WHITE GUILT, SHAME, AND THE HISTORY OF AMERICA

Helping Middle-Aged White People Understand Racism

Racism is that which serves to disadvantage and restrict people of color in ways that advance the interests of those in power (who, by the way, are overwhelmingly white males). 

It is systemic.  This means it is all over, not in just a few places.  It is not just a few bad apples.  It is an infestation of our various social systems such that it affects the whole system.  It is like a bit of poison in the water tank: A bit of it infects and the whole is affected.

It has become so normalized that we often do not even see it.  But make no mistake, there is a bit of poison in the water tank.

This is a podcast version of this article:

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

The recent outbreak of racist acts is a result of the ugly stain of racism that has always festered like a virus in our God-bless-America-society.  Racism was part of the fabric of this make-America-great-again-nation long before Washington crossed the Delaware (Wilkerson, 2020).  Slavery was the economic engine upon which this one-nation-under-God was built (Ortiz, 2018).  It was slavery that was used to pull the wealth from this land so that white people could live in big houses and drink lemonade out on the veranda while wearing hoop skirts.

Manifest Destiny

Racism comes in a variety of forms and flavors.  For example, on the 4th of July, when people are all busy loving America, they often forget this silly little thing called manifest destiny.  In the 19th century, this whacky, nutty, zany idea was used as an excuse to decimate Indigenous peoples and confiscate their lands.  White males, in meetings with other white males, convinced themselves that there was something very, uniquely special about … white males ... and the institutions that they had designed.  They decided that God wanted them to rape, pillage, murder, and commit genocide so that the continent could be theirs. Then everybody could have freedom and independence … except for black people ... and Indigenous people ... and people from China …  and women … and gay people ... and I don’t think they cared much for Latinx people either.  But everybody else … was definitely in the special club. 

In the book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz says that “… the very existence of our country is dependent on the looting of an entire continent and its resources” (p. 5). “’ Colonization,’ ‘dispossession,’ ‘settler colonialism,’ ‘genocide’ – these are the terms that drill to the core of US history, to the very source of the country’s existence” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014, p.xiii).

And these same special white men who were out manifesting their destiny all over the place had the audacity to call Indigenous people “savages”.  Savages?  A savage is defined as a brutal or cruel person, or people who are uncivilized or primitive.  So to be clear, the people who were raping, pillaging, murdering, stealing, and committing genocide called the people who were not doing these things, “savages”.  Imagine that. 

WHITE GUILT AND SHAME… AND HONESTY

Disclaimer.  It must be acknowledged that I am a white man.  My whiteness is all that I have ever lived and experienced.   As such, I can never fully understand what it means to be a person of color living in our society. 

Personal Shame

On a personal level, I feel no guilt or shame for the systemic racism in our country.   And I feel no guilt or shame for feeling no guilt or shame.  Before you send me naughty emails, let me explain …

Guilt.  Guilt involves awareness of our wrongful or improper deeds or behaviors, and how they may have hurt others.  It is a feeling of responsibility for some action (real or imagined) or an awareness that we have done something improper or wrong.

Shame.  Shame may arise from guilt but it is technically a bit different.  Shame is related to how we appear to ourselves or others.  It is a painful feeling forming in consciousness stemming from something dishonorable, improper, lacking, deficient, or deviant that was done or with which one is associated.  Shame is not always related to an action.  It can also be related to a condition such as a perceived physical or mental disorder or disability. 

Shame often occurs as a result of guilt but not always.  Indeed, some people appear to feel no shame even though they are fully aware of their wrongful or improper actions.  These people are called psychopaths.  According to the DSM-5 they have an antisocial personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder.   

A Psychopathic History of the United States of American

As stated above, a psychopath feels no sense of guilt, shame, or remorse.  Thus, we must conclude that the writers of US history, for the most part, are either willfully ignorant or psychopaths.   For now, let’s go with psychopaths as it seems a bit more complimentary.

The McGraw-Hill version of reality.  I would recommend three powerful and well-written books: An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz (2018), Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (2020), and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2014) as mentioned above.  These are just three of the many books and other resources that provide a view of US history that is a bit different from the white-washed McGraw-Hill version of reality.  The McGraw-Hill version of reality seems to prance lightly upon the slavery and exploitation of human beings at the beginning of our land-of-the-free-country.  It also seems to dismiss the holocaust on this continent that consumed millions of Indigenous people. Oops.

So, while I appreciate and am grateful for many aspects of our country, including our system of democracy and the freedoms it allows us, I also recognize our racist US history and the systemic racism that lingers like the stink of dead fish on the fingers of America.  For this, I feel a collective guilt and shame for our nation.

As I stated, on a personal level, I feel no guilt.  I am not trying to perpetuate a wrong.  I am trying to do what I can.  Neither do I feel shame … on a personal level.  However, I do feel anger, disgust, and dismay at the injustice, inequities, discrimination, and atrocities that continue as a result of systemic racism.  For this, I am deeply ashamed of our country.

Move to Canada

Now when I make statements about the collective guilt and shame of our nation, I hear things like, “If you are ashamed of our country, why don’t you leave.”

 “If you hate our country, go someplace else,” they say.

These kinds of comments usually come from people who see themselves as “patriotic” because they wave a flag at parades and stand at attention during the national anthem.  However, this why-don’t-you-leave-if-you-don’t-like-it response is the most unpatriotic response imaginable. 

An analogy: If you love your family, you do not leave it if you recognize that there are difficulties.  You stay and try to make it better.  If you love your family, you do not ignore or gloss over problems as they arise.  You acknowledge them and you work to solve them.

In the same way - If you love your country, you recognize the difficulties.  If you love your country, you stay and try to make it better.  If you love your country, you try to solve the problems, one of which is the systemic racism that is eating away at us.  An honest reflective analysis does not make one unpatriotic.  What would be unpatriotic, would be to turn the other way, to do nothing, to simply wave a bunch of flags and sing “God bless America”.  That would be unpatriotic.  But I and many others refuse to be unpatriotic.

This idea that if you seek change you “hate America” is decidedly un-American.  I and others refuse to be un-American.  This American experiment will continue to evolve and refine itself only to the degree that we are able to honestly reflect and address the problems that confront us.

A Systemic Response  

Systemic racism has never been fully addressed in our society, our culture, and our curriculums.  Simply including George Washington Carver in a social studies lesson just will not do it this time around.  We need more than that.  It doesn't matter how many flags we wave or how loud we shout, "U-S-A" at international sporting events ... this country will cease to evolve if we do not provide a systemic response to the systemic racism that is inherent.

References

American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. American Psychiatric Association, 2013.

Blanchett, W. (2006). Disproportionate representation of African American students in special education: Acknowledging the role of White privilege and racism.  Educational Research, 35 24-28.

Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An indigenous peoples’ history of the United States.  Beacon Press.

Kendi, I. (2019). How to be an antiracist.  One World Press.

Klingner, J., Urbach, J., Golos, D., Brownell, M., & Menon, S. (2010). Teaching reading in the 21st century: A glimpse at how special education teachers promote reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33, 59-74.

Kohli, R., Pizarro, M., & Nevarez, A. (2019). The “new racism” of K-12 schools: Centering critical research on racism.  Review of Research in Education, 41, 182-202.

Ortiz, P. (2018). An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Beacon Press

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House.