…asked a young man of Tim Wise. h/t Sociological Images and sister Tope for bringing this video to my attention.
**poster’s note: For more on this subject, check out the sidebar of our Derailment Series or click on any number of the tags associated with the issues of privilege, guilt, and beginning as an anti-racist.
And because Nikki is a quick-draw on the commenting, here’s the transcript:
Questioner (off-camera): Um, as a white male, should I feel guilty for the sins of my fathers. I affirm that they exist, but should I feel guilty for them?
Tim Wise: No. You should feel angry. And you should feel committed to doing something to address that legacy. It’s like, for instance, with pollution, right? We think about the issue of pollution. Now none of us in this room, to my knowledge, are individually responsible for having belched any toxic waste into the air, or injecting toxic waste into the soil, or done any of the things… we didn’t put lead paint into the housing, you know?
Individually we’re innocent of that. But someone did that stuff, and we’re living with the legacy of it right now, or in this case might be dying with the legacy of it, getting ill, right?.
So it isn’t about feeling guilty about what someone did, even if you were the direct heir of the chemical company that did the pollution, but it is about saying, all of us in the society have to take responsibility for what we find in front of us. There’s a big difference between guilt and responsibility.
Guilt is what you feel for what you’ve done. Responsibility is what you take because of the kind of person you are, right? And so if I see a set of social conditions that have been handed to you, and which not only did wrong by othrs but elevated me and give me advantage that I did not earn, it’s not about beating myself up, I’m not responsible for that having happened, I’m not to blame for it, so guilt is totally unproductive
But in order to live an ethical life, to live ethically and responsibly, I have to take some responsibility for the unearned advantage, which means working to change the society that bestows that advantage. It’s not guilt, but it is responsiblity. It’s no different than looking at the issue of pollution or if you became the CFO of the company, you wouldn’t be able to come in and say, “I intend to use the assets of this company, and I insend to put them to greater use, and I intend to use the revenue stream we’ve got going, but that whole debt side of the ledger? No, I’m not paying any of that because I wasn’t here when the other person ran all that debt up. You should’ve gotten them to pay it before you gave me the job. Now I’m here, and I’m innocent.” We would realize that made no sense.
So isn’t about innocence and it isn’t about guilt, it’s about responsibility, that’s something we all have to take. White folks have to take it, people of color have to take it, uh, men and women have to take… everybody has got to take it, because we’re living with… if we don’t do it, no one does it, and it doesnt’ get done. We’re the only hope we have.
I thought this was great and was hoping someone would post it here. Can we add the transcript, too, for ease of quotage later? I saw it written up somewhere…
Added it. :)
[…] **poster's note: For more on this subject, check out the sidebar of our Derailment Series or click on any number of the tags associated with the issues of privilege, guilt, and beginning as an anti-racist. And because Nikki is a quick-draw on the commenting, here's the transcript … Read More […]
Guilt and anger isn’t going to achieve anything. White men, like all human beings should instead be proactive, sensitive and selfless.
My sisters won’t toot their own horns, so I will. We’ve had some great posts before on the theme of white guilt. Be sure to check out posts linked to the “white guilt” tag to the right.
Here’s a great passage written by Nikki:
The determination of many white people to excuse themselves not just from any wrongdoing, but from taking any positive action to fight (or, in some cases, even acknowledge) racism as it persists today, seriously handicaps all Americans in our struggle to overcome our collective racist history. To echo Cayce’s Derailment Monday post of last week, conversations with white people about race often get sidelined by the white person saying, “You just want me to feel guilty!” But, as Cayce pointed out, no reasonable anti-racist wants white people to feel guilty for either past or current wrongs — instead, we want them “to feel engaged, empathetic, righteously indignant even, over the injustices in our society.” These are feelings we can take to the bank; these are feelings that aid us in the fight against racism. Guilt, helplessness, and especially defensiveness changes nothing.
(h/t to Abagond for the image)
One of my favorite quotes about white guilt comes from Joseph Barndt. It appears in the “Beginner’s Guide to Anti-racism” post.
Thank-you for this post and the comments. I used to believe that if white people just disappeared from the earth that everything would be better. Now I see racism as a disease that often has a white face, but the disease is not inherently white.
I think many white people want to distance themselves from guilt because guilt leaves them helpless to do meaningful action.
It also leaves them with the view that in order to be anti-racist they must see themselves as less than human for just belonging to a group that has lived with privilege at the expense of others. A person who accepts the guilt of institutionalized racism as a personal failing is seriously hindered in doing positive action as the above comment stated.
When I read comments such as, “clean up your own house first” I feel frustrated. None of us chose to be born into a world with institutionalized racism and none of us (with the exception of Michael Jackson types) chose which category we belong to.
Those statements are heard as – “hey white person, I won’t talk with you until there is no more racism left and I am holding you personally responsible for the racism of every other person of paleness and any internalized racism of people of colour.”
Maybe the problem is in the interpretation of the words and not the words themselves.
This approach of ‘don’t feel guilty but feel angry’ is something that people of pallor can embrace to do anti-racist action.
This was great, thanks for posting it.
[…] always thought provoking Irene’s Daughters linked to this video earlier this month. In this short clip author Tim Wise addresses the […]