White guilt

"White guilt" refers to a controversial concept of individual or collective guilt often said to be felt by some white people for the racist treatment of people of color by whites both historically and presently. The term is generally used in pejorative way, usually by those who criticize efforts to assist non-whites, particularly with policies or decisions the critics believe give advantages or benefits to them unfair to whites. Many on the left have rejected the idea that guilt is the motivating factor for these efforts.

The term is often applied to white Americans regarding the history of enslavement of African Americans, and colonization and displacement of Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. In addition, white guilt may be experienced by citizens of European countries whose nations participated in the slave trade and/or colonized portions of Asia and South Asia, Africa and North Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. White guilt has been described as one of several psychosocial costs of racism for White individuals along with the ability to have empathic reactions towards racism, and fear of non-whites.

According to Shelby Steele, white guilt is "a form of self-congratulation, where whites initiate "compassionate policies" toward people of color, to showcase their innocance to racism. Steele has put the term in the context of American history and society in his book White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era (2006):

"Whites (and American institutions) must acknowledge historical racism to show themselves redeemed by it, but once they acknowledge it, they lose moral authority over everything having to do with race, equality, social justice, poverty and so on. [...] The authority they lose transfers to the 'victims' of historical racism and becomes their great power in society. This is why white guilt is quite literally the same thing as black power."

"White guilt" may be used as a political epithet in an attempt to discredit or misrepresent anti-racist thought and practice.

Criticism of the concept

Criticism of the idea that white guilt animates most whites or most whites on the left is common from left-wing or American liberal commentators. Sunny Hundal, writing in The Guardian in September 2007, asserted that "Not much annoys me more than the stereotype that to be liberal is to be full of guilt. To be socially liberal, in my view, is to be more mindful of compassion and empathy for others." Hundal wrote that motivations for political opinions that are based on collective guilt create a "reductionist", simplistic view of the world that few people on the left actually share.

Use of the concept outside of politics

Judith Katz author of White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training is highly critical of what she calls self-indulgent white guilt fixations. Her concerns about white guilt led her to move from black-white group encounters to all-white groups in her anti-racism training. She also avoided using people of color to reeducate whites, she said, because she found that this led whites to focus on getting acceptance and forgiveness rather than changing their own actions or beliefs. Statements about racial inequality may be framed as either White privileges or Black disadvantages, when framed as White privileges a 2005 study found that the statements resulted in greater collective guilt and lower racism compared to a Black disadvantage framing. The findings suggest that representing inequality in terms of outgroup disadvantage allows privileged group members to avoid the negative psychological implications of inequality and supports prejudicial attitudes.

Con artists have been accused of using white guilt: "Telephone and mail solicitors, trading on "white guilt" and on government pressure to advertise in minority-oriented publications, are inducing thousands of businessmen to buy ads in phony publications", according to a 1978 Washington Post article.

See also

• Affirmative action
• White privilege
• Whiteness studies
• Psychometrics of racism
• Reparations for slavery

External links

• White Guilt: Its Antecedents and Consequences for Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action
• White Guilt and Racial Compensation: The Benefits and Limits of Self-Focus
• Teaching White Students About Racism: The Search for White Allies and the Restoration of Hope