By Prisca Afantchao
Humanitarian institutions fail to fulfill their responsibilities when interacting with Black communities all over the world. One contributing factor to this is the planetary notion of Blackness as eternally dispossessed. This hermeneutics of Blackness creates an immobile limit on humanitarian institutions’ intentions and actions. Importantly, humanitarianism as a general concept establishes an inclination or responsibility to raise and maintain a certain quality of life for those impacted by crises. Yet, it simultaneously reinforces systems that consistently deny Black people grievability[1]—where grievability refers to the quality of being apprehended as a life that is precarious and therefore injurable and able to be mourned–and dysselects[2] them. By analyzing the history of how humanitarian institutions have treated Black Africans and members of the African diaspora, I will clarify my argument that humanitarianism reinforces the dysselection of Black people. Using writings by Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick, and Frantz Fanon to frame these arguments, this paper prioritizes perspectives of Black theorists.
I begin the paper by tracking the dehumanization of Black people as it relates to the history of Enlightenment-based humanitarianism, evangelical humanitarianism, and modern interventionist humanitarianism to interrogate how the prolonged belief in “Black as dispossessed” has informed the humanitarian regime. In each section, I focus on pity, guilt, and indebtedness as emotions inextricably linked to humanitarianism, especially considering the specific dynamic between white agents of humanitarianism and Black people. In the first section, I show that pity is the most prescient feeling connected to humanitarianism owing to its socio-historical centrality in the reasoning and work of moderate white abolitionists and subsequent humanitarians interacting with Black people who have been deprived access to resources. Additionally, I theorize about Black suffering by engaging with Axelle Karera’s arguments against the Anthropocene. Next, I compare Black traditions of giving, notions of dignity, and beliefs about suffering with those of hegemonic white societies’ articulations to explain, primarily, what is lacking in the considerations of the humanitarian regime. About dignity, Vincent Lloyd’s book Black Dignity will aid in its definition(s), which themselves can be oppressive or supportive of Black people.
Furthermore, in this section, I analyze Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s article “Ubuntu, nite and humanism” to reinforce the value and validity of African humanitarian and humanist traditions, emphasizing the wealth of philosophical knowledge and practice among Black people. Each section will show a gap between humanitarian claims of responsibility to Black communities and fulfillment of this responsibility. I conclude by urging philosophers, humanitarian agents, and national and transnational actors generally to consider the importance and utility of African concepts of humanitarianism and interdependence with dignity and without pity.
Definitions and Their Histories
Humanitarianism is considered both a general civilized human capacity for feeling sympathy and compassion toward people (and refraining from inflicting suffering on them), and a model for governmental, economic, medical, and social interventions in the name of ‘development’ (Everill and Kaplan 2013, 2-3). To begin, humanitarianism as the ‘civilized’ human inclination originates during the Enlightenment Era and later motivates evangelical humanitarian initiatives of the 19th century. In the Enlightenment era, humanitarianism was resolutely humanist, focusing on a rational, secular motivation for sympathy and compassion. In line with this framing, the Enlightenment is the term used to refer to an era of the mid-eighteenth-century philosophical movement and organization from French thinkers such as Voltaire and Montesquieu, marked by a trend of departure from religiosity in philosophy, relying instead on rationality and the methods of the natural sciences.
Development was at the center of the Enlightenment, both scientific and moral development. The early British Enlightenment thinker and theologian, Samuel Clarke, argued that the duties we have toward one another are determined by equity. Clarke wrote that we should deal with others as we can reasonably expect others to deal with us, using love to further the well-being and happiness of all. In his work A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion (1706), he claims that “in men’s dealing … one with another, it is undeniably more fit, absolutely and in the nature of the thing itself, that all men should endeavor to promote the universal good and welfare of all; than that all men should be continually contriving the ruin and destruction of all” (Clarke 1706, 159 ). The Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant is much more cynical than Clarke, but he also speaks of development as a means for helping one’s fellow humans. Kant believes that humanity is inclined towards conflict and violence, but nature will push us towards a higher level of morality and peace.
Later, Evangelical charity in the 19th century furthered humanitarianism as defined by Enlightenment thinkers into concrete, but less humanistic action. Both Great Awakenings, eras of religious fervor, emphasized a Christianity that allowed personal relationships with God and a call to do good works. An attempt to perfect humanity was behind promoting good works such as giving money, distributing clothing, spreading the gospel, and advocating for more housing for the poor. This humanitarianism gained support from white Christians, especially young middle-class white women, for abolition. As white women have historically (and contemporarily) been framed as the standard-bearers for morality in the U.S., their developing humanitarian morals heavily influenced the middle class of the Northeastern United States, which in turn influenced the rest of the nation. Middle class white women’s particular social position gives them economic and racial privilege in a society that respects their emotions more than others’, in turn, encouraging them to feel pity for those who are less fortunate.
