White Guilt Welcome

I have looked for White Guilt on three continents, for a long time. In fact I began looking for it years ago in Europe; long before it went into vogue in America. The French didn't have it. I was however particularly looking for white British guilt. I found none so I shelved my search for years.

I bring the subject up again because recently Ralph Nader claimed that white guilt had catapulted Barack Obama to his present position atop the political perch. Nader implied that we should be angry, aggrieved in the way that he too is. And since white guilt is a flaw and a weakness it should be blotted out of the white character.

Sadly for Nader, two stalwarts of the black conservative movement beat him to it. Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele have been on an endless gondola ride of white guilt. Connerly is the black California conservative for whom, at an earlier age, affirmative action was the boat that carried him to his Promised Land. Then as a University of California regent he spear headed and helped pass Prop 209 which banned affirmative action in all UC schools.

Shelby Steele has served as a white guilt exorcist, serving to soothe the white conservative conscience. "You are not to blame for anything that befalls black slaves' children or Indian children either;" exhaustively mining the white guilt vein. He's built an empire: of books, inclusion in exclusive clubs; he's the no-white-guilt voice of the Op-Ed pages of the Wall Street Journal where he preaches that history can be revised and is subject to erasure.

I too bring my spade to this mountain; but am looking for a different brand of white guilt. Because of my colonial history I'm looking for British guilt. I naturally presume that it's a variation of "white" guilt. I am like the Chinese who for a century have been looking for the Japanese to admit guilt for the atrocities at Nanking and elsewhere in China. I am also like the Jew for whom German guilt for the Holocaust is now a foregone conclusion.

The declaration of guilt I'm looking for is of a different pedigree -- not the master/slave American brand, but the Colonial Bwana/servant variety. I have found that the British, unlike Americans don't do guilt well. Like many colonial masters, they resemble the turtle -- mother turtle leaves, memoryless as soon as she lays and covers her eggs.

Once the colonial umbilical cords were cut from their African colonies, the European masters washed their hands and left. I believe the British are tangentially responsible for a lot of the African mess: from Sierra Leone, Nigeria to South Africa. They are responsible for a great deal of bloodletting; but they refuse to acknowledge it.

The one place that truly angers one is the Sudan. The bloodletting, present and past, are of great concern to many of us. I submit that the British knew full well that as soon as they left Sudan's blacks at the mercy of Egyptian and Sudanese Arabs there could only be one outcome: Arab on black carnage. They understood the ethnic and religious differences that existed in the Sudan. From their own past Sudanese experience, they already knew Arabs' violent, murderous tendencies. And for a century, they had discouraged and fought Arab slave trade in the Sudan. It amazes one to think the British would deliver blacks to the violent Arab hands.

As was predictable, no sooner than the British handed Sudanese black South to the Arabs, the blacks rebelled and the genocide of 2 million blacks in South Sudan was unleashed. From the point the British left Sudan there has never been a moment of peace. Never a moment blacks have not been targets of Arab guns. This was predictable to the colonial eye. And yet, that eye was closed as the British left the Sudan. It is unlikely there will ever be peace in the Sudan until the different ethnic groups and races are separated.

Then and now there was neither white mercy nor white guilt anywhere in evidence as the British observed from a distance as their former black subjects were marched to their deaths. The British are a practical lot; they eschew any notion of a colonial conscience or such niceties as guilt.

If they did, they would have renegotiated the Sudanese Accords; have supported the black underdog in the two decade civil war. That they let so many to be killed is a sign their mind lacks any sense of guilt.

As the Darfur genocide enters its fifth year, the British are like an amnesiac; they have forgotten the role they played in creating the Arab killing machine. At no time have they engaged in any sort of retrospective thought -- to ask themselves what's their responsibility in the carnage; what they can do to force the Arab to desist. If they had, there would not have been the bloodletting we have seen in the Sudan. Clearly, guilt can only exist in minds with a conscience.

As we watch the murder and the rape of black children in Darfur by Arab Janjeweed, I'm reminded of how callous and uncaring the colonial British mind must have been to abandon blacks in South and West Sudan to the mercy of the Arabs. If there is a place for white guilt, it should be in the Sudan: both south and Darfur. I had hoped that the British, given their colonial history, would have been more forceful in defending blacks in the Sudan. They have not.

One can wish all they want. But it is obvious white British guilt is but a figment of one's imagination. It's amazing the British didn't have to invent a Shelby Steele. Not unlike the Japanese, the lack of guilt is woven into the British DNA.

