatolienne]

hollywoods aim by putting people in western period drama is to hide -to be more precise- sugar-coat the vicious truth about western history. white people were not "accepting", they were savages and the chances of a white aristocrat woman marrying a black man his very low. western cinema has used the white saviour complex method to manipulate history itself and present it to the audience giving them a different perception of history, a perception that benefits them. hollywood is using people of color as set dressing for their activism and this method ignores the millions of people that have suffered from the imperialism of the west. since the audience can recognise white saviour complex in cinema more easily now, they have alternated it with this method. it ignores the truth. also its historically inaccurate goodnight

[panicinthestudio]

How This Film Erased Asian-Americans From Their Own Story, May 1, 2023

Remember 1989’s True Believer, starring James Woods and Robert Downey, Jr.? A prime example of Hollywood’s longstanding White Savior Complex? Dolly Li examines how the flick centered a white lawyer in a story based on Chol Soo Lee’s arrest. Stream Free Chol Soo Lee now on YouTube or the PBS App.

Resources: Free Chol Soo Lee on Independent Lens: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/free-chol-soo-lee/

This program is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station: https://www.pbs.org/donate

PBS Origins

[mumu-thestan]

[sassinake]

White Patriarchy is not the solution to the problem it caused.

[timetravellingkitty]

I'm not listening to a white person on what's racist or insensitive to brown people. read orientalism by edward said before talking to me or my son ever again

[biawstenknight]

oh the white gays on twitter are being fucking insufferable about ratty healy getting sued

[lollytea]

Tbh I think the Barbie movie handled its theme of existentialism better than the feminism.

[officialpenisenvy]

i find the performance of femininity very beautiful and sexy of course but also i can't detach it from what to me is its inherently oppressive nature so the end result is always this mixture of attraction and repulsion you know. like yeah girl you look super hot with the makeup and the dress and the lingerie and the smooth skin but also im so sorry that you feel like you have to do that to yourself (or in some cases that you actually do have to do that)

[rhaenin-time]

Don't come for me because I don't feel like elaborating right now, but the reason people conflate the racism/orientalism in GRRM's writing that often shows up in proximity to Dany, with Dany, the character in universe, being a "racist white imperialist"... is misogyny.

In this essay I will...

[catboymitosis]

Daarin bias disclosed the idea that Karin would take care of Daan and make sure he doesn't commit suicide by Pocketcat post game is. I'd say lol but honestly also very much reads to me as, at best ooc by shipper brain (fine and harmless thing we can all be guilty of) but at worst misogynistically misreadings of her character motivated from culturally ingrained notion that "women should be caregivers and take care of others because that is their biological role."

Karin cares a lot about other people that is an extremely important quality to her but she so clearly fucking sucks the worst out of everyone at extending interpersonal care. As bad or worse than O'saa is at it and he's literally not trying on purpose because the life he led made him believe "emotions make you weak therefore you need to stop complaining and abandon them." Levi the literal picturesque idea of a victim of war that she claims her lifes work purpose is to uplift the voice of, when he's having his ptsd trigger by the Rher trenches Karin does not try to comfort or reassure him she takes the opportunity to soapbox about the bremen again, your personal discretion whether that's a better or worse response than "..."

Karin would not check in on Daan's mental health and make sure he is taking his anti depressants she'd get him committed to a 1940s psychiatric hospital where he'd be put through period appropriate electroshock therapy that she knows about but does not see the cruelty and injustice in because it's just what people like him, the mentally disturbed, deserve to go through if that's what it takes for them to be cured.

[fanfictionroxs]

People who call Black a villain or even an anti-hero deserve nothing whatsoever. White is going to set your house on fire and Todd is going to send his goons to put you in a damn coma.

[mishacollinsdates]

misha should date angelina jolie next. she would donate loads to all his good cause fundraisers. they're the same age, divorced, both a bit weird, love their kids a lot, big do-gooder energy. and they're both mates with giles duley. and they were both in the movie 'Girl Interrupted' (to varying degrees) so technically there's history there.

if it came out that they’ve been having an affair since girl interrupted they could be the celebrity couple of the century. 24 years in the making

[palmettoshitposts]

foxes post-canon twitter bios 🫶🏽 (2/2)