Why the White Savior Complex is so Dangerous in Missions

I just finished watching the very recent and disturbing documentary, Savior Complex on HBO Max recounting the story of Renee Bach, a twenty-something white evangelical missionary, and her well-intentioned but misguided actions with her organization Serving His Children, where she administered medical care to malnourished babies in Jinja, Uganda without any kind of medical degree or training. Watch the trailer here. While we served during the same time frame in Uganda, I never met her, but have friends and volunteers who did. Renee’s story set a dangers precedent for other missionaries, as she justified her actions because she said God had called her even though she wasn’t qualified. Over 100 babies died under her care, and while those babies were very sick when they arrived at her medical clinic, the fact remains there was overwhelming evidence that in several cases where she administered IVs, blood transfusions, and re-feeding children, her actions caused irreparable harm.

Her story came to light after one nurse volunteer who served with her wrote to her Board in the US about her concerns that Renee was herself administering medical care without proper knowledge or protocol. The Board did nothing with this information, as Renee’s own mother was the State-side Executive Director and protected Renee from investigation. Later, the group No White Saviors, an activist group in Uganda, would go on to expose and crucify Renee on social media to hold her accountable.

They went as far as trying to bring a criminal case against her to have her arrested, but the case never went to court, instead a civil case brought by several harmed mothers who lost their babies, ended up settling with Rachel being forced to pay restitution for the deaths of those children. Rachel had to flee Uganda with her adopted Ugandan daughter, never to return. Her actions had devastating consequences as she blemished the reputations of other missionaries worldwide who were legitimately serving their communities overseas. The organization No White Saviors later imploded when Kelsey Nielson was accused of using her own white privilege to control her Ugandan counterparts.

Stories like this give me great pause, as within them there are valuable lessons to be learned for the global worker community, the church, and missions sending organizations. In my opinion, Rachel’s greatest mistake was the fact that she was not teachable, and refused to listen to the wisdom and advice of those with medical experience. Instead of providing the local hospital with the necessary resources to save children’s lives, she took it upon herself to open her own clinic and because she was a solo missionary, she had no accountability. I believe her need for recognition, accolades and the need to be needed drove her to engage in administering medical care she was unqualified to do. Years after her departure, she said, “I’ve been forced to look at my own white savior complex.”

White Savorism is the belief that white people are here to save, help, teach, and protect their non-white counterparts. 

It is based in colonial beliefs that black people are less than, and require saving, rather than empowerment. It robs agency from the poor, and perpetuates the stereotype of African “helplessness.” Examples of this are paternalism, doing things for others rather than building capacity, and offering patronizing solutions rather than biblical justice. The organization Invisible Children, which I briefly served under in Gulu, with their Kony 2012 was accused of perpetuating the white savior complex with their harmful narratives of African people. They used black children as props in their social media campaigns. I myself have had to wrestle with my own recovering white savior complex as my initial beliefs as a young twenty-four-year-old who sympathized with the poverty and lack of resources in Uganda, were misguided. I too had to recover from the idea that it was my job to “save Africa,” because I was often faced with life-and-death choices and a broken medical care system.

• The history of missions is steeped in white colonialism. The desire to “save Africa,” has led to many well-intentioned missionaries perpetuating an erroneous belief system and spreading harm. Now missionaries must face having to unravel and redeem this system in the face of stigma, prejudice, and backlash from African communities, in order to complete their mission.
• Missionaries often use sensationalized social media campaigns and Facebook selfies using black children as objectified images, perpetuating the notion that all Africans are broken, poor, disease-riddled, and in need of our help.
• Often missionaries go into host countries with the theology that we have the correct theology, that we know best, that in the face of “broken” African children, we are the antidote for their wholeness. Instead of empathy, we use white privilege to impose our will to enact solutions that may not actually be beneficial for communities.
• It prevents missionaries and aid workers from engaging in dialogue with those they are serving, rather we impose our will and solutions on them whether or not they are culturally appropriate or empowering.
• We assume that if we have good intentions then we don’t need the appropriate skills and expertise to serve a nation, rather we tout God and “calling” to be our greatest qualifier. This leads to many young missionaries going into countries ill-prepared with little other than their faith to tackle overwhelming systemic problems like poverty and injustice.
• We play into the narrative that we have come to “save Africa,” and in doing so set a dangerous precedent for our predecessors, and often the harm done causes countries to block our efforts, or be racially discriminated against. I too experienced racial discrimination in Uganda, I believe in part because of the white savorism that spread through Uganda like a virus.

So how can we heal from our own white savior complex and not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors?

• Firstly, we must become learners. Rather than going in assuming we know the right answers to solve their problems, we must first sit at their feet to understand the cultural complexities and lay our lives down as servants. This dialogue takes time built on relationships of equality and trust.
• We must recognize and grapple with how our Western culture has ingrained white savorism into our psyche, and we must be willing to repent, redeem and provide restitution for our actions of paternalism vs. empathy.
• We must be trained, and develop skill sets, and expertise that allow us to bring tangible, necessary help, rather than relying on our “calling” to qualify us for the job. In America, we would not allow an outsider with no medical experience to open up a medical clinic, so why is this allowed in teh developing world? The answer is simple: Money and aid—we think these constructs give us power.
• We must not let our white privilege overshadow the need to develop true partnerships which empower rather than offer handouts, or replace the efforts of local Africans on the ground who have been tirelessly doing the work long before we entered the scene. We must join hands with them as mutual partners, rather than establishing a dynamic of control and power simply because we provide the resources.
• Lastly, we recognize that hurt people hurt others and healed people heal others. We must first go through our own therapeutic process to heal our childhood trauma and damage, so that we do not unintentionally hurt our African counterparts through our own selfish desire for affirmation, recognition, and needing to be needed.
  

I hope through this article your eyes have been opened to why the white savior complex is so dangerous in missions. May we know better, and do better, and may we repent for the misguided ways we have imposed our will upon others.

For more information on this topic, you can read my other article here, go to No White Saviors IG page, and follow groups like Reunite, who are working to repatriate Ugandan children with their families, and empower those families with training and support, rather than placing children who have relatives in an orphanage. I also recommend the books White Savorism, No More Heroes, White Women, When Helping Hurts and the following article from Sojourners and that you do your research on white imperialism in your host country before you set out on a journey to help.

May you not be discouraged in doing well, but may you be led with compassion, empathy, and knowledge, to enact change.

PS- If you have stories of being party to or witnessing the white savior complex in missions then please comment below.

*I apologize in my original article I made a typo and put Rachel instead of Renee Bach. I apologize for this error.