When was the term “white guilt” first used?

I’ve only heard it in the last few years.

I was curious myself so I found this on wiki:

“The phrase “white guilt” was first levelled as an accusation, as when James Baldwin wrote that “No curtain under heaven is heavier than that curtain of guilt and lies behind which white Americans hide’ in his essay “The White Man’s Guilt”, first published in 1965.[8][9]”

James was obviously a black activist from the civil rights movement, so I’d say it came from a “liberal”.

It seems to have started popping up more in the 80s and 90s in academics as well.

My personal opinion is that, in this “sound byte” and “bad faith” culture, the word doesn’t help because it’s always used as an attack.

At this point we need to work on making cops feel safe for outing sociopaths, curbing wealth distribution and work on social safety nets, instead of playing the blame game.

@Blackberry That’s interesting! 1965, during the Civil Rights upheaval and plenty of people still alive were participating discrimination and still plenty of violence too. Now, the term seems to be used to either feel guilty about one’s ancestors or feel guilty about just being born white.

The thing is, I have never agreed with the term guilt, I don’t feel it, why would I use it? What did I do? I feel sadness about the history and empathy, and I want things to get better.

I do agree there are still systemic problems in our country. I acknowledge I pass as “white” which has probably made my life easier, and also that I had college educated English speaking parents made certain things better. I guess I’m saying I see where I had some privilege, but honestly I hate that word.

A German jelly told me people in Germany don’t feel guilt about what the Nazis did to the Jewish people rather the German people feel a responsbility that it doesn’t happen again and to work at treating everyone equally. That makes more sense to me. My friend who lives in Germany says the German government does go out of its way for Jews in some respects to try to right the wrong.

I think sometimes when there is too much of a push, we wind up with a backlash that is counterproductive. People tune out from overload or feel unheard themselves.

I’m very interested in Black history the last 15 years, but what I really enjoy learning about is all of the amazing Black Americans in history and now. Like the Hidden Figures women, and our Black airmen during the war, and successful Black entrepreneurs, and so on. I think let’s normalize that Black people are just as smart and successful as any other group, and at the same time make sure we fix the system to have more equal opportunity. I think this regarding women too.

I worry that Black people are being taught to feel badly about themselves instead of pride in their people. There was a book written about successful groups in America and the formula was supposedly a “superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control.” I just wonder (you can tell me) if Black children get to feel pride, if they get to hear stories all the time about the success of their people. That’s kind of where that superiority complex comes in. It’s not supremacy, but more like their group is expected to be successful and examples of it are put in their face all of the time.

It kind of sounds like something someone wants others to feel (white folks) instead of some persons actually feeling that way unprovoked.

@JLeslie
Yea it’s a dated word. But America also can’t even handle responsibility towards its countrymen and women either. That’s why people see social safety nets as welfare etc.

The BLM protests showed America can’t handle any nuanced and complicated issues.

There were some college kids on their knees apologizing to black people, asking others to give black people money etc. A complete lack of understanding of the actual issues.

I think the black community is torn between pride and lack of it. People handle being a minority differently.

There’s a famous Chris Rock joke about how the rich black people had to be the very best, yet Chris Rock’s neighbor is a regular dentist.

“Black people have to fly where the white man can walk to.”
So that pride comes from “I didn’t need a rich dads money or nepotism to become successful.”

But becoming the best at anything isn’t something anyone can do.

@Blackberry Many minority groups come to America poor, so I’m wondering if you are saying Black people perceive other minority groups as all having the benefit of family with money and status? That’s not the case.

I was going to say the sixties. I’m pretty sure I heard it then. It might have been around in the fifties, but I wouldn’t have picked up on it that early.

It looks like @Blackberry is on top of that information.

@JLeslie The thing is, I have never agreed with the term guilt, I don’t feel it, why would I use it? What did I do? I feel sadness about the history and empathy, and I want things to get better.

A bit off-topic, but I have always found the “guilt” mentality peculiarly similar to the mindset we have here in the Eastern culture. We have a long tradition of feeling guilty for what our ancestors did in the past. We strongly believe that what we do will directly affect our later generations through karma although when people speak of karma they mostly think of the supernatural one. There are even proverbs in my language dedicated to such mindset. I get that the goal is to deter people from doing bad things, but it also has a dark side of harboring toxic mindset of guilt and shame and superiority/inferiority complex. I have never agreed with this mindset.

And unlike “white guilt”, this isn’t a new phenomenon. It has been around for centuries and deeply ingrained in our culture.

I wonder if there is any connection between the two mindsets or if this is just a coincidence.

@JLeslie
Of course. It’s just one facet of a particular mindset. I don’t actually know what all those people are thinking. Some ignore it all, some feel it’s a huge issue.