Pity originates from the word pieté, which connotes being merciful and tender. In the 12th century, the Old French word piete (faith and compassion) was derived from the Latin pietas, which was defined as compassion and pity (Oxford English Dictionary 2024). According to the Oxford Dictionary, the present meaning of pity is tenderness and concern aroused by the suffering, distress, or misfortune of another, and prompting a desire for its relief; compassion, sympathy. In terms of usage, the frequency with which people use the word pity has been declining quite consistently. I propose this is not due to people feeling pity less, but rather an increased connotation with condescension. Now, people are more likely to feel compassion.
While some theorists and philosophers, like Aristotle, believe that pity is compassion in excess (Kristjánsson 2014, 344), I argue that pity is compassion misformed. There is a process in which suffering turns into feeling sympathy, and when this process is corrupted by guilt, it forms pity, which is an insufficient compassion. It is insufficient because it doesn’t qualify the person being pitied as a complete person with dignity or agency. This alchemy of suffering, sympathy, compassion, guilt, and pity is confusing and difficult to discern when race, gender, class, geography, law, and ethics are considered globally. To start this analysis of Blackness and humanitarianism, I will recount the relationship between white humanitarian sentiments and the moderate white side of the abolitionist movement in the United States.
The interpretation of Blackness as dispossession can be explained using Sylvia Wynter’s theory of dysselection. On Being Human as Praxis (2015), a collection of essays edited by Katherine McKittrich, highlights Sylvia Wynter’s critical definitions of humanity, challenging that of homo oeconomicus, Man 1, and Man 2. Wynter defines Man 1 as homo politicus, emerging out of the Renaissance and Europe’s first encounter with the “New World.” This definition changed, secularized by Darwinism and economized by liberalism, becoming homo oeconomicus, or Man 2. Man 2 defines humanity by the selected (ex., Natural selection and fitness as presented by Darwin/neo-Malthusian theories) and the dysselected. Wynter states that this selection and dysselection, aligned with eugenics and dysgenics, is racial. Wynter and McKittrick, respectively, engage with Frantz Fanon’s description of hybridity in Blackness (skins, masks, negro, native, subhuman Other etc.) to support the theory of the hybrid human (Wynter 2015, 10). Due to the acceptance of Black people as a subhuman Other, their suffering is then less of a concern and more difficult for people to grieve.
Furthermore, this lack of grievability is rooted in the fact that the lives of Black people are considered less than others or not lives at all. As Judith Butler writes in Precarious Life (2004), different definitions and considerations of normative humanity determine who can lose their life, be remembered, and be mourned. If the world has already deemed your life unlivable, you cannot be grievable. While Butler’s writing focuses on the post-9/11 United States, dehumanizing Guantanamo Bay detainees, and occupied Afghanistan, I will apply the term “grievable” to the understanding of Black life generally and specifically. The lack of grievability of Black life logically implies that Black life is inherently that of suffering, in its being. Therefore, it makes it impossible for others (non-Black, but also Black) to consider Black people to exist beyond suffering. Specifically, the act of admitting Black people’s agency over their self-help as opposed to being “saved” by outside forces, like Western humanitarian organizations, seems unnatural and out of order, and thus is rendered a practical impossibility.
Abolition and Pity
As Enlightenment era thinking highly influenced the roots of the abolitionist movement, arguments regarding “the rights of man” were understood as expressing each human being as an individual endowed with rational faculties, owed dignity, and based on natural law. While Christian religious reasonings frontloaded notions of the sacredness of life and the cruelty of chattel slavery, many abolitionists believed that gradual progress and rational appeal through writings or discussion would be most effective. Over time, abolitionists got more intense and forceful with their actions because they realized the situation was urgent and called for a change in course. Nevertheless, this did not lead to more support from Americans in the North, despite popular belief, or the South. Rather, for a long time, abolitionism was considered a form of extremism, and, subsequently, people did not vote in favor of abolitionism. At the center of the gradualism/literary corner of the movement was the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, an upper-class white woman from Hartford, Connecticut. Her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852),is firmly grounded in the American literary canon and American history. Notably, and often obscured, is the book’s alternate title, “Life Among the Lowly,” and names the hierarchical framing of those who receive aid and those who give. The lowly are those who are given to, the Black, the poor; the highly are those who give. Stereotypically, the white, middle-class, or wealthy people. My personal opinion on this text is not unique, nor is it the point of this section. Rather, I name Harriet Beecher Stowe and her book because I believe its great influence over the country and its ethos of garnering “sympathy” for Black people as subjects ofsuffering tremendously is evidence that pity is central to the formation of Black people as subjects of humanitarianism. The book was not only consequential in the United States. Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” reached the United Kingdom and was directly presented to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In her letter to Prince Albert, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the following:
We, in America, have been told that the throne of Earth’s mightiest nation is now filled by One less adorned by all this world can give of power and splendour, than by a good & noble heart – a heart ever ready to feel for the suffering the oppressed and the lowly.
