Its not everyday that I get to sit down with a white male, who fully acknowledges his privilege and actively resists his institutionalized power, for dinner.

As a student who hopes to pursue a career in service to others, I was pushed to evaluate my own privilege. It is very easy to forget that I, a black woman, have privilege. But my privilege doesn’t stem affirmative action, it comes from the Ivy League University I called Big Red. It comes from my middle class status, English as my first language, and my able bodiedness.

Yet when all of that was presented to me, all I could think about is the internal privilege. My thoughts about service are privileged.

The idea of international development is privileged. How dare the Anglo-Saxon world come to another part of the world, perceived as needing the white man’s help, and impose Western views of prosperity?

The idea of social entrepreneurship is privileged. We neglect to think that social entrepreneurship is about making a good for some, regardless of their country. Imagine a group of woman in Bangladesh manufacturing parts to make a wheelchair for a paralyzed child in America. This woman is participating in social entrepreneurship.  We think that social entrepreneurship is only for those in developed countries. This isn’t true. One type of country doesn’t have monopoly over social entrepreneurship.

The idea foreign aid is privileged. How can we think to rebuild economies when we impose economic disasters on them? After the earthquake Haiti, many developed countries flocked to send aid. The thing about foreign aid is that it typically hampers the economies of communities because individuals aren’t circulating money anymore. A Haitian man was quoted saying, “After the natural disasters surfaced, an economic disasters soon followed.”

As a person with the intention to do good, I need to acknowledge and actively resist institutionalized powers. When we can do this, we will see a change in the way that we interact with various groups, communities, or nations. Are you willing to give up your privilege, internal or external? With the small that I have, I am.

I’m really glad to have gone to the dinner about the Poverty Inc. documentary. It really opened my eyes about some of the deeper impacts of the United States’ efforts to save the world from poverty. At first, we talked about how in Africa, a lot of people strive to leave their home country for education in the United States. Some of my fellow dinner guests were Africans who did so. However, there is a need for them to return, and when they don’t, there is brain drain in the country. A lot of students become accustomed to the United States lifestyle and end up staying here. But one of the other guests stated that in her schools, there was an emphasis on returning to her home country because she could make much bigger changes there than she could here.

I later up brought up a youtube video I saw about Haitian children eating dirt because they had nothing better to eat. The video may not be completely true, but there was a message sent in the video. The country is really really poor. A lot of it had to do with the earthquakes a few years ago, but the main setback the country faced was the United States’ influx of food for the people. The farms in Haiti were still fine, but with all the free food being given to the Haitian people, there was no need for them to purchase locally. This caused the economy to go down the drain and set Haiti back. The message I got from the dinner: Is the United States helping too much? Is there a limit to how much the United States should be helping?

Over the past weekend, I also started watching Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, with their new host, Trevor Noah, who is from South Africa. I looked back on his older appearances on the show. One of his segments had to do exactly what was discussed in the dinner. Though this was a comedic segment, there was a lot of truth to what he was saying.

On Monday, I went to see a film screening of Poverty Inc. The film focused on poverty in the west, with one of the primary focuses being Haiti. Throughout middle school and high school, I thought I had learned a lot about the culture of Haiti. When the earthquake hit, a Haitian boy came to my area for a year to stay with a family while his country was rebuilding. He spoke English fairly well, and was also fluent in French. While the earthquake was an emotional topic for him, he loved speaking telling everyone about the beauty of Haiti. He made Haiti seem like a beautiful vacation hotspot, with beaches and wildlife. Later on, in my high school French courses, we focused at the happy aspects of Haiti, and never on the poverty and suffering of the people. The film showed the opposite side of Haiti that I was not used to hearing about.

A large focus of the film was how America’s efforts to help the countries such as Haiti in poverty, especially in times of natural disasters, actually hurt these countries. After the earthquake in Haiti, I remember donating my old clothes and shoes to the children of Haiti who were left with nothing. While these donations were most likely helpful in the short term, in the long term they destroyed the economy of Haiti. If Haitians are getting all of these free clothing from America, there is no need for clothing manufacturers, putting a large group of citizens out of a job.

While our donations of goods hurts the country, there are ways we can help them. In the film, an American couple traveled to Haiti planning to start an orphanage. They quickly realized that starting an orphanage would encourage parents to give up their children so that they could have a better environment to grow up in. In addition, the orphanage would use up the funds they had and help children for a short period of time, but when the funds ran out, there was nothing they could do to help. Instead, they started a jewelry making business, allowing Haitian citizens to have a job so they could earn the money themselves to care for their children. This method of creating and encouraging jobs helps the people of Haiti far more than any donation of goods, which was something I never considered before seeing the film.