The allegation that the West is to be blamed for Africa and Middle East's problem is simply false. I'm ethnically Middle Eastern with ethnic African background and I know that foreign interference in Africa/Middle East is a minor result of the crisis in those places.
America worked alongside pakistan to overthrow afghanistans socialists party, the country was heading towards progression. After Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew Soviet forces in 1989, U.S.-backed warlords tore the country apart and boosted opium production to an unprecedented level of 2,000 to 3,400 tons per year. The Talibaan or the Mujahideen cut the productions down, it was later restored again thanks to the us invasion in 2001. Abdul Razziq was appointed provincial police chief who was backed by the CIA running a heroine smuggling operation, earning him 60 million a year in one of the poorest countries in the word.
America has launched countless expeditions similarly even during nixons time on chile and several other countries (not counting middle eastern) like zaire, panama, Nicaragua that stunted their economical growth. It's not really important however, countries progress, no one really evaluates the concept of time, developing countries need time, sometimes a lot, imperial japan was heavily backwards even for it's time, hell even when perry intervened during the tokugawa shogunate and ended it, it was heavily backwards they were pissing themselves at the large armament based vessels perry bought, now it's considered the head of the industrialized world, same can be said for countries finding a path to progression and can even overtake each other, history proves that time and time again, it can happen slowly or rigidly, china, bhutan and several other countries are progressing quickly, others can follow considering the world is more globalized than it was during the 15th century. Shitholes can become pretty. At least i'd hope.
But me being part of a certain ethnicity means I know about my people better
You can count that as a genetic fallacy, origin or not doesn't signify your knowledge. I can live outside a country and know more about its history than it's residents, the comparison being my knowledge about the subject can be more then theirs.
I'm also middle eastern, I suppose my argument weighs more now than it originally did, you cant use that in debates.