The author is encouraged by the thought that beneath the royal insignia of England throbs that woman’s & mother’s heart. May she ask that He who is nearest to her would present to her notice this simple story. Should it win from her compassionate nature, pitying thoughts for those multitudes of poor outcasts who have fled for shelter to the shadow of her throne, – it were enough. (The Gilder Lehrman Society of American History)
In the passage, Stowe uses the word pity outright, as it was normal and considered noble in 1852. Today, pity does not have positive connotations. Rather, to connect back to the original title of Stowe’s work, I assert that people use the word pity less often because they are more averse to admitting they see someone as “lowly.” Additionally, pity is not a pleasant feeling, especially when a desire for the relief of another’s suffering remains and no relief comes. Furthermore, under this framework, when someone is seemingly losing their dignity or has no dignity left, and one cannot bring it to them, guilt remains. Moderate white abolitionists felt both pity and guilt about the situation of the enslaved. They pitied Black people for being deprived of their dignity, for not even being considered fully human, and felt guilty for not being able to free Black people. To return to the example of Harriet Beecher Stowe, it is notable that she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin after being inspired by the autobiography “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself,” which described the experiences of Josiah Henson as an enslaved man in the American South. He dictated this entire autobiography as he could not read or write at the time of its publication. Still, he continued to write another book called “Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life” (Brock 2018).
There were many other stories told by Black people about their own experiences, but the bleeding-heart fiction writer appealed to so much of the nation because of her respectable, well-off station in life. Other publications like The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, and The Slave’s Friend, an abolitionist children’s periodical, were started by white abolitionists. On the back of The Slave’s Friend is a mission statement, one sentence being: “I believe that Jesus came into the world to save sinners: that black people are not greater sinners than white people…” (The Slave’s Friend 1835). Here, the writer is denouncing the impulse to call the suffering evil (re: Rotten-row), or more sinful than those not suffering. Furthermore, it suggests that Black people can be saved if they convert; thus, to be subjected to such pain and torture, to be an object, Black people must have done something wrong or failed to accept the morality of the good? They must be the descendants of Cain. Their darkness must be morally dark, and the mark of the beast. The blame is on them, not whiteness or subjugation. The Slave’s Friend and other activist literature were important for humanizing enslaved people, decoupling Blackness with sin, and naming the evil of hating one’s brother (in Christ), the Black person. In turn, guilt was potentially removed from the person suffering and put on the oppressor for not recognizing or respecting the humanity and dignity of the Black people. The important question to ask is whether or not the intellectual and philosophical descendants of moderate white abolitionists successfully took responsibility for anti-Black racism or if they continued to place the blame on Blackness itself.
White (Wo)man’s Burden
The term white man’s burden first came from the poem by Rudyard Kipling and defended the colonization of the Philippines in order to speed up the nation’s maturation by “assisting” the people of these foreign lands in their own development.[3] Yet, it is not just language that renders whites who develop and Black and non-Black people of color as those in need of development. Today, this position has evolved into the common belief that developed nations have a responsibility to assist developing nations in their development by sharing resources and knowledge. If a decolonized country is operating under the domination of institutions that take up this responsibility over them due to “knowing better,” they are not yet post-colonial.[4]
Furthermore, the unity of whites as good and Black/non-Black people of Color as bad/in need is emphasized through liberal institutions like the United Nations, the Peace Corps, Doctors without Borders, and the World Bank, as well as through smaller nonprofits that deploy aid workers all over the world. However, the inner workings of these institutions tend to reinforce the disparities between the foreign aid workers, domestic aid workers, and the communities they are serving. The insistence on unity, equality, and homogeneity contrasts with the actions of humanitarian institutions, nonprofit organizations, and individual agents.
