[“I think shame provides social capital to white people in a few key ways. First, it garners sympathy. In the era of self-care, shame is something we believe we shouldn’t feel. If shame says “I am bad” rather than “what I did was bad,” then, in a self-care/self-help framework, no one should feel shame because we are all inherently good. The “I am inherently good” mantra is amplified for white people because our goodness is systematically reinforced across society: “good” neighborhoods and schools being stand-ins for white, and white as a stand-in for ideal human. When that taken-for-granted yet unacknowledged sense of racial goodness is challenged, we feel attacked at our very core. Whiteness studies scholar Michelle Fine speaks to this moral insulation when she says: “Whiteness accrues privilege and status, gets itself surrounded by protective pillows of resources and/or benefits of the doubt; how Whiteness repels gossip and voyeurism and instead demands dignity.” White people seldom find ourselves without these “protective pillows,” and when we do, it is typically because we have chosen to temporarily step outside our comfort zones. Within our insulated racial environment we come to not only expect racial comfort but to also be less tolerant of racial stress. Expressing shame elicits comfort and relief as we turn to others seeking reassurance, in essence asking to be reminded of our goodness.
For white progressives, shame is seen as socially legitimate (or we wouldn’t express it), a sign that we care and that we feel empathy. This may be why we express shame so much more readily than guilt. Guilt means we are responsible for something; shame relieves us of responsibility. If I focus on what I did, I must take responsibility for repair. If I focus on what I am, it is impossible to change and I am relieved of responsibility.
In distinguishing shame from guilt, psychologist Joseph Burgo explains,
Although many people use the two words ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’ interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others.
If guilt relates to external actions and shame to an internal or private state, we can begin to see why shame is the preferred narrative: it protects our positions within the status quo by making it difficult for anyone outside ourselves to address. (The “personal experience” narrative functions the same way; as soon as I invoke that what I am claiming is “just my personal experience,” it becomes private—something internal to myself that only I can know or understand and that therefore cannot be challenged by others.)
Second, it is hard to move forward when we feel shame, as shame tends to be paralyzing; shame actually excuses us from moving forward. What can we do when we feel so bad? We can’t act until we work through this feeling, and that will take time and resources. Of course, given the requirement of time and resources, most of us won’t work through our feelings at all.
Indulging in racial shame whenever we feel exposed (but only when we feel exposed) puts our focus on ourselves and away from those we may have harmed. In this way, shame functions to deny our power and excuse our paralysis, allowing us to indulge in a sense of our own victimization. Both bell hooks and Audre Lorde have noted that feeling bad about racism or white privilege can function as a form of self-centeredness in which white progressives turn the focus back onto themselves. Hooks considered shame to be the performance of whiteness and not an indicator that whiteness was being interrupted.
Feminist writer and independent scholar Sara Ahmed explains, “The shameful white subject expresses shame about its racism, and in expressing its shame, it ‘shows’ that it is not racist: if we are shamed, we mean well. The white subject that is shamed by whiteness is also a white subject that is proud about its shame. The very claim to feel bad (about this or that) also involves a self-perception of ‘being good.’” In other words, if I feel bad enough, I both demonstrate and retain my morality. Ahmed raises the question of whether anti-racism is really about “making people feel better: safer, happier, more hopeful, less depressed, and so on.” There is certainly much concern within anti-racist education about white people not feeling “too” bad lest they withdraw from engagement, and much time and attention is given to keeping white people in the conversation. This concern is heightened when the shame narrative emerges; we now must tread very carefully so as not to cause the person to disengage.”]
robin diangelo, from nice racism: how progressive white people perpetuate racial harm
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