After reading Lisa Miatello’s column this week, I couldn’t help but feel the irony of her column’s title: Radically Reread. There was nothing radical or original about her denouncing the masses of “white benevolent heroes” going off to save the “bottomless reservoir of poor people of colour.”
Miatello does have valid points, but takes on the role of an enlightened observer looking down at the misguided white bourgeois, slaves to their upbringing. She criticizes without analyzing the issue fully and ends up offering a rant that merely prods the surface of the argument.
What’s her solution? Is she arguing that those who are not white who engage in voluntourism have a more legitimate experience? Or is her argument more about privilege than race?
Bring something new to the discourse. Don’t rearticulate ideas that are already out there.
Emily Clare
U3 Political Science