That belief that Black people have some inherent, natural quality was claimed by slaver and colonial masters/mistresses and others in power for centuries. A common statement was that hard work is good for Black people. “Good for” is key in this sentence because it shows that outsiders believed they knew how to care for or increase the welfare of Black people, which was based in assumed knowledge and bioessentialism, which continues. Racism was not, and is still not, considered harmful because it was believed to be the most natural and beneficial order. White oppressors believed that it was truly white people’s burden to create the correct conditions for Black people to thrive. Even if this is denied in human rights discourse now, undergirding human rights theory and charity is this explicit racialized hierarchy. When representatives and supporters of human rights theory and institutions like the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, and the World Bank believe they know what is best for what they call “developing” nations because they are from “developed” nations, this is a rebranding of white supremacy and Western supremacy.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was founded in 1971 in France by a group of doctors and journalists in the aftermath of crises in Biafra, Nigeria. This group of doctors and journalists established MSF with impartiality and efficacy as their primary values. According to the organization, “MSF was established on the belief that all people should have access to high-quality health care, regardless of gender, race, religion, creed, or political affiliation” (Médecins Sans Frontières 2023). Additionally, they claim to prioritize not only providing emergency care to people impacted by humanitarian crises but also drawing attention to their experiences and their root causes. And while it is clear that MSF has helped individual people deprived of access to quality health care, operating as foundational in their mission in an anti-Black world is the reinforcement of white supremacy that takes place in the interactions between MSF volunteers from abroad, local MSF volunteers, and patients.
In the article “Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life,” Didier Fassin paints a vivid picture of the disparities in treatment of local workers and outside workers who are usually Westerners. The section entitled “Lives Valued, Lives Told” is most applicable to my thesis. Fassin explains that in times of war, famine, and illness, there is an implicit hierarchy of life. For example, when hostages are taken as pawns in wartime, actors are conscious of this hierarchy and are more likely to abduct white Westerners than local people of color. There is an obvious, stark contrast between the literal value of their lives, and warring parties take advantage of this fact. The value of people’s lives are negotiated and put into exact cash terms by warring parties, and humanitarian organizations play into this hierarchy, too. When treating illness, the prioritization of certain lives over others is also present. The disparity is not just between populations being served by MSF, but also within MSF staff who are labelled as national staff and international staff.
Importantly, during the dissemination of antiretroviral drugs, “its own local agents suffering from AIDS, particularly in Africa, were not receiving treatment” (Fassin 2007, 514-516). In 2022, reports of MSF staff experiencing abuse and discrimination, including segregation, being called racial slurs, and receiving unequal pay, benefits, and advancement opportunities. In these reports, there are consistent testimonies that foreign workers are given more decision-making power, higher salaries, better benefits, and protection. This comes over a decade after Fassin’s “Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life,” in which he states the following:
In other words, even within these institutions — as in development and cooperative organizations, too — distinctions are set up between foreign staff, almost always Western and white, and local employees. These distinctions, in addition to the material advantages conferred on foreign staff, are augmented by much more serious disadvantages that for the local staff, concern their very survival, whether they are endangered by illness or war (Fassin 2007, 516)
Clearly, race, class, and vocation are all involved in determining one’s grievability and selection or dysselection within humanitarian dynamics. In “Ulcers of the City,” all of the people being written about were at different levels of whiteness and class, which determined how pitiable they were and how much respect they deserved. While the physician, Rev. Chapin, was characterized as a good man for lowering himself into the dirtier avenues of New York City to serve the poor, Harriet Beecher Stowe was praised for taking up the cause of arguing that the enslaved were humans deserving of compassion. White Westerners are rewarded for their work with MSF; others are taken for granted and devalued. Overall, the “national staff” is seen as belonging to dispossession, and therefore, their participation in humanitarian causes is less remarkable to MSF and other humanitarian organizations. They are “meant to be” in this state of crisis, and if they choose to help their fellow countrymen, it aids the mission of MSF, but apparently does not warrant good treatment or proper compensation. Western doctors are grievable and ample measures are taken to protect them, valuing their sacrifice more than that of local staff.
Oftentimes, being in the role of the caregiver is not a real act of “lowering” oneself to the same level as those suffering. Being able to give aid or take aid away is a position of power and does not guarantee morality. Medical negligence and malpractice in colonial and post-colonial societies are tethered to racialization and violence despite expressed intention. A racialized patient being treated by a white doctor can feel mistrust and fear, seeing the white doctor, or even the institution of the foreign-run hospital itself, as an extension of colonialism.[5] What the white, western doctor might think of as the delicate relationship between practitioner and patient is felt as precarity. The motivation of the doctor, whether it is white guilt, respectability, or power, does not guarantee the patient is safe.