We in America may point at and accuse each other of exploiting white or some other color guilt. We, as is our wont, driven by superficial personal ambitions are incapable of diving deeper, to elicit meaning, to understand the essence of the moment. The evanescent nature of Ralph Nader's remarks, and the meaninglessness of his efforts all pale compared to what transpires in the Sudan and elsewhere. In places where guilt suffused with mercy are needed, none exists.

Comments

[1will]

What should Britian have done when leaving Sudan? What actions would have stopped the killings? It would have taken more than kind words and gentle rebukes to stop Arabs from killing their neighbors. So....should Britian have deployed troops to a colony that it was giving up control of or used some other means?
This is a serious question. What actions would have worked?

[Pius Kamau - Huffpost Blogger]

The British calloulsy left blacks in the south at the mercy of the Arab north. History should always teach the human race some lessons. Given the experience of former British colonies: India and Pakistan and the ensuing bloodshed and massacre of millions after the 1948 independence, it woudn't have taken much intelligence to realize that Arabs would be on blacks' throats as soon as the British left the Sudan. The solution would have been to separate the territory as it had been before they came to the Sudan. Britain should have left the black south within its own borders; and leave the Arab north reparate from the south.

The off shoot of the British action was to unleash the longest bloody mess on the continent. There has never been a moment of peace in the Sudan. Once the genocide of south's blacks by arabs was underfoot, the Britih should have tried to help the weeker side; armed the weaker side; worked hard to stop the killings at the UN in support of the weeker side. It did none of it. Indeed today, the only solution to the Sudan problem is separation of the black south, east and West from the Arab north.

Thanks.

[Ajita]

Thank you for this piece. The Bloody hand of the British reached far and wide. It surprises me how the centuries of colonial rule by the Europeans over Asia, Africa and the Americas is given cursory treatment in history classes compared to WW2 and the American civil war. Americans and others do not easily see how this colonial rule was directly responsible for stripping the status of the people around the world and for the relative wealth of Europe. Before colonialism, the wealth of India, China, South Africa and South and Central America was immense compared to the Europeans. Chomsky writes about how India and China went from being the manufacturing centers of the world in the 18th century to being producers of raw material for the factories of Britain and America in the 19th to make goods that were sold back to them. Everyone remembers Ben Franklin refusing to send cotton and flax over to England to be manufactured into linen, but nobody knows about the hypocrisy we practiced by doing the same to others. We were a closed market, a socialist state, and this was responsible for much of our wealth that was built in the 19th century. Ben Franklin was for regulation, not "free-trade". And now we complain when developing countries want to regulate imports because they want to build their own local manufacturing sectors. We impose our rule through the WTO and use superfluous language proclaiming freedom and equality. What BS.

[Bobrobert]

:-)

No white guilt here.

:-)

Remember to vote all.

Pray for all the troops.

[arvay]

I think that shame is a better emotion to arouse, rather than guilt.

For example, the fact that Thomas Jefferson, the man who composed the US Declaration of Independence, was also a slave owner, can't reasonably be the reason for contemporary whites' guilt. We weren't born yet, didn't own slaves or approve of slavery.

But we can feel shame at this fact and the other aspects of racism -- just as we're entitled to be proud of certain aspects of our nation, it's reasonable that we feel shame for other things. And shame is a powerful spur to action. Of course, anyone who actually commits a racist act should feel guilty AND ashamed.

And, if we had a serious press corps rather than a group of mostly entertainers more interested in sensationalism, Hollywood and other entertainers' antics, we might see a thorough report to the world on the historical background that produced the Sudan and the horrible atrocities in Darfur. That would include some shame for the Chinese as well. Unfortunately, there's more than enough to go around.

Maybe the BBC can take this on, although they don't have the world-wide impact of the US media.

[robXdion]

The British don't feel guilt because they don't live with the results of their actions like white Americans do. 600,000 Brits didn't die over the central issue of Sudan. Nor did the Brits live with an ensuing 100 years of terrorizing and lynching blacks. Or the 86 ensuing years of keeping blacks in slavery despite a Constitutional amendment and emancipating decree.

Blacks should be outraged, but Reagan scared it out of them. It became vogue in the 80's to ignore America's racial history . Racism then gained a new definition that reminding whites about past racial injustices IS somehow racist. That became "playing the race card" because US history is indefensible. So to protect themselves, whites developed the gimmick of blaming the accuser for their prejudice and insensitive conduct or statements. Calling them what they are is disruptive to racial harmony, not THEIR own actions.

