The White Hero

Today I want to talk about a controversy in fiction, mainly movies, concerning a white hero saving some minority group, such as Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, even Avatar and The Help. the controversy is that minorities feel it is degrading that they need a white person to save them. However, I look at these stories from another angle, it isn't about how the minorities need a white hero to save them, it's that white people need to see a redemptive character in a a narrative that paints us as the villain, especially when we know that it's the truth that we are, or at least were, the bad guy. My generation is the first in which white people aren't unquestionably on the top of the social order. Yes, you can argue that those who are large and in charge are still white people, but for the first time in our history, we have been raised to understand that just because it's true doesn't make it right. America has a very rough history, white people displaced the native population, dragged Africans in as slaves, persecuted Chinese during westward expansion, persecuted Japanes during World War II, persecuted Muslims after 9/11 and we've had a long history of being less than welcome to anyone who didn't speak English despite the fact that we celebrate our country as being founded on ideals of liberty, freedom, and equality. For two hundred years, we have ignored our own hypocrisy and now we have a generation of white people who have to live with this guilt despite the fact that most of it was done before we were even born and we are trying to be better, but is it too late? Do we deserve to live where another race should be? And where do we go? I have a diverse European ancestry and only one branch goes back to a place that speaks English. Primarily I am Italian, but I do not speak the language, so if I had to go back to Sicily, I don't know if I'd be able to get by in my ancestral homeland. I was raised Catholic, but how does the life of a Jewish carpenter in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago on the other side of the world hold more relevance than the spirituality of the Haudenosaunee where I was born and raised? How do I reconcile where I am with where I have come from? The white hero is not about a white person saving another race from white people, it's about turning the tide to redeem ourselves from our history and find a new place in a world where we don't belong to live in harmony with people to whom we owe an apology that we can never give. These are stories about people working through regret that is bigger than us, bigger than we can deal with on our own. Honestly, the only way we can cope at this point is to believe that at some point there is one of us who knows what is wrong and does what is right and that we can be that person. Ideally, these stories wouldn't have to exist, every race could simply have their own independent narrative, or we could have a mixed narrative that was all inclusive, but we cannot  erase our past, we screwed up royally, and we still work to do to set things right, and in this period of transition, the reality is that white heroes are still needed, because no matter what we did, we are here still and we need to find our place, and we need to send the message that we will not pursue our own progress at the expense of others anymore, and we will fight against those who are backward minded enough to continue outdated racist thinking. On behalf of all white people, we are sorry if we are still stepping on your toes, but there are over seven billion people in the world and we are out of room, so we need to learn to get along, and the white hero is the first step, it may not be the best step, but the first step rarely is steady, so please be patient during our social course correction.