Considering white saviorism, epistemic injustice, and the moral authority of white womanhood, one can connect both the colonial doctor-patient relationship described by Fanon and the literary campaign of Stowe to contemporary humanitarianism. By looking at the racial and gender demographics of major humanitarian organizations, we can identify a trend in those who participate in humanitarian action. For example, a high percentage of Peace Corps volunteers are white women. According to the 2023 Peace Corps volunteer survey, 55% of volunteers were female and 73% were white (Peace Corps Office of Strategic Information, Research, and Planning 2023). Though misogyny promotes the notion that women are better suited for caretaking, taking agency away from women, white supremacy gives more legitimacy to the judgments of white people. For white women, the convergence of patriarchy and white supremacy leads to a higher belief in their thoughts and actions regarding humanitarian crises, even when they are outsiders.
White saviorism did not stop harming people when the new millennium began, but rather began manifesting itself in new ways. One particularly egregious example of contemporary white saviorism is also an example of imperialist feminism. The commonality of encountering women in the humanitarian field, volunteering, and working in the office back at headquarters is an outcome of the first wave of feminism’s push for women in the workplace. Due to the increasing public sentiment’s acceptance of first-wave feminist ideals, women were more accepted as workers in bureaucracies. Looking at the history of “on-the-ground” humanitarian work, we can see that white women have long been encouraged to take the role of caregiver for foreigners, but the professionalization of white women gave them more power over policy and practice, intellectually. Such legitimized knowledge has allowed white women to make definitive claims and irreversible actions, whether they are qualified or not.
The case of U.S. missionary Renee Bach comes to mind. Bach started an organization, Serving His Children, and practiced medicine on Ugandan children despite not holding any medical license, leading to the deaths of 105 children. Bach was just one of many U.S. missionaries setting up charities in Jinja, Uganda. Her uninformed white consciousness, paired with arrogant and naive motivations, ended up killing babies. Though this instance of medical malpractice may seem like an outlier, the actual motivations that led to Bach’s actions are extremely common. Renee Bach said she believed this nutrition center was a “calling from God” and that she didn’t think it was a big deal that she was attempting to treat children instead of taking them to the hospital. Here, we see a literal idolization of American emotion and concern over the respect of the actual legitimate medical knowledge of Ugandan doctors. Her belief that children’s malnourishment just “isn’t right” was then outweighed by the actual well-being of said children. Bach’s white concern caused what she described as an “almost out-of-body experience,” but clearly the pity she felt for the suffering Ugandan children wasn’t enough to bring her to medical school (Aizenman and Gharib 2019). Here, we can observe the alchemy of suffering once again: pity came from Bach’s experience of meeting sick Ugandan children rather than compassion, motivating her to act and relieve her white guilt. She did not feel real compassion, but pity, which does not allow the full personhood of others. Her emotions were uplifted above those of the Ugandan children and their families. When Bach first met these children, she thought, “This needs to stop” (Aizenman and Gharib 2019). I asked what needed to stop, was it her discomfort or the children’s discomfort? More people who find themselves moved to take humanitarian action must ask whose comfort they are working towards.
In Renee Bach’s disregard for the lives of these sick children, she also disregarded the humanity of their mothers. Likely, Bach saw the Ugandan women looking for healthcare as ignorant and desperate women aligned with the homogenous concept of the Third World Woman. Within normative liberal feminist thought, what Françoise Vergès aptly names civilizational feminism, women of the Global South are also anonymous. Women of the Global South become one hypothetical “Third World Woman” who is subjected to great hardships that they can be freed from by the West and its women’s rights (Mohanty 1984, 333). The Third World Woman cannot be grievable because she is not a real being. Her children inherit this lack of grievability. In this case, due to their blackness and poverty. The real women of the Global South are thus relegated to a kind of anonymity closer to nonexistence. Hegemonic Western feminism assumes expertise on the being of women of color in all sorts of locations within the vast Global South, even without interaction with even one corner of the “third world.” This brand of western feminism rarely considers women of the Global South as their partners in women’s liberation, or agents of women’s liberation, but rather subjects of subjugation and subjects of a movement that white western women should be leading. The outcomes of the Western feminist movement are then assumed to save the rest of the women secondarily. This is the feminist specific inclination of the West for “control over the orientation, regulation and decision of the process of world development on the basis of the advanced sector’s monopoly of scientific knowledge and ideal creativity” (Mohanty 1984, 335).
