White Savior Syndrome

A few years ago, the left, in its infinite wisdom, decided to cancel the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, because it promoted the “white savior trope”. It was subsequently pulled off the shelves in school libraries and taken out of school curriculum. We were told that the “white savior” narrative was inherently racist. It describes a privileged, white person who believes he alone must rescue or uplift non-white or disadvantaged people. He is driven by a sense of moral superiority and self-serving motives. This unintentionally reinforces stereotypes and disempowers non-white communities. It focuses on the white helper as the hero, rather than empowering non-white or disadvantaged people to solve their own problems, which creates further dependency on the white hero from the people of color.

Isn’t this what we are witnessing in mass throughout the left? Isn’t this what is driving the left’s obsession with mass third world migration? Isn’t what we are witnessing in Minnesota the definitive example of white savoir syndrome? The overwhelming majority of people who are protesting what ICE is doing in Minneapolis are white liberals, especially liberal white females. Are these white women the saviors of the black Somali population? Are their protests prime examples of white saviorism? Are they morally superior to everyone else because they, as white people, are saving black people? Have any of these white women saviors ever said one word about the hundreds of white women who have been raped and murdered in this country by illegal immigrants of color? Those women who have been killed could have used a savoir. Is the liberal white women’s saviorism only apportioned based on skin color and not on need? The white savoir are morally superior to the rest of us because they will lay down their life to stop a criminal alien murderer from being deported, but cannot spare three seconds to tweet about a young white girl who was murdered by the murderer they laid down their life protecting.

If it is racist and a sign of white privilege for white people to rescue people of color, then why is the left so obsessed with “rescuing” people of color from third world countries through mass illegal immigration. If white people are not supposed to rescue people of color and we are supposed to allow them to solve their own problems, then why are we bringing in millions of people of color from places like Somalia and giving them $9 billion in order to survive? Isn’t this the biggest example of white savior syndrome in the history of the world? The white country coming to the rescue of the black country? Aren’t these people smart enough, strong enough, resourceful enough, hardworking enough to save their own country and the people in their own country without having the great white savior of America swooping in to save them? 

Somalia is a beautiful country. It has 2,000 miles of gorgeous beaches. It possesses significant, largely untapped natural resources, including reserves of oil and natural gas, substantial deposits of minerals like uranium, iron ore, tin, bauxite, copper, gypsum, and salt; it has vast marine resources, livestock, and agriculture. It has everything it needs to grow into prosperous, self-sustaining, vibrant country, yet it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Why? Just look at what the Somali people have done since coming to America. They are welcomed into the land of opportunity, the richest country on the planet, and what do they do? They go on welfare, food stamps and SNAP benefits, and commit $9 billion of fraud. And what are our responses to that?

There have been three multi-million-dollar fraud cases against Somalis in Minnesota that have been thrown out by the judges – they were all liberal white women judges. Judge Sarah West let Abdifatah Yusuf off after being convicted of $7 million of fraud; Judge Amber Brennan dismissed multimillion dollar fraud charges against Lul Ahmed; Judge Hillary Caligiuri threw out the fraud charges against Abdiweli Mohamud. Are they really saving these people by letting them get away with fraud, with stealing tax dollars from hard working Americans? What message are they sending? They are telling them that they are not smart enough, or hard working enough, or moral enough to earn an honest living in America. What these three judges think they are doing as a favor to the Somali people, by “saving” them, is insulting them. It is reinforcing every stereotype about Somali people. That is what white savior syndrome does – reinforce the negative stereotypes of the group that they are “saving”. You cannot survive without me. You have to be treated differently. It is the soft bigotry of low expectations in practice. These people have to be treated differently with lower expectations than white people. How about, let’s treat these people like adults and expect them to live and survive in America without our help and expect them to obey our laws. 

Maybe the reason why white people of European descent, thrive so well in America is not racism but the fact that when our ancestors came here, there was no welfare, no food stamps, no SNAP benefits, no housing allowance. You had to work and produce to survive. A work ethic was formed and promulgated out of necessity.  We learned the importance of hard work and an education. What have the Somalis learned since coming here? How to commit fraud and rip off the American taxpayer.  Are those the skills and the ethic that will produce greatness out of that community? Asian people come here and they build $9 billion businesses; Somali people come here and they commit $9 billion of fraud. If you replaced the Somali people in Somalia with 30 million Japanese people, it would be one of the richest countries on the planet in a generation.

Maybe, it’s about time that America stopped babying these other countries around the world and started treating them like grown up countries. Somalia fix yourself. Iran fix yourself. Venezuela fix yourself. And this doesn’t just go to countries of color. Europe fix yourself. America is not the savior of the world. We should remove all foreign aid. And only make deals and get involved with other countries when it’s in America’s interest. You other 190 countries, put on your big boy pants and grow the hell up. 

Black leader Malcolm X once said, “The worst enemy the Negro has is this White man who runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negroes and calling himself a liberal and it is following these White liberals that has perpetuated the problems that Negroes in America have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, trapped, tricked, deceived by the White liberal then Negroes would get together and solve our own problems.” What Malcolm exposed is what is currently happening with the liberal white saviors in America today. They are not saving the Somali people in Minnesota; they are exploiting them. The Somalis are only here because the white liberal Democrats need their vote so they can entrench their political power permanently in America. That’s it. They don’t care about them. They only want their vote. And if it takes white liberals to set up a $9 billion Somali daycare fraud scheme and run over ICE agents to ensure the Somali vote, they will do it.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.