Steele and Connerly were wrong because they approached the issue as being O-bama's burden alone and extrapolated his failure from that. Nader was right because he laid the blame at white America's feet where it SHOULD be laid and questioned their moral character and honesty. And yes he also addressed the FACT O-bama won't dare broach it. He'll become "Al Sharpton II" if he did, so he treats whites delicately on the topic. It's all they can bear. Example: notice how the House of Representatives' apology for slavery got buried.

[SeanGardner]

Thanks for your great piece Mr. Kamau.

I am reminded that Shelby Steele and Raplph Nadar aren't the only ones promoting the "white guilt" angle about Obama's nomination. Pundits on the Right like Pat Buchanan and pundits on the Left like Geraldine Ferraro have expoused this nonsense.

Its nonsense because if WHITE GUILT was enough to be president, then Al Shaprton (2004), Alan Keyes( 1996), former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder (1992), Jesse Jackson (1984 & 1988), and Shirley Chisholm (1972) would have been elected.

I recall this WHITE GULT argument throughout much of the primaries. Obama crushed Hillary with 32 states won - powered by convincing wins in states Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Maine, Alaska, Iowa, and Vermont that are, statiscally, among "the whitest" in this country. So, he beat Hillary and its because whites feel bad about Jim Crow and slavery?! WOW!! Never mind Obama's vaunted ground game that did a better job organizing. Never mind Obama's opposition to the Iraq war that was in stark contrast to Hillary's ill-fated war vote.

Never mind Obama's soaring appeal that produced the highest level of young voters this coutry has seen since 1960. Never mind his understanding of the new media and embrace of emerging technologies that both converged to produce an army of online donors unseen and unparalleled in the annals of politics.

The WHITE GUILT argument is criminally and racially irresponsible, and serves to dismiss and undermine the hard work that went into his history making campaign.

[chitown8]

I agree wholeheartedly with your point. The White Guilty is pretty much mean less base on the fact that Obama won primaries in some of the Whitest States. He beat The Clinton Machine fair and square. Yet I think that all nations that participated in slavery should at the very least apologize for that fact of history. African decedent people in general have suffered more than any other race in the United States. Through my own family history my grandmother has seen more hangings of neighbors, classmates, and family members. Ultimately she left Arkansas to Chicago in the 1940's to save the man she loved my Grandad. She has never trusted whites, bu will be nice to them when she had to. She never and I mean never allowed one in her home nor when to theirs. She is racist maybe but she is my history. I think many folks like her deserve and apology for the mistreatment that the Gov't allow to take place in their backyards. Making a month Black History or MLK Bday isn't enough someone in the Us and UK will have to just say I am sorry. If you don't believe that race is still an issue as the man who said "even if Obama was President he would still be a boy to him."

[robXdion]

All those past black candidates had the unenviable quality of coming around when America was less racially tolerant. Plus, they couldn't boast recent white relatives to calm the sensibilities of those unwilling to imagine a black President. So don't act O-bama just magically did it on his own thru the generosity of white people. The idea of being a "gift-giver" is a patronizing take on white supremacy. The youth are the ones who deserve credit. He knew he had to register and motivate them to even have a chance since most over 40 are brainwashed with the racial prejudice everyone claims doesn't really exist while acting like America's past doesn't really matter. O-bama also stands on the shoulders of all that came BEFORE him. It made his road easy. Because no matter what whites call O-bama to make him more agreeable psychologically (half-white, etc) he was still reminded he was black. That's how he describes himself.

And as for "white guilt", it exists because the race issue has always really been a white moral issue since racism in this country had it's beginning with black enslavement and subsequent terrorizing and marginalization. These perceptions STILL exist unspoken in public and kept private. So don't act like you don't know why he couldn't campaign in WV or is called "uppity" and can't rise in the polls like he should. This country eats and breathes Denial.

[cobobs]

Britain with a conscience or an inconvenience like guilt? Elizabeth I made Britain great, and she was the original pirate queen. Her country remains very much a pirate nation. How could one plunder and own a conscience.

[Fudgefase]

Speaking as a Brit.......
When I see reports from the Sudan, I see people doing unspeakable things to other people. They are the same colour though apparently one side is 'backed' by Arabs. I have to take that on trust, because I never see that.
Guys - to borrow a phrase - it's people kill/mutilate/rape people. They do it because they've got something to gain..... power, wealth, land, influence. All the usual suspects.
If they stood up and said no, and treated others with the respect they (almost certainly) demand, then, and only then, might peace become a possibility.