Black Debt and Black Dignity
Wielding power over others through the guise of caring has been normalized through the system of debt on an interpersonal and international level. Black nations and Black people within Western nations receiving financial assistance are in a position of subjugation. White distributors of aid feel pity for those marked with Blackness and poverty, while the Black people systematically deprived of resources feel shame for depending on someone else for subsistence. The effects are not merely social and political, but ontological and affective, where the theft of dignity hurts the soul, especially when the chance for upward mobility is rendered unattainable. The loss of dignity can also hurt onlookers, say in the case of a Black mother paying for groceries with food stamps, or a Black man asking for money on a busy street corner, where the white onlooker feels disturbed. In these cases, if the white onlooker cannot bring dignity back to the Black person in need, or save the Black person, they feel offended by their inability to help and a slight to their ego. The act of being Black and poor is turned into an offense to the senses and white notions of dignity. Furthermore, in considering the gap that can exist between one’s understanding of oneself and how one is read by others, it is possible for someone suffering to feel like they have retained their dignity. At the same time, onlookers see them differently, as undignified, as undeserving of the marker of dignity. This difference in defining dignity is personal, but also political, with race/racialization and culture acting as major factors. In Black Dignity: the struggle against domination (2022), Vincent Lloyd considers how the philosophy of Black dignity animates social movements, especially in the Black Lives Matter movement. Lloyd characterizes dignity not as respectability, a status, or an essence, but as a practice, performance, and way of engaging with the world around us. The most crucial aspect of Black dignity as opposed to the more static, apolitical notion of dignity is that it is defined by a struggle against a system of domination and a world of violence against Black people. In other words, it is defined as relational.
Lloyd uses Frederick Douglass’s account of his physical fight with the slaver Covey to illustrate the dignifying effect of a struggle against domination. He calls this fight between Douglass and Covey the “primal scene” of anti-Blackness and bases his understanding of Black dignity in Black American efforts to gain, regain, and maintain their own dignity. Though Douglass was enslaved at the time he wrestled with Covey, having Covey’s life in his hands and standing his ground, directly and literally fighting domination gave him dignity and a feeling of liberty independent of his legal enslavement. To Lloyd, “the more struggle, the more dignity; the less struggle, the less dignity” (Lloyd 2022, 8) and I argue that this focus on dignity as an action and commitment, not an essence or object, is integral to transnational conceptions of Black dignity emanating from the theorizing and lived experiences of Black people.
The “primal scenes” of Black indebtedness are emancipation and decolonization. The legacies of debt are both philosophical and material, as seen in cultural and economic norms. Some white people still see enslavement as some sort of fulfilment of the white man’s burden, eventually reformed due to emancipation. Though slavery was outlawed, white people remained the arbiters of morality and the authority over what is good for Black people. The continued violent racism of the Reconstruction Era United States was seen as comparatively merciful. The whites gave up their ability to order Black people around as objects or animals, but they were now able to continue their treatment of Black people as subhuman, and it could be considered a favor. This remains true. Likewise, Europe’s begrudged relinquishing of the African continent and the Caribbean puts different Black people into a position of debt. Haiti’s groundbreaking fight for freedom resulted in decolonization and the 1825 “independence debt” of 150 million francs to make up for France’s loss of property, including previously enslaved human beings. Though this debt has been highly criticized in modern times and credited as one source of Haiti’s economic instability, France has not offered reparations to the Haitian people. The African nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo paid annual colonial taxes to France for decades. Though some of these nations have recently broken off this economic relationship, most remain closely tied to the French economy. Monetary aid through loans is normalized, and so are their interest rates. Is it truly helpful if it puts these countries in a position of dependence and inescapable debt? Who should be in debt to whom?
The ethos and actions of the International Monetary Fund are glaring examples of the harm done via the imposition of white (whitened) dignity onto Black people instead of prioritizing the solutions Black people come up with for themselves. The IMF claims to work towards growth and prosperity for all of its member states through monetary cooperation. The IMF self-proclaims and is proclaimed by whites and those who take up white supremacist and colonialist agendas to promote job creation, productivity, and economic well-being (International Monetary Fund 2024). And while they may in fact create jobs, enable productivity, and play a role in the economics of individuals and nation-states, I am particularly interested in the use of the word well-being. The IMF has its own understanding of well-being, and it does not align with that of the people most in need of economic “development.” Well-being is assumed to be universal by the IMF when, in reality, well-being is a relational concept. The question of Black-centric practices for well-being is not considered by the IMF, and this is detrimental to the welfare of Black people, globally. The preference for universality in humanitarianism is exclusionary and continues the practice of making whiteness the default.
