I Have A Big Problem With The ‘White Savior’ Criticism

Tom Kuegler
7 min readSep 26, 2020
Photo by Alexandr Podvalny on Unsplash

As a white American man living in the Philippines, I’ve come across the term “white savior” a lot.

Here’s a definition:

“White savior refers to western people going in to “fix” the problems of struggling nations or people of color without understanding their history, needs, or the region’s current state of affairs.”

For the record, I totally agree that “white saviors” exist. I agree that volunteers can come into a country and do more harm than good.

I believe in the twisted way that “I want to help!” can SOMETIMES show an underlying belief that a volunteer’s home country knows best.

It all depends on what “help” looks like. If it looks like turning a country into the spitting image of a volunteer’s home country, that can be very problematic.

Isn’t the whole purpose of traveling to learn from another country?

When I look at an impoverished country like the Philippines, I simply see poverty as a weakness of the country. I don’t use that as a measuring stick to say “See! America is better!”

America has weaknesses, too. It’s not that one place is better than the other —it’s that both have strengths and weaknesses.

It’s our duty as volunteers to learn from a country, then help them in the way they want to be helped.

My problem with the term “white savior” comes from the way virtue signalers see ANY help given by foreigners and immediately label it as an act of white saviourism.

I’ll give you an example.

Not Everything Is ‘White Saviourism’

One time I wrote a post on LinkedIn telling a story of a masseuse I met on a river cruise.

In the Philippines they normally have places to get a foot massage on 1-2 hour river cruises.

I remember this particular woman didn’t have the top half of her fingers. The cruise guide said she had them cut off when she was younger. I can’t remember if it was an accident or not.

I decided to take a picture with her afterwards so I could tell her story on social media. Before I continue, there’s one big thing…

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Tom Kuegler

Travel blogger. 30 years old. Currently in Mexico. Subscribe to my Substack: https://mindofawriter.substack.com/