Our Knights in Shining White Armor

Discussing Race and the White Savior Complex in the Classroom

Just say it. I thought. Just say it. It’s not a bad word, it really just is what it is. But she didn’t say it. She wouldn’t say it. In a class discussion on The Bluest Eye, the white student in the row ahead of me skirted around the words “white privilege” despite that being exactly what she was describing—exactly what Toni Morison described in conjunction with white supremacy and internalized racism. This was hardly the first time, and most certainly not the last, that I had encountered racism in this new, exciting country where I came to study.

The University of Michigan prides itself on being one of the most diverse public schools in the country, admitting and educating students from all over the world.  Having watched dozens of YouTube videos about the university before my arrival, I was excited to be a part of this diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. When I arrived, though, I found myself in a sea of white, and often caught myself scanning the room for a single student of color, let alone an Indian student. One look at the U of M racial statistics, as recorded in 2019, shows that nearly 53% of its students are white. This accounts for around 25,106 students in the university. The next largest racial group is Asians—this group accounts for 6, 397 students. With 47% of the student body comprising of students of color and 14% of that being Asian students, we see that the statistics of students from other races is only more disappointing—6.5% Hispanic or Latino, 4.3% Black or African American, 4.01% two or more races, 0.15% American Indian, and 0.03% Native Hawaiian.   

Students of color at this university tend to form communities with those of the same race, however small these communities may be. Although this may create a sense of belonging, it cannot compare to the sense of belonging white students have on campus. I have certainly found myself in classrooms, club meetings, gatherings, and events, looking for someone that looked like me, someone that felt ‘different’ in the same way I did.   

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels

I grew up for the majority of my life in Hyderabad, India. Hyderabad is actually considered one of the more culturally, religiously, and socially diverse cities in India, but something I hadn’t fully acknowledged about it until I left was the fact that everybody living there looked like me. All of us were, to some degree or another, brown. Of course, racism exists in India as well in the form of colorism. Oftentimes you’d catch people talking about how someone didn’t look as good as someone else simply because they had a darker complexion. The difference there was that we were all the same race. You couldn’t other a group of people and make them feel like foreigners in their own country because of their skin color. You couldn’t take a whole group of people whose skin was darker than your own and make them feel like they didn’t have the exact rights you did to live and thrive in your country. This, as I would later learn, was not the case in the United States. Even when I actively supported the anti-racism protests occurring in the U.S. in 2020, I don’t think I understood exactly what I was supporting. 

I do know exactly what it is like to sit in a classroom full of students that look like you: I know that you never have to look around and count how many people in the room share your complexion or how many share your experience. You never have to listen to a white humanities professor and question whether or not they’re teaching histories and present-day realities while knowing the difference between white saviors and white supporters. You never have to worry that people will look at you differently because of your accent or the way you say certain words. I know because of the privileged life I led three years ago and the reality I was forced to adapt to afterward. So many of the political issues I learned about in India—poverty, homelessness, homophobia, sexism—were fundamentally inseparable from race in the U.S. Even if the issue didn’t arise due to race, it is made more extreme because of it. I hadn’t heard of the idea of intersectionality in my earlier education, let alone consider the intersectionality of my own experiences until I first learned of it in the U.S.     

I could sit here and write out every time I’ve been smacked in the face by racism and the realities of racial differences in the past two years of adapting to an entirely new culture, but I will spare you the gory details. It would suffice to say that as someone from a different country and who has heard all her life that America was the “land of opportunities,” I have come to realize that the opportunities this land provides are primarily reserved for those whose ancestors floated over on the Mayflower. 

I strongly believe that the way white people are taught to talk about racism needs to change. They usually approach the topic of race in one of two ways—completely avoiding the subject and acting as if racism is an archaic concept or overcompensating and wanting to be the “white saviors” in the stories of people of color. 

Although both of these approaches can be equally harmful to the experiences of people of color, I’ve noticed more of the latter during my time in this country. Since most of my time spent in the U.S. has been in an academic setting, I’ve seen exactly how harmful and concerning it is to not acknowledge white saviorism in discussions about race. 

When I first started taking sociology classes at U of M about race, I was pleased with myself and all the white people who were there to learn about the adverse experiences of people of color in American history and present society. Unfortunately, that pleasure was extremely short-lived, as I soon realized that the majority of the white people in the class weren’t talking about people of color, but instead, talking for them. They spoke about racism as their issue, as something that affected them personally. In reality, they had as much of a right to speak on the effects of racism in this country as I did—none. 

Until the 12th grade, I rarely talked about racism in an academic setting. My friends and I would have conversations about the injustices faced by people of color, but we never took on the issue as our own because for us, at that time and place, we were not people of color. In a country where most of the modern-day traditions and ideals have been shaped by white colonizers, I do find it problematic that racism isn’t formally taught. However, I prefer learning about the realities of racism through social media to learning about it in a way that makes me feel entitled to claim them as my own. American schools teach white children about the cruelties of slavery, the landmarks and voices of the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement; they make students aware of present-day racism and the struggles of people of color in America—basically, they teach white students what to talk about but they never teach them how to talk about it. 

I came to U of M and adjusted to being immediately recognized as outside the norm. I adjusted to white hands shooting up when the teacher asked “what are some of the ways in which we see the oppression of people of color in the text?” I would look at the only other person of color in the room and they would look at me, both silently hoping the other would speak up.  But I never felt like I could truly do justice to the experiences of people of color, and maybe my classmate felt the same. Maybe no one can. Or maybe they thought that by the time they’d raised their hand, five other white people would have already chimed in. 

The primary reason that I’m grateful that I learned about racism through social media is the fact that I learned from people who were facing racism; not people watching it from the sidelines and reporting back. I am made aware that my education on racism is not comprehensive, that I can hardly understand how institutionalized racism in America can affect people of color navigating employment, academics, healthcare, and so many more spheres of everyday life just by reading. I can do the research and read off the statistics, but unless I am subject to racism myself, I cannot tell you what it feels like. 

In recent years, the realities of institutionalized racism have increasingly been taught in classrooms and discussed around tables. We see actual reforms and changes taking place—increased acknowledgment and calling out of racism, efforts by large institutions, such as our own University of Michigan, to further the discussions of racism and recognize the efforts and lives of people of color in building this country, and anti-racists and people of color being given access to larger platforms through social media. Despite all these efforts, they don’t seem to change our culture as much as we hoped they would. We’re giving this problem a Band-Aid fix. Even worse than healing a bullet wound with a Band-Aid, we’re attempting to patch a crack in a concrete foundation with Elmer's glue.
Talking about racism doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something about it. I implore you to actually listen to the voices of people of color who are speaking out against racism. Communities of color in the United States have more than enough to worry about without having to educate white people about how white saviors are affecting them. Seek out blogs and podcasts, first-hand accounts of the histories and experiences of people of color before you speak for them. If you want a handy guide of where to start, NPR writer Isabella Rosario has listed media, from books to articles to TV shows, to educate yourself on racism and how to participate in discussions about race. When you do talk about race, it is essential to remember the fundamentals of such conversations—listening before speaking, asking before asserting, playing a supporting role in our project to construct a more just world.