"I did not come here to argue. I am here to tell you, if possible to convince you, and hopefully, to stop you, from pretentiously imposing yourselves on Mexicans."

It is quite possible that this hypocrisy is unconscious in most of you. Intellectually, you are ready to see that the motivations which could legitimate volunteer action overseas in 1963 cannot be invoked for the same action in 1968. "Mission-vacations" among poor Mexicans were "the thing" to do for well-off U.S. students earlier in this decade: sentimental concern for newly-discovered poverty south of the border combined with total blindness to much worse poverty at home justified such benevolent excursions. Intellectual insight into the difficulties of fruitful volunteer action had not sobered the spirit of Peace Corps Papal-and-Self-Styled Volunteers.

Ivan Illich tells off a group of CIASP volunteers at their annual convention

Charity vs Solidarity

On charity, mutual aid, and class struggle:

A definition of solidarity I’ve heard is that it’s about providing concrete support to an oppressed group so that they can more easily use their own power to change the conditions of their lives. As I understand it, solidarity is about working with people who are struggling for their own liberation in a way that means my future gets bound up with theirs.

On the other hand, charity is about me feeling good, assuaging guilt, feeling like I’m doing something about injustice but without actually threatening the status quo. Charity doesn’t really cost me anything, especially my self-image as being someone who’s down with the struggle and on the side of the oppressed. With charity I don’t have to acknowledge my privilege in a situation, and in the case of work in New Orleans, I don’t have to take responsibility for the fact that my family and I have materially benefited, historically and presently, from the racism that bludgeoned the south long before the hurricane. With charity, I don’t have to connect the dots between sudden catastrophes like Katrina, and the perhaps slower but very similar economic devastation happening in poor communities and communities of color, every day, right here, in my city. And most importantly, with charity, I don’t have risk that what I’m doing might truly transform society in such a way that white folks like me may not end up on top anymore, because charity actually reinforces existing relationships of power.