You may recall a recent post in which I defended white guilt. I crossposted it at Dailykos and MyDD. Later, I stumbled across a site, Right Wing News, and, lo and behold, there I was, getting lambasted. Some choice excerpts:
Over at the Daily Kos, diarist Shef makes the case for white guilt, mixes it in with a hefty dose of anti-Americanism, and perhaps most ironically, uses it to try to make a case for Obama while denying that he's doing so. ...
Vote for Barack because you're white and feel guilty, but pretend that's not what you're doing! The Japanese internment balances out the Bill of Rights! Apparently, only white people in the country today benefit from our "hegemonic system." America has gotten where it is because of the "blood and oppression of other peoples." White Americans should feel guilty for...what, things that have nothing to do with them? Standing up for America is "being an apologist."
After reading this, I can't say that I feel any "white guilt," but lots of contempt and a small measure of pity? Yes, I'm there.
And, from the comments:
I disagree not so respectfully: go fuck yourself.
I'm proud of America, and all that America stands for, 'the greatest nation on God's green Earth'.
Aww... Well, deep down inside, I had been looking forward to the day that I was lampooned by a right-winger publicly. I was imagining that I would get to use my acid wit and cruel pen (keyboard?) to take them down. But, after some though, I'm chastened. After all, they're right! I am anti-American. I should fuck off.
It certainly isn't empirically true that America has gotten where it is today because of oppression of other peoples. I hear American Indians just gave us this country. What's more, slaves, while they may have contributed to the wealth of America, certainly didn't propel us forward in our development.
And, yes, even though I specifically state that white guilt isn't a good reason for voting for a black candidate, obviously this was my super-secret message. I'm glad these guys were able to see through it.
Okay, though, let's get real. Even though I'm careful to distinguish guilt from shame, Ezra Klein makes a great point; it might be better to say sense of responsibility. This is semantics, because that's essentially what I claimed the result of guilt was, but if we're all going to get hung up on a word...
The argument, furthermore that guilt is an innapropriate response, as we had nothing to do with ____ injustice!, rings a little hollow, when its followed by a declaration that we ought to be proud of our country. After all, I didn't have anything to do with many of America's great actions: WWII, the Civil Rights Movement, being one of the greatest experiments in Democracy in the history of the world. Doesn't this mean that I shouldn't be proud of these things?
You can't have it both ways. And, furthermore, it is possible to be both guilty and proud of my country's past. I am proud of much and feel guilty of much...
Whatever, I'm not going to engage too much with these people. It's pretty clear from his response that if he read my post, he did so only to mis-read as much as possible, then call me anti-American.
I would, however like to end with a quote from Ezra Klein:
So guilt, responsibility, whatever you want to call it. It's not simply a response to injustices committed a century ago, but a reply to inequities that persist today. White America profited from slavery, racism, and economic discrimination, and black America paid for it -- they paid for it financially, and educationally, but also psychologically. Their grandparents couldn't drink at white water fountains, their parents were passed over for jobs and harassed on the street, they find nooses hung in their workplace. Those of us who traverse this country without that legacy and its attendant psychic and economic effects have, frankly, come out the winners here. The stats tell the story: We are richer, better educated, less likely to spend time in jail, and so forth. Are all those disparities attributable to racism? Maybe, maybe not. But certainly some of them are. And so we who have benefited from these injustices -- even indirectly -- do have some responsibility to try and right them.
LAST WORDS: I almost forgot to mention that the idea that someone goes through all the diaries in Daily Kos looking for something to ridicule is kind of awesome. You all keep up the good work! I'm trackbacking to their post, mostly out of courtesy, but I doubt he'll respond, after all, he has much more important things to do. Like going through Daily Kos and misreading two-bit diarists.
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