White innocence is where white people see themselves as being innocent of the crimes of their forefathers, rightly or wrongly.
It is what lies behind statements like these by white Americans:
- My family never owned any slaves.
- It is too late to give back the land to the Indians.
- My family was not in the South during all those lynchings.
- The Arabs took part in the slave trade too.
- Blacks owned slaves too.
- Most societies throughout history have had slaves.
And so on.
For white Americans this sort of talk comes up in relation to blacks, Native Americans and sometimes even American foreign policy. It has become a part of colour-blind racism and the blinder sorts of white patriotism. For the British this sort of talk comes up with the British Empire. I imagine white South Africans do something like it too.
These statements may be true so far as they go. They make sense too: you cannot blame someone for the sins of his father – or even for the sins of others of his race.
And yet something is not quite right. Even white people sense it. Why else bring up the Arabs or slave-owning blacks? Why make the defence just in terms of one’s own family and not white people or America in general? And why does the subject come up at all?
A sense of guilt is at play. White guilt.
But if one’s family never owned slaves then why feel guilty? Or even if they did own slaves it was long ago, so again, why the guilt? What is going on?
It is like this: if your father robbed banks before you were born, it would be unfair to put you in prison for it. You had nothing to do with it.
But what if you knew that your family’s fortune, your wealth, came from the banks he robbed? You would feel guilty. And you would be right to feel that way: by knowingly benefiting from the crime you have become party to it.
The easy thing to do is the keep the money and push the sense of guilt to the back of your mind, trying to soften it or cover it over with statements like, “I had nothing to do with it”, “That was a long time ago” or “Back then even the police chief and the mayor were on the take.”
The hard thing to do would be the right thing to do, the only way to get rid of the sense of guilt in an honest way: to somehow make it right with the banks he robbed.
Edward Ball, whose family did own slaves, something he wrote about in his book “Slaves in the Family”, said it best:
To live with the advantages of white skin in America is to benefit from the old slave system.
Many whites know that in general they are better off than blacks and deep down they know why.
See also:
Oh I hate those excuses. Just because blacks, arabs and others owned slaves, it does not make it ok that white people in America owned slaves. I don’t understand, just because pedophilia might be a bit more socially acceptable in other countries, doesn’t mean that you can ship those children over to America and do it here.
And if your family didn’t own slaves or weren’t involved in lynchings, can you at least acknowledge that for years there was a legal and systematic process in place to ensure that as a white person, you had more privilege than a black person, and that privilege still exists today?
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Tim Wise is a great commentator on such topics; http://youtube.com/watch?v=_UJlNRODZHA
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Well, my family came to America with 25 dollars in their pockets after being driven out of Germany by the Nazis. I have no sense of guilt. I work hard everyday and am making a difference.
In this country, unlike most places in the world, you can do that, regardless of your race.
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I’m being funny, but is there such a thing as Black Guilt? What would it entail?
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My favorite pet peeves are:
“I’m not racist.”
“I don’t owe Blacks anything.”
“Only rednecks are bigoted.”
La Reyna
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I’m not sure where I heard this from but I think Chris Rock once said, “a white homeless man would not switch places with me and I’m rich”. That’s sucks.
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Ohmigosh, that reminds me of a post I am thinking of writing: Is it better to be black or disabled?
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Black guilt: that is hard to imagine.
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La Reyna: we do not live in the same part of the country, yet it is amazing how alike white people are! I have heard all those things too.
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Yeah, a lot of whites (and even some non-whites) seem to think that racism is mostly a Southern pheononmeon.
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Black guilt may be guilt felt by black(or partially black) people ‘denying their blackness’…?
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Self perpetuating the stereotype going on around here. Just saying..
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Stalherz, William Blake wrote “innocence is ignorance”. But, as anyone charged with an offence can tell you, ignorance is no defense.
You write, “Well, my family came to America with 25 dollars in their pockets after being driven out of Germany by the Nazis. I have no sense of guilt. I work hard everyday and am making a difference.” But one individual’s, one family’s, or one group’s pain and suffering while seeking to gain acceptance in the United States does not contradict the power or race privilege. Every immigrant or child of an immigrant who gained a job or a contract on the basis, “At least they’re white” (and yes, I have heard people say that), has been given something of material value on the basis of race priilege.