I believe the crux of this problem is represented through a soundbite from the documentary Life and Debt (2001). An IMF representative being interviewed throughout the film asks “Why shouldn’t they have the right to buy things that other people have in the rest of the world?” which is a sentiment clearly rooted in an ontic pursuit, the collection of capital, the pursuit of an object and the status it is associated with, not a commitment to action (Black 2001). This IMF representative believes the IMF is giving dignity to developing nations like Jamaica, the one highlighted in Life and Debt, by giving them loans and opportunities to participate in the free market. Having McDonald’s and Baskin-Robbins in Jamaica is seen as a representation of dignity, class, and inclusion in “the rest of the world”—read: the white world of racialized capitalism. The IMF, the World Bank, and political leaders decide what is best for the common person in these developing countries, with little consideration that they could be wrong about what is best and the common person could be right. Yet, on the topic of the free market and Jamaican dependence on imported goods, one Jamaican farmer says, “It’s an insult to our dignity to not be able to produce and sell in your own market at home” (Black 2001). The local/national economy of Jamaica within a larger global economic system was established through treaties and conferences such as the Lomé Convention, a thrice-negotiated and renewed agreement between the European Economic Community and 71 African, Caribbean, and Pacific nations, meant to give back something to former colonies. Giving back for the greater good is inevitably flawed when the greater good has been defined long ago by the white West and does not guarantee real freedom. To quote the refrain of the documentary’s musical theme: “Life and debt, freedom not yet” (Black 2001).
By contrast, from the perspective of blackness in relation to systems of white supremacist meaning and practice, I ask: Is treating someone as a human being really a favor? Is treating someone as a human being a favor that requires repayment? If repayment is due, can an acre of giving really be considered a favor? Even if the fact of white indebtedness to Black people was regularly acknowledged and reparations were issued, pity is not necessarily eliminated. The motivations and reasoning behind giving (e.g., or taking debt forgiveness) can determine its true impact on the party in need. If you are helping someone to silence them or to remove them from your sight, in other words, to stop the offenses to your senses that so often lead to pity and guilt, you are giving not out of respect for their humanity and compassion towards their suffering but rather for your own comfort. It is ego-centric and concerned with the experience of the self rather than others or the Other. Such an approach fails to account for the complexity and wholeness of the person suffering, let alone their wants or needs. To help someone effectively, one must value their expertise on their own suffering and be invested in their self-understanding. Compared to systems of charity and aid, this is dignifying because it is an opportunity for the one who has been systematically deprived to have an agentic role in their own struggle. In many typical frameworks for humanitarianism, there is little to no room for this agentic role for Black subjects of humanitarian aid.
Our Malady, Our Remedy
The Wolof proverb “Nit nitay garabam” (Man is the remedy for man) is a starting point for a dignified, active, and interdependent humanitarian philosophy that centers African and Black conceptions of self and community. Though Vincent Lloyd’s theory and practice of Black Dignity is based on Black American struggle, I believe that Black dignity is also a transcontinental, diasporic philosophical practice. The thought that [hu]man is the remedy for [hu]man “is to say that humanity is not a state but a becoming and a task, and that my neighbor is someone who helps me accomplish that. One is not born but rather becomes human” (Diagne 2021). This is ontological, not ontic, just like the Black dignity Lloyd describes and argues for. This process-based humanity and humanitarianism is strengthened when one vowel is changed within the proverb. If the proverb is changed to “Nit nitey garabam,” it means “the remedy for humans is to become (to manifest as) human” (Diagne 2021). The concept of development is not a lost cause or purely evil, but rather something that should be developed outside of its definition within the Enlightenment and general Western philosophy. If development is for all of us, why should its trajectory be determined by only one group? If we are one humanity and the maladies experienced by some are a concern to all, as most humanitarian thinkers would easily accept, our remedies should be sought and formed by all.
Likewise, the Xhosa term ubuntu (I am because we are) proclaims our unavoidable interdependence as human beings while challenging the Anthropocene and color-blind humanism’s attempts at oneness. As Desmond Tutu theorized through his Ubuntu theology, to be true to Ubuntu is to be compassionate, caring, hospitable, and generous (Tutu 1999, 34-36). Nelson Mandela, who worked with Tutu through the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, once said that ubuntu is about the betterment of the community (Biagne 2021). Recognizing the humanity of others is imperative in the pursuit of making the community better. The plurality of South African society is also important when considering the importance of difference in this collectivism. These two perspectives on Ubuntu, one practiced more in the Church and the other more in the government, show that mutual responsibility, care, and participation are central to Ubuntu and are emboldened by cooperation while acknowledging our differences, rather than ignoring them as color-blind humanism does. Colorblind humanism does not allow for the full complexity of others’ humanity because it denies the significance of our cultural and racial experiences. Let us recognize the place of our differences in our maladies and give room for our different perspectives in the process of remedying said maladies.
