How to Avoid the ‘White Savior Industrial Complex’
Ten years ago, the writer Teju Cole coined the term White Savior Industrial Complex to describe what he viewed as the all-too-familiar pattern of white people of privilege seeking personal catharsis by attempting to liberate, rescue, or otherwise uplift underprivileged people of color. “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice,” Cole wrote in a viral Twitter thread, which he then expanded on in The Atlantic.