On the basis of what you wrote I will presume, for the momment, that you are Jewish. Still, especially after World War II, American Jews were fully incorporated into the United States as “white” people. If you think your family had it hard, well, they probably did. But imagine how if would feel to go through all the same efforts, only to see yourself, or your family, repeatedly passed over for no just reason. For a long time this was the experience of many “black” Americans, and that is the difference between your experience and a common form of the “black” experience.
My belief is that you do not have to feel guity as long as you acknowledge what has been given to you and your family on the basis of white privilege, and conduct your affairs with others in full light of that knowledge. Conversely, the more you try to deny the facts, the more gulity you make yourself to be.
At least, IMHO.
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Excellent reply to that sort of thinking. Thanks.
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“My belief is that you do not have to feel guity as long as you acknowledge what has been given to you and your family on the basis of white privilege, and conduct your affairs with others in full light of that knowledge. Conversely, the more you try to deny the facts, the more gulity you make yourself to be.”
I agree with this as well. The only difference is again I believe that the racism is a symptom of a much larger problem (evil and sin). I agree – I have no idea what its like to drive while black etc…i look out of the world from my eyes. I would never deny the problems stated above…that would be like wearing blinders. I just feel like as long as we concentrate on the symptom and not the cause nothing will ever change. Pointing out the the leak in the ceiling, does not patch the roof. Even putting a bucket under it does not patch the hole. He have to deal with the root of the problem which is much much bigger than blacks and whites…bigger than america.
All i can do – in my relm of influence…is treat everyone with love and respect…treat them how i would want to be treated. and teach my children to do the same.
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Didn’t like this article. I was expecting something about how whites are always assumed and stereotyped as perfect, innocent angels in society that never do, think or say anything evil. But this article titled “white innocence” is actually about white guilt or guilty consciences.
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@ Symphonic
You want me to talk about cars but not their engines.
It is White guilt unacknowledged that drives the bizarre project of perpetual White innocence.
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@Zontas,
Can you explain
– why you think you are living in hell?
– how you perceive you are being treated like garbage?
– explain your question #3? Do you mean why do many POC experience internalized racism? What is the good that Chinese, Egyptians and Romans have done that western Europeans did not?
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@abagond
Can you please edit the name in jefe’s post to ‘Uriel’? If anyone researches it i’ll have good pieces of my personal identity revealed.
@jefe (i know this is very late, but i never answered)
1. “Living in hell.” was too far an analogy- mainly because i think the problems can solved in my lifetime. I’m sorry and i won’t exaggerate due to lack of effort put in wording like this again. A better analogy would be ”
2. I (and most other whites and privileged people in general) have to choose between being seen as enough by enough good, social justice people and having autonomy over myself and associations. To many zealots, i am beneath death and i’m probably only avoiding violence because i, personally am probably considered a waste of atoms. That and they are busy putting up with the scum of the planet that i’m supposed to relate to and commune with according to them.
The fact that a sizable amount of oppressed people and sj privileged people have a creepily romanticized view of my identities and personhood, or have bigger fish to fry than whatever privileged people and their things are definitiely is a reason i’m avoiding violence, too tho from social justice.
3. POC in the know about racism who consciously dislike themselves and other POC (at least in their own race) surprize me. I don’t bother with that any more, but i am still confused why POC’d care the scum of the planet (most white people) don’t like them. Even if they did, most white people have done atrocity without the technical innovation to complement it as a silver lining.
That’s the good the Chinese, Romans, and Egyptians did while they were certainly conquesting- innovation. None (individually and collectively) of the colonial (‘western’ was a bad choice in words) European powers’ inventions match the use nor match the scope of inventions done back then by previous empires, or by POC (in total) now.
What i’m really confused and frustrated by about “pr-mitive” societies (i.e. societies without enough physical resources to have technical innovations or a colonial empire) is that everyone looks down on them. There thing that those unlucky societies have that empires don’t is moral superiority. The ASTIs were and still are far better at being not evil than say, the British. Most “hunter-gatherer” and “simple-living” societies were leagues beyond any superpower because of a lack of corruption*.
