Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Eden Driscoll
I grew up in a very strong Christian household where care and compassion were prized
above all else. The Golden Rule of treating others how you would like to be treated was
choosing to work in a helping profession because I want to spread God’s love to others.
Unfortunately Catholic guilt is also a strong influence from the past that I struggle with today,
especially as I wrestle with the social justice concepts centered around race that we have been
From elementary school onward, I felt more and more ashamed of being a member of the
White race as I kept learning about all the atrocities that White people have committed. Even
though I had not even been alive when White Europeans were massacring Native Americans and
enslaving Africans, I still felt guilty by association. As I realized that racism had not ended with
the Civil Rights movement, my shame further increased. One way I have attempted to deal with
the guilt has been to try to distance myself from other White people. From my experience,
anyone describing others as ‘acting White’ never intends it as a compliment. ‘Acting White’
means being uncool, ignorant, or racist. In order to be liked by people of color, I often feel the
pressure to be perceived as a ‘good White person.’ For example, I have often noticed myself
bringing up the fact that I have an African American sister in conversations with other African
Americans. Although her race is usually relevant to the discussion, sometimes I realize that I am
talking about her in an effort to prove to others that I am not racist without saying it outright.
interactions with international students as well as domestic ones. I strongly identify with the
NAVIGATING WHITE GUILT 3
sentiments of one participant from Linder’s (2015) research on White guilt when she describes
wanting to communicate to others that “I’m a cool person, I know about these books...I traveled
to another place, I know that you’re wearing the state sari of Cara, and I lived there, so let’s talk
about it” (p. 546). I want to work in international education because I love learning about
different people, but I now realize that it is easy to use my work as proof that I am a ‘cool White
person.’ I love amazing international students with my knowledge of their countries just as
As a result of all the personal reflection that being in the CSP program has forced me to
do, I am now realizing that my crushing need to be liked is making my work about myself
instead of the people I want to serve. “The desire to be liked by people of Color re-centers White
people and their experiences in anti-oppression work” (Linder, 2015, p. 546). In Catholicism,
guilt is assuaged by confessing sins and doing penance. I am now aware that I have taken a
similar approach to alleviate my White guilt. Although I am committed to striving for racial
justice out of genuine care and compassion for people, I am also discovering that another motive
is doing penance for the sins of my White ancestors, my fellow White contemporaries, and
myself. As Linder (2015) so aptly describes, “Aspiring allies for altruism often feel guilt for the
privileges associated with their identities, which becomes a primary motivator for the work” (p.
537).
I am only now becoming aware of the very bleak outlook I have had on living in a
racially divisive country. Unconsciously, I believed that there were only three choices for how
White people could exist in the oppressive society they had created. First, one could own up to
the mistakes of White people and choose a life of atonement, living with the guilt and discomfort
NAVIGATING WHITE GUILT 4
that inherently comes with this option. Secondly, people could push aside this guilt and live in
blissful ignorance by claiming that the actions of other people have nothing to do with them and
that systemic racism is over. The final choice would be embracing both the past and an identity
of being part of a ‘master race,’ therefore living a life guided by the principles of White
supremacy. Since I was taught by Christianity that suffering for the sake of others makes one a
‘good person,’ I chose to embrace the first option. Just as Catholic teachings emphasize the fact
that everyone is a sinner who must constantly ask God for forgiveness, I believed that I would
always be part of an ignorant, racist group of people doomed to compensate for the mistakes of
I never understood how harmful this conviction was until doing the readings and
participating in my cohort’s conversations for my theory class this semester. I began recognizing
that the martyr-like attitude I had adopted towards social justice work was extremely patronizing
towards marginalized groups as well as damaging for myself. I thought that by acknowledging
my role in perpetuating oppression I was helping deconstruct systemic racism for the liberation
of targeted groups, but I was mostly trying to redeem myself. It never occured to me to think
about how oppression affects me so that I could work with people with marginalized identities
rather than for them. As Adams et al. (2013) describe, “Many people who are members of
groups that benefit from oppression live with a burden of guilt, shame, and helplessness and are
never sure whether their individual accomplishments are earned or the result of advantages
received due to their social group membership” (p. 34). Considering how I am hurt by
oppression too can help me become a true partner with other groups in the fight for liberation.
NAVIGATING WHITE GUILT 5
Of course, I need to remain wary of centering my struggle with guilt over the extreme suffering
of oppressed people.
I have been wrestling with several other new conceptualizations of social justice that had
never occurred to me before this semester. For example, I had always considered privilege
walks and poverty simulations to be an effective method for developing empathy among students
so that they would be inspired to fight against social issues. I never thought that these activities
were actually reinforcing oppression by educating privileged people at the emotional expense of
those with the very identities for which the activities were supposed to be advocating. Kendall
and Wijeyesinghe (2017) warns that “care should be taken to avoid placing people from
marginalized groups in the role of educator for people with MPIs [multiple privileged
identities].” I know that I have personally done this, believing that I was being a good ally by
wanting to hear oppressed people’s stories. I also thought that by just listening I was making
room for normally marginalized voices to be heard; I never realized that my silence could be
taking up space. People of color should not be the only people talking about race. Now I am
Furthermore, people of color should not be the only ones engaging in racial identity
work. I need to also investigate my own socially and historically constructed identity as a White
person to disrupt its normalization and better understand how I participate in and benefit from
societal, and institutional systems of racism rather than considering racism solely on a personal
level, I may be able to step away from feeling so guilty. I have been born into a broken society
that conditions everyone to host racial bias at least subconsciously. Hosting these biases does
NAVIGATING WHITE GUILT 6
not automatically make me a bad person; whether I choose to confront and challenge these biases
dissociate myself from other White people who I perceive as embodying the ignorant,White
racist stereotype, I can understand them as being exposed to the same racist structures as myself,
which in turn can give me greater motivation to engage them in teachable moments rather than
simply dismissing them. This attitude is extremely critical when developing students.
Overall, my understanding of racial justice has become much more nuanced because of
the CSP program. I want to acknowledge that although I focused on racial identity in this paper,
I hold multiple privileged identities as a White, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied person. The
concepts I have discussed can be applied to my experience with these other intersections of
identity. I also want to clarify that I am not trying to completely escape White guilt. It is
important that I remember the past and how I still benefit from the systems of oppression that
currently exist because of it. I just do not want to be an advocate out of guilt; I want to embrace
my genuine care, compassion, and sense of justice for others as my primary motivators for
liberation work. In order to center my student affairs practice around social justice, I will have to
continually critique my beliefs, attitudes, and praxis like I have done this semester. I am still
wrestling with how best to put the revelations I have discussed in this paper into action, but my
one certainty is that I intend to serve students out of love, not guilt.
NAVIGATING WHITE GUILT 7
References
Adams, M., Warren, B. J., Castañeda, C., Hackman, H. W., Peters, M. L., & Zúñiga, X. (Eds.).
(2013). Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (Third ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kendall, F. E., & Wijeyesinghe, C. L. (2017). Advancing Social Justice Work at the Intersections
Linder, C. (2015, September). Navigating Guilt, Shame, and Fear of Appearing Racist: A