Finally, African humanism, humanitarianism, and collectivism are not limited to the two phrases I have written about in this conclusion. I believe that Africa and the African diaspora are rich with humanitarianism(s) that have moral authority and should be part of our remedy. Blackness should not be regarded as an ailment, something pitiable, or a naturally torturous experience. To place the white West as the only answer to humanity’s progress is bare white supremacy despite liberal institutions’ connotation with equality and development. If we are all one humanity on a journey to betterment, there is no reason for whiteness to continue to lead or for Blackness to be eternally subjugated. For humanity to progress, Black people should not continue to be pitied, an act which denies us our humanity and an agentic role in our betterment. Blackness is not a malady. Blackness is a remedy.
Bibliography
Aizenman, Nurith, and Malaka Gharib. “American with No Medical Training Ran Center for Malnourished Ugandan Kids. 105 Died.” NPR, 9 Aug. 2019, http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/09/749005287/american-with-no-medical-training-ran-center-for-malnourished-ugandan-kids-105-d. Accessed 27 May 2025.
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, James Schmidt, and Cambridge University Press. 2009. Kant’s
Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide. Cambridge Etc. Cambridge University Press.
Bachir Diagne, Souleymane. 2021. “Ubuntu, Nite and Humanism – Palais de Tokyo.” Palaisdetokyo.com. 2021. https://palaisdetokyo.com/en/ressource/ubuntu-nite-et-humanisme/.
Black, Stephanie, dir. 2001. Life and Debt. United States of America: New Yorker Films.
Brock, Jared. 2018. “The Story of Josiah Henson, the Real Inspiration for ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’” Smithsonian. Smithsonian.com. May 16, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-josiah-henson-real-inspiration-uncle-toms-cabin-180969094/.
Butler, Judith. Frames of war: When is life grievable? London: Verso Books, 2009.
Césaire, Aimé, Joan Pinkham, and Robin D.G. Kelley. “DISCOURSE ON COLONIALISM.”
In Discourse on Colonialism, 29–78. NYU Press, 2000. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfkrm.4.
Clarke, Samuel. 1708. A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation.
Doctors Without Borders. 2023. “Our History.” Doctors without Borders – USA. 2023. https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/who-we-are/our-history.
Everill, Bronwen, and Josiah David Kaplan. The history and practice of humanitarian intervention and aid in Africa. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Fanon, Frantz. Chapter. In A Dying Colonialism, 121–25. New York, New York: Grove Press, 1965.
Fassin, Didier. “Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life.” Public Culture, vol. 19, no. 3, 1 Oct. 2007, pp. 499–520, http://www.sss.ias.edu/files/pdfs/Fassin/Humanitarianism-as-politics-life.pdf, https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2007-00
“Harriet Beecher Stowe Sends Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1852 | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.” n.d. http://www.gilderlehrman.org. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/harriet-beecher-stowe-sends-uncle-toms-cabin-queen
International Monetary Fund. 2024. “About the IMF.” IMF. International Monetary Fund. 2024. https://www.imf.org/en/About.
Kipling, Rudyard. “The White Man’s Burden” Kipling Society. 2024. https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_burden.htm
Kristjánsson, Kristján. “Pity: A Mitigated Defence.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 44, no. 3/4 (2014): 343–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26452108
Loring Brace. “The Ulcers of the City.” The New York Times, June 2, 1855. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1855/06/02/issue.htm
Lu, Joanne. 2022. “Doctors without Borders Addresses Charges of Racism within Its Ranks.” NPR, May 9, 2022. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/05/09/1091122969/msf-doctors-without-borders-racism
Marx, Jerry. 2011. “Women, Settlements and Poverty.” Social Welfare History Project. February 24, 2011. https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/settlement-houses/women-settlements-and-poverty
McKittrick, Katherine. Sylvia Wynter: On being human as praxis. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.
Miller, Stuart Creighton. Benevolent assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1984.
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “pity (n.),” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7754728836.
“Projects & Operations | the World Bank.” World Bank, projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/projects-home?lang=en.
“The Slave’s Friend, #2 (June 1835).” n.d. http://Www.merrycoz.org. https://www.merrycoz.org/slave/slave02/SLAVE02.xhtml.
Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future without Forgiveness. London: Ride
[1] This term is used by Judith Butler in the book Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (2004) and later in the book Frames of War (2009).
[2] Sylvia Wynter meditates on the bifurcation of humanity into selected and the dysselected in the paper “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation– An Argument (2003) and is analyzed by Denise Ferreira da Silva in the book “Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis” (2015).
[3] The motivation of assisting the Filipinos in “proper” governance was expressed widely by the public and politicians, including President William McKinley in his 1898 proclamation, “Benevolent Assimilation.”
[4] Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism interrogates the notion that supremacy can look like white people taking up responsibility over nonwhite peoples.
[5] Fanon, Frantz. Chapter. In A Dying Colonialism, 121–25. New York, New York: Grove Press, 1965.