Except the Germanics. They are uniquely evil, apparently- with the exceptions of people like the Saxons, Frisians, and the Goths- who were to unlucky to get a chance to be evil. Look at England, Germany, France (they are Germanics who speak a Romance language), the Netherlands, Belgium (half- Germanics who speak a Romance language- , and Scandinavia. Notice they are the absolute worst according to far to many people in social justice and outside it?
That’s why i am trying my absolute hardest to get an enough ethnicity besides those ones i’m apart of. Why is it justice to doom me and people akin to me to vilehood?
I tried connecting with Judaism and i failed immensly. Nobody will consider me a Jew unless i convert to a religion i don’t get and nobody will consider me Irish until i assimilate into a culture way too distant from how i live. That leaves Swedish, Alsatian French, and English “American”. This also why i don’t consider Mirkwood Irish, he has adapted too many evil Germanic traits and isn’t suffering in any way like actual POC. Making matters worse is my skin is white, my eyes are round, and my ethnic makeup is of Europe, and race should never fade, so i’ll always be the worst race- white.
Most resources repsonding to this are just list of ways to end racism, essentially denying me what i’m entitled to (enoughness by good people) until i complete a goal beyond my lifetime. Everyone thinks i want to be of use to good people or that i want to feel good about modern racist atrocities. What i want is to have good associations, at least rough individual acceptance, and good identity by almost everyone good. Not to be reduced to a tool, or reduce anyone else’s entitlements.
The second worst people on the planet, the Mongols, are still treated like dirt by the surrounding former victims who’ve since gained the upper hand way beyond whatever advantages they had. For instance: the Russians’, Chinese’s, and the Persians’ treatment descendants of Mongols. Nobody treats anyone how they should be treated, but by how they’ve been treated.
Also, the pre-imperialism “white” colonial empires like Rome and Greece weren’t always white and were 55% light skinned and round-eyed at best. Plus the actions done by the Chinese to the Tibetans were nothing compared to what Europeans did to other Europeans and non-Europeans.
*I’m not an anarcho-primitivist, btw. I believe non-medical power (i.e. power that is purely a luxury rather than a necessity to anyone’s life) and hyperburocracy cause corruption, not resources and technology. People like John Zerzan strike me as the kind who’d forgo modern medicine and knowledge for a false sense of unity and success.
Thank you for reading.
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Jefe: I also forgot what i posted, so i’m going by rough memory from what you’ve said.
Either way, i think my current problems are better to express than what i already’ve figured out by now. Mostly number three.
*a better analogy would be “stuck between a cruddy home pathetic to others and a good home condescending to me”.
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**half Germanics who speak a Romance language- half unlucky Germanic).
Anyway, i do think plenty consider former POC now descendants of their respective ethncity in culture and appearance but not mindset, so they are more Germanic white currently and thus don’t deserve to be seen as enough by social justice. That is why the Irish now are more white Irish than Irish, each and every one is responsible for the betrayal and should suffer for it because they are not suffering for anything, apparently. That’s what i meant when i said “Mirkwood isn’t Irish” up there.
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It really is too late to give land “back” to the Indians. There are 200 million White Americans, forcing them all off of their land wouldn’t be fair. Two wrongs don’t make a right. There are also only 5 million American Indians left, they can’t possibly run the country alone.
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@ Edward R
“It really is too late to give land ‘back’ to the Indians.”
I wonder if you would feel that way if it were your land that had been taken. Also note that Israel was “given back” to the diasporic Jews after a much longer time.
“There are also only 5 million American Indians left, they can’t possibly run the country alone.”
Why would you assume that? There are many nations under 5 million people.
“There are 200 million White Americans, forcing them all off of their land wouldn’t be fair. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
It wasn’t fair to force the Indians off in the first place, though, was it? Why should the descendants of thieves have a right to illegally obtained spoils?
At any rate, there are many things less intrusive than giving the entire country back that could be done and aren’t happening. Native Americans could be granted more access to sacred sites and ancestral land no longer under their control — or even better, they could be given more control over what happens at those sites, like Bear’s Lodge/Devil’s Tower. They could have more direct control over what happens to minerals, oil, etc. found on their lands. They could be granted appropriate financial compensation for those lands that were stolen from them.
I don’t know if you have seen the news stories about the coronavirus hotspot on the Navajo reservation, but one of the major factors behind the outbreak is that many homes do not have indoor plumbing. The federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs has allowed these substandard conditions to persist unrectified for decades.
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