How Charity Hurts

It is undeniable that various charities and philanthropies accomplish many great things in the world; however, it is also true that they can cause or perpetuate not so great things. These issues can stem from how philanthropies view the people they are helping and what they assume about the world.

One of the biggest problems with charities is how they perceive, and treat, the people they help. Often, people pity those they are helping and think of them as not quite equal, not having rights, and not being of much value to society. In his book, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, Paul Farmer explains that “those who believe that charity is the answer to the world’s problems often have a tendency- sometimes striking, sometimes subtle, and surely lurking in all of us- to regard those needing charity as intrinsically inferior.” This is absolutely not true and Farmer encourages us to think of these people as “victims of structural violence.”

Charities’ harmful views can be manifested in subtle ways, but they influence the philanthropy’s work and they influence how society sees people in need. One great example of this is explained in Joseph Shapiro’s book, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement.

Shapiro analyzes Jerry Lewis’ Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon as an example of how philanthropies negatively view their clients. The telethon presents the stories of kids with Muscular Dystrophy and portrays the kids as pitiable, depressed victims who desperately want and need a cure. This influences society because it makes people afraid of Muscular Dystrophy and makes them think that people with the disease are childlike and miserable. This is very harmful for the people with MD because others will treat them like children, will pity them, and often subconsciously think they are inferior.

Ultimately, the society will decide that, as Evan Kemp says in No Pity, “the only socially acceptable status for disabled people is their childhood . . . [and will] support the damaging and common prejudice that handicapped people are ‘sick.’” Through philanthropies such as the Muscular Dystrophy Association, society learns to look down on people with disabilities and try to avoid or hide them. As Shapiro states, “people who were pitied were also a little more disposable.”

Another view that can be very damaging is when a philanthropy maintains paternalistic assumptions. This is when they think that the people they are helping cannot take care of themselves or cannot make decisions for themselves. This ties in with the ideas of thinking that people are inferior or don’t have rights. Many charities will decide that they know best how to take care of someone or how best to spend money for them. This can result in people not getting the right kind of help and, again, in convincing society that the people in need are inferior and dependent.

Another way in which philanthropies can be harmful is in what they assume about the world. Paul Farmer asserts that “the approach of charity further presupposes that there will always be those who have and those who have not.” This is a problem because if a philanthropy decides there will always be people in need, they will not work toward ending inequalities. Farmer quotes Paulo Freire in saying that “true generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.” An organization’s lasting difference in the world is to fight the causes of inequality.

Charities can perpetuate negative stereotypes about people by how they see those they try to help. They can also ignore inequality by assuming it will always be there. To really help and make a difference, philanthropies should analyze how they view their clients and how they view the world.


Works Cited

Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkely: University of California Press, 2005.

Shapiro, Joseph P. No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1994.

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