All these issues have the same hurdles.
If you ask 500 women how they feel about something like the patriarchy, you’ll get answers all over the place, with 1 woman probably even saying “stop blaming all your problems on men” etc.

Same thing goes for white guilt and racism. People are gonna handle it differently.

@Blackberry I didn’t mean to make it sound like everyone thinks alike in a group, I should have been more thoughtful in my wording.

@Mimishu1995 A lot of subcultures in America have a lot of guilt. We joke that the Catholics and Jewish people use or feel a lot of guilt, but it’s not about generations before us or generations after us.

Americans are very self focused, and our country is based on individual merit. It’s part of our separation from royalty when the country was forming. The belief that we aren’t destined to stay in the socio-economic strata we are born into. We can become rich through our own hard work, even if we are born poor. That also includes if your parent is a bad person, the child is not tarnished with that identity. It doesn’t work out neat and clean like it sounds, but that’s the overall idea. That doesn’t mean children don’t try to make up for bad things done by their parents, they sometimes do if they are able to.

@JLeslie Yeah. That’s what my impression about America too, an individual-focused society. That is why I’m taken aback by this recent guilt mentality. It just reminds me too much of my own culture.

Here we feel guilt in everything, from our own doing to the action of other people who are connected to us in some way. This is partly the reason why Asian parents are so strict, because they don’t want to feel guilty about what their children do. I have personally heard people saying they wanted to do something but were too afraid they would mess up and their family would have to “bear the consequences”.

I have a negative opinion on this mindset so I don’t feel very good about this guilt mindset either.

@Mimishu1995 I don’t think most white Americans today feel “white guilt” at all. I feel it’s a misnomer, and used for political reasons, but maybe I’m wrong. I do think very many white Americans want equality for all, and are horrified by the history of racism in my country.

I think most of us from the northeast always knew some of what was happening in the Southern states during segregation, but didn’t really realize the extent of the racism, brutality, and injustice until more recently, and segregation was not so long ago. That history definitely still affects this current generation. The continued differences in opportunities creates a situation where the pain and consequences from the history is ongoing. But, it’s not like all of America is racist. I feel we need balance.

20% of Black people live below the poverty line, they are disproportionately poor, but 80% don’t live below the poverty line. I feel like the US projects this image of most Black people here being poor and uneducated and that’s not the case. Most of my Black friends are more educated and make more money than me.

I feel like a lot of Black people make a lot of assumptions about white people, and the reverse is true too. That’s interesting to me. Having people hear each other and their real experience.

“White guilt” is an interesting concept. You have this huge backlash against “critical race theory” and one of the primary reasons is the supposed guilt that white children will feel if they are taught about this history of American racism and slavery. Do those who oppose CRT then assume that guilt for the past is in our nature and it will be brought out by learning certain unpleasant historical truths? I think of “white guilt” as the kind of cringe-inducing kente-cloth-wearing apologies we’ve seen from some, the tearing of shirts and kneeling before black people that does nothing but cause embarrassment for everyone involved. Guilt is not a very productive emotion, especially when it comes to righting historical wrongs. It tends to be directed towards oneself, making oneself feel better, less “guilty”. It’s fundamentally self-centered.

In some ways, I think people’s fear of guilt is holding back progress.

^^When I wrote the Q I was wondering if the conservative made up the term. Kind of like how they made up the war on Christmas. Just stirring up what doesn’t exist. So, they accuse CRT of causing their children guilt, but really, white lids aren’t going to feel any guilt, it’s just BS to stop awareness of the history and the ongoing problems. It’s like if we stop teaching about the Holocaust and the rise of Hitler, then QAnon can convince their followers that Biden is like Hitler.

Baldwin’s usage sounds more like actual guilt (to be responsible for) as opposed to today‘s usage which is an emotional response (to feel responsible for). They are very different ideas.

What is ‘white guilt?’ Is it ‘white SAVIORS’ use to tell black people ‘you cannot achieve
without us so lucky you we are here to help.

Like college admissions… telling black people they are not smart enough to qualify but
we are here to put in front of the line.

And voting… telling black people they cannot get ID cannot get to a voting booth
cannot get of from work, cannot pass the cadre of white supremacists and so on.

These sound like racism to me but hey… we need equity.

@WhyNow My point is who is going to feel guilty about all of those things? The people doing those things who eventually have an epiphany of the wrongs they committed? They might feel guilt.

What about the people who always fought against these wrongs or who just came to this country 5 years ago and have nothing to do with the systemic inequities? Are they going to feel guilt? Should they?

The children in school learning about history, will they feel guilt?