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A little late again to the party, but really inspired (if that is the right word) by @o_rutazibwa& #39;s take on International Development, that "the entire notion of aid is obscene—and racist." https://tinyurl.com/y4xcodf4 ">https://tinyurl.com/y4xcodf4&...
She captures many things, in a short space, that I have been trying to reflect on (with limited success) since I worked in the "aid sector" for a short time as a bright-eyed youth, thinking that I was genuinely and unproblematically making the world a better place.
That is not to say, of course, that the majority of the people that work in the "aid sector" and humanitarianism in general don& #39;t approach it with good intentions. Of course they do. Of course...
But few people I met, or me, actually took time to reflect on the bigger picture of humanitarianism as a system of racist domination and oppression, or of the aid sector as a self-sustaining industrial-complex that never actually deals with the root problems it seeks to solve.
None of this is to say we should not act, but, as Dr. Rutazibwa rightly states, people in the Global North need to "engage with ideas of repair, dignity, and even retreat" and the fact of the "contributions of previously colonized people to wealth and advancements in the West."
I agree with her wholeheartedly. We need to STOP talking about aid, and START talking about reparation and repair. We need to recognise the role of colonialism in the world we walk through. We need to be open to different ways of seeing the world and knowledge about the world.
So, in sum: yes, in my experience, aid is racist. It doesn& #39;t work, and it never will. If you genuinely do want to make a difference, how about trying something else. Something radical. Something which actually tries to break the existing global systems of racist domination.