The Absurdity of "White Guilt"

[Ultimate Paragon]

One thing I've never fully understood is white guilt.  Yes, racism is tragic and monstrous.  However, most white people today are not racist, at least not consciously.  More important, there is some evidence to suggest that white guilt is actually damaging to race relations, because white people who suffer from white guilt are more concerned with being forgiven than combating racism.  The way I see it, anti-racists should be filled with compassion and empathy, not guilt.

[chitoryu12]

The best way to handle injustice performed by past generations is to not be an asshole and to try and help the social justice movement where it needs it.

But no, I don't feel "guilt" for anything white, cissexual, or heterosexual people or men do unless I'm the one who did it. I don't feel a need to atone for what may have been done over a century ago by my ancestors (as far as I know most of my ancestors didn't make it to the United States from Scotland and Poland until after the Civil War anyway, so fat chance that any of them were involved in the slave trade), because I didn't do it. If another white cissexual heterosexual man does something bad, boo to him. But that's not my fault either.

[Cerim Treascair]

I don't feel a need to atone for what may have been done over a century ago by my ancestors

Thread's over.  Done in one.

[Murdin]

By and large, the entire concept of "white guilt" is nothing more than a strawman. People want to push measures against racism that you do not agree with? Claim that their opinions are motivated by their emotional neuroses, rather than rational concerns such as truth or fairness.

Why speak with the proponents of affirmative action / ethnic history / better media representation on their own terms, when you can just use the "white guilt" card and get half the population on your side?

[Ultimate Paragon]

I agree, White Guilt should never be used as an excuse to not fight racism.  However, in my humble opinion, pretending it doesn't exist or isn't a problem is just as dumb as using it to preserve unfairness in the status quo.

[Lt. Fred]

Some people feel pride at the history of their society. I'm among them. Maybe it's irrational, I'm not sure; it probably is. But there you are.

It's obviously irrational and illegitimate to only pay attention to the good stuff. In my society, conservatives (rightly) insist we "remember the ANZACs", that is to say the hundreds of thousands of people who fought to defend the world against German aggression in the First World War. The line is literally "lest we forget"; that's literally chiselled into stone all over the damn country. Often in the same breath, they demand Indigenous Australians "get over" all the nasty things we did to them. Much of our Indigenous population was still alive at the time of the Stolen Generations - which basically ended in the 60s - and 100% of them continue to feel the consequences of all those nasty things conservatives demand we forget ever happened and do nothing about.

White guilt is basically a natural reaction to history, as natural as pride. If you feel pride in your country but not guilt, you're almost certainly a racist fuck (or, perhaps, ignorant).


Now, as to whether it is useful, I feel that it is. What is the logical consequence of white guilt? We as a society did these nasty things, they had these consequences, I feel bad, I can assuage my bad feelings by doing something to make it better. No?

[Art Vandelay]

White guilt is basically a natural reaction to history, as natural as pride. If you feel pride in your country but not guilt, you're almost certainly a racist fuck (or, perhaps, ignorant).

Nationalism is pretty universal, but white guilt (as the name suggests) seems pretty unique to white westerners and specifically covers racism. Every society has done horrible things of some sort or another in its past, yet I can't think of any event in any culture's history that invokes anywhere near the same level of guilt in its population as western racism. For a rather obvious example, the Japanese seem pretty intent on ignoring the way they treated POWs and occupied people during their imperial days. As another, the Soviet Union was just as, if not more oppressive, and killed far more people in it's own death camps than Nazi Germany, yet German guilt is very much a thing whereas a lot of Russians if anything are nostalgic for the Soviet days. I have to say, it makes far more sense that white guilt is a specifically western cultural phenomenon, rather than anything nearly as universal as nationalism.

[Lt. Fred]

White guilt is basically a natural reaction to history, as natural as pride. If you feel pride in your country but not guilt, you're almost certainly a racist fuck (or, perhaps, ignorant).

Nationalism is pretty universal, but white guilt (as the name suggests) seems pretty unique to white westerners and specifically covers racism. Every society has done horrible things of some sort or another in its past, yet I can't think of any event in any culture's history that invokes anywhere near the same level of guilt in its population as western racism. For a rather obvious example, the Japanese seem pretty intent on ignoring the way they treated POWs and occupied people during their imperial days.

And isn't that going well? Let me ask you this: which is working out better, German acknowledgement and reparations for the harm they did, or Russian nostalgia, or Japanese forgetfulness? Or American forgetfulness, for that matter?

