Two years ago I spent two weeks in Costa Rica and Panama on a medical mission trip with my pre-med group on campus. During this trip I helped set up two free clinics in which we saw local patients that couldn't afford to go to their local doctors. In total I think we helped over forty different people and at the time it felt really good to help others in need.
What I didn't realize until today was how unethical our "good doings" actually were. One of my friend's that went with me on this trip was told not to talk about exactly what we did on the trip because it WAS unethical, but I didn't fully understand that until I was sitting in class at 12:27 today and it hit me like a ton of bricks. White privilege.
To make a long story short and as least complicated as possible, the Latinos we were encountering kept using the word "gringa" which means foreigner, someone who speaks English and is typically white. It isn't an offensive word or a racial slur, at least in the context it was being used in towards us. The Latinos we were helping kept referring to us as "doctor," which at the time felt flattering because that is what I aspire to be, but now I realize how wrong this actually is. Out of eight pre-med students on our trip there was one that was of color. I was one of the only people in my group that spoke Spanish besides our translators and I found that if we tried to describe ourselves as students who aspired to be doctors our patients didn't fully understand and still referred to us as doctors (I am guessing this is because other mission trips consisting only of doctors from the USA frequent this area).
So there us pre-med students were, doing things we were not qualified to be doing, learning a lot along the way, but taking credit for being something we were not. I don't want to go into specific details because although we were not qualified for our roles, the organization that we went with has only good intentions for their trips. But, how could we think that it was okay to go to a third world region, wear scrubs and a stethoscope, and let people instill the trust in us to believe that we were actual health care providers? Although at the time I didn't see any of this, I am now struggling with the fact that we let this illusion be played out. I think it goes along the lines of what we talked about in class, you don't realize that you are privileged until you understand what privileged is.
Now I see the power that the word "gringa" actually held for me while I was on this trip. It held the power that when our patients saw me,a white American wearing medical scrubs, that they assumed I was a doctor and gave me the respect as if I actually was. Being a white American privileged me to be trusted with someonelse's life, something that I had no qualification for and no right to be doing. Being white granted me the respect of the people is the village before I had not earned. The villagers immediately instilled an incredible trust in me that allowed them to literally hand me their children and ask me to cure them. And then it hit me, this is not something that I had earned the right to do, this is something that being white granted me. It is not to say that a person of color would not have been given this same respect or have had a similar experience, but from my perspective this is what I feel happened.
Learning what we are in class is making me question experiences I've had and making me reevaluate the way I think. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. Maybe I am making connections that are not present, but I feel as though there is some connection to be made.
you might be interested in reading a highly contested and debated article called "to hell with good intentions" by ivan illich. It was written years ago, but I think it will really resonate with you. It is not so much about privilege per se, but more addresses issues of systemic change v.s "helping". Also, what is helping and who is really being helped.
Thank you for suggesting this article. I am not even sure what to say about it or what to think about it. I feel the the article can be summed up in this paragraph quote.
"If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail.If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as "good," a "sacrifice" and "help." "
So by helping others that we do not relate to and do not fully understand due to economic difference or as he says "linguistically deaf and dumb" we are doing more damage than good.
What is the answer to this? How can help actually be helpful if not by being do-gooders? The only thing I can think of is mutual acceptance and experience. Even through diversity education and training that many jobs offer I feel as this would only create more separation between the two groups, the helpers and the ones being helped.
I have read this article many different times, in various classes in my time at the U. I have had a chance to think about it a lot. Really there is no good answer. What I have come to in terms of working both here and abroad, is the need to listen. Listen to what those we are working to liberate, help, advocate for actually want and need. We are eager to impose what we feel is best or what we have seen to work best in our own communities. But perhaps that is not the case universally. Neo-imperalism is often manifest in this way. Imposing capitalist systems, western ways of life, or even white-centered, middle class concepts of ways of life.
Take a step back, ask, ask ask. What do you see as an issue, what is being done by those is power to help/hinder. How would you like to see that change? And then rather than doing it with a white-centered organization, with white-voices speaking for the "down-trodden" bring those you wish to help along. Make them leaders in your organization- we wont get anything done if we dont have those who are most impacted leading the way. As privileged individuals we need to play a backstage role.
It is hard for me to articulate what I mean, but I hope it is at least minimally clear.Sometimes I feel like I make little sense, and it all sounded more articulate in my heart and mind. But Open your ears, heart and world. Be comfortable with giving up a position of total leadership and control. In order to end oppression, we need to break the traditional cycles of power.
I have read this article many different times, in various classes in my time at the U. I have had a chance to think about it a lot. Really there is no good answer. What I have come to in terms of working both here and abroad, is the need to listen. Listen to what those we are working to liberate, help, advocate for actually want and need. We are eager to impose what we feel is best or what we have seen to work best in our own communities. But perhaps that is not the case universally. Neo-imperalism is often manifest in this way. Imposing capitalist systems, western ways of life, or even white-centered, middle class concepts of ways of life.
Take a step back, ask, ask ask. What do you see as an issue, what is being done by those is power to help/hinder. How would you like to see that change? And then rather than doing it with a white-centered organization, with white-voices speaking for the "down-trodden" bring those you wish to help along. Make them leaders in your organization- we wont get anything done if we dont have those who are most impacted leading the way. As privileged individuals we need to play a backstage role.
It is hard for me to articulate what I mean, but I hope it is at least minimally clear.Sometimes I feel like I make little sense, and it all sounded more articulate in my heart and mind. But Open your ears, heart and world. Be comfortable with giving up a position of total leadership and control. In order to end oppression, we need to break the traditional cycles of power.