Feeling: Confused

I'm having a weird, unpleasant week.

Let's start with a concept: I believe that nobody should be forced to sleep on the street. I think shelter is a human right. And I am a woman of action (sometimes), so I volunteer at a local homeless shelter.

Is that racist?

Does my desire to help people come from a place of white saviourism? Is it because I feel guilty for having things that I assume others may not have? Do I think I am better than these people? And if yes, what else am I supposed to do? Is not engaging in charity work better?

I am really struggling to find my place in the world right now.

I wanted to work in the non-profit sector because capitalism can suck it and the world is messed up and I want to help and I want to learn how to help. But this field, I'm discovering, is flawed, like nearly all other human things. And it has bad roots, and many of these roots are still growing strong and producing new leaves today. And it goes so far back and has snuck its way into every single cell of how the world blooms and caves in on itself.

How can we make this better? How can we still provide a real service to people who actually need the service, without it being a bad thing?

Is the difference in "helping" without having been asked vs. yes? Is it based on an assumption that these people need to be helped? And that I am qualified to do it? Why do I think I am qualified? What qualifies me? And if I am not qualified, how can I help?

Does the world even need my help? How do I be a good ally? Is that even possible?

It's like the closer I look at it, the more of the skin I peel away, I just keep finding more and more rot and I can't see if there's any living tissue worth saving.

Ohhhh, I am enraged. At white people. At my ancestors. At myself. At the men who decided hundreds of years ago to tear apart communities so that they could develop their own universes at the expense of the Other and then say "Haah, not our problem," when those communities are left coughing in the ashes and dust of the calculated, manufactured, disgusting, blazing aftermath.