I think we can learn stuff from history. I think Germany is in a position where it is less likely to repeat horrible crimes as a result of its responsible, adult acknowledgement of its history. We are guilty for a useful evolutionary reason.

I also think that every society has done good things - and yet, nobody complains about pride in what is essentially the universal human condition.

[The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist]

Now, as to whether it is useful, I feel that it is. What is the logical consequence of white guilt? We as a society did these nasty things, they had these consequences, I feel bad, I can assuage my bad feelings by doing something to make it better. No?

"White guilt" doesn't refer to looking back at history and feeling bad about the nastier stuff. It's a phenomenon where individuals are more focused on making themselves feel less guilty about being privileged than actually making an effort to change things. These are the people who do nothing to fight back against prejudice yet expect constant "kudos" for not actively oppressing people, automatically go on the defensive whenever someone brings up racism, harbor resentment towards minorities who try to discuss discrimination, deny that racial privilege exists, or make useless token gestures in lieu of actually doing something helpful.

White guilt isn't useful -- it's damaging and self-serving.

ETA: Although the term "white guilt", as used by racists, refers to notion that hordes of white people are letting themselves be walked over by evil minorities out of guilt, which is of course complete bullshit.

[Art Vandelay]

And isn't that going well? Let me ask you this: which is working out better, German acknowledgement and reparations for the harm they did, or Russian nostalgia, or Japanese forgetfulness? Or American forgetfulness, for that matter?

I didn't say one's better than the other. Just that it's not a universal aspect of all human societies like nationalism, but rather a quirk of western culture. That said, I'm happy to also share my view on its merits, if you so desire.

I think we can learn stuff from history. I think Germany is in a position where it is less likely to repeat horrible crimes as a result of its responsible, adult acknowledgement of its history. We are guilty for a useful evolutionary reason.

I also think that every society has done good things - and yet, nobody complains about pride in what is essentially the universal human condition.

I'm all for learning from history. However, I would disagree that white guilt is actually helpful in that respect. Sure, it's well-intentioned, but that's about it really. When it comes to important and highly complex issues political or social issues, it's far more effective to be logical about it rather than emotional. Recognising there's a problem is one thing, but feeling irrational remorse over having the same ethnicity as some now deceased or at the very least retired and now irrelevant oppressors is not helpful. It results in useless fluff like National Sorry Day that's nothing but a feel-good exercise for guilty white people rather than anything that actually improves life for any minorities. Yeah, it's not as harmful as denialism, but it's still not a good thing overall.

[Caitshidhe]

One of the dumbest things, in my opinion, about 'white guilt' is that it conveniently overlooks the simple fact that not all white people were treated equally. Some were actually treated as badly as racial minorities, and it rarely had anything to do with skin colour (I.e., 'Let's be super duper mean to the Spanish, Greeks, and Italians because they're tan!'). The Irish are as white as they come and yet up to the nineteenth century they weren't even considered 'white people'. Irish people in America in the 1800s experienced some of the worst white-on-white racism in the country's history. Jewish people of Eastern European descent are pretty darn white and they were still pretty badly treated, but that's to do with their religion. Immigrants from anywhere in most of the world, white and Asian and African alike, were treated like SHIT the same way and at the same times for a lot of history, especially in the US and Britain.

My ancestors were dirt poor Italians who had it almost worse in America than they had in Italy. It wasn't the same abuse levied on African Americans (they all came over in the 20s and 30s and had more problems once WWII broke out), but it isn't fair to assume that all my ancestors were slave owners and beat up brown people just cuz I have less melanin in my skin than someone else. Because you can't assume anything about a persons ancestry from their skin alone, and JUST because someone is white doesn't mean their antecedents had a life made of cupcakes and glitter because there's a very good chance THEY DIDN'T.

[Askold]

Some of the SJW's realised that inconsistency in treatmen of white people. As a result we get such gems of wisdom as designating the irish and other ethnic groups as POC or making some complicated categories for what counts as "white" or "POC" in different countries.

Because simply treating people the same way regardless of ethnicity or sexuality is not an option and instead everyone must be placed in a separate (but not equal) category for the sake of being equals.

[Art Vandelay]

I guess that means I of all people now qualify as a "person of colour", since I'm a quarter Irish. On the off chance that any of you needed further proof that the term is utterly fucking stupid, well, here you go.

[Cerim Treascair]

I've got Irish, Welsh and Scot bloodlines.  What's that do for me, I wonder?

[Old Viking]

I don't know what to do.  I feel guilty for not feeling guilty.