Gabrielle Durrett,
Tucson, AZ.
As a white person, I frequently feel white guilt whenever the topics of slavery and racism come up. For ages, I felt like I had to come up with excuses of why I shouldn’t feel guilty, the most prominent of which was: “Those were my ancestors, not me.” Well, I still feel like I don’t need to feel guilty, but not for the same reason. When I feel white guilt, I am making slavery/racism about me. “Oh, I’m so horrible. I’m white and my ancestors were white and they did appalling things to black people. I feel so ashamed for what my ancestors did to them.” What my ancestors did was horrible, there’s no doubt about that. But by making my feelings about slavery/racism all about me feeling ashamed, I miss the point. This isn’t about me: it’s about all of the people who were and are treated cruelly because of what they look like. Instead of wallowing in self pity, I should be getting angry on their behalf. I shouldn’t feel like because I’m white, I can’t possibly contribute anything to ending racism. The point I’m trying to make is that by spending all of our time beating ourselves up, we white people give ourselves an excuse not to do anything. So let’s throw our white guilt out the window so that we can take action against slavery and racism in the world today.
Let’s make our white ancestors turn in their graves.
Comments are closed.