David Lammy is right to call out the ‘white saviour’ narrative – if only Comic Relief understood that

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Labour MP David Lammy recently criticised the investigative journalist for reinforcing the “white saviour” stereotype, after Dooley posted a picture of her holding a child from Uganda while working with Comic Relief. Let’s instead promote voices from across the continent of Africa and have serious debate.” Lammy’s comments come a year after Comic Relief vowed to tackle the white saviour stereotype. What people who have come to Dooley’s defence haven’t quite grasped is that Lammy isn’t saying that white people shouldn’t help or travel to Africa at all, rather that they should be weary of the old messages that Comic Relief are reinforcing. But still, Dooley responded to Lammy’s tweet with a reductive: “David, is the issue with me being white?.because if that’s the case, you could always go over there and try raise awareness?” Images of white people – particularly white women – with black children, without any indication as to whether they even had consent from their families to take as well as share their photos, are everywhere.