White guilt

What is white guilt.  As a Mexican-American this is something strange for me which I have little personal  experience with.  I have never personally felt it.  But it is something lots of white people bring up in talks and discussions about race or social injustices.  But lets think about this for a moment and analyze it.  White guilty, from what I have seen, is something which comes up only when you have just been exposed to knowledge or a perspective of a social injustice.  This social injustice may or may not have been committed by you or your parents or ancestors, but you have directly benefited and not been hurt by this injustice.  In a way you feel guilty for having been privileged and spared the pain and suffering of this injustice.  You feel this because you have been exposed to knowledge which you had no prior information or understanding.  You want to do something to fix this injustice but you don’t know what to do or you fear that anything to fix this injustice would involve removing some of the benefits or privileges you have.  The solution though does not involve a loss on behalf of white people. In fact the solution can be what we call in economics Pareto efficient, a situation in which everyone comes out winning.  However, the fear of the possibility of losing something you have is so great that it sometimes leads to a white backlash.  People will deny that the injustices are occurring or react very defensively.  However, white guilt is not because we are attacking you, it is because we are fighting to change a system that has failed to address the historical injustices minorities have experienced.  We do not seek to stop the benefits and privileges you have we simply seek to gain those same benefits and privileges for ourselves.  The fact that you feel white guilt is a good thing.  It means that you recognized a wrong has been committed.  The next step would be to address that wrong and work to fix it.  It means that we are that much further in our conversation or dialogue.  To hear the social injustices that have been committed against minorities and not experience white guilt is to not see that there is a problem, its not caring about what is happening, its not wanting to do anything to correct the situation.  By not experiencing this white guilt you are in essence admitting to yourself that you are a racist.  But your not.  And that is why we are asking for your help.  In order to change this system that has been put in place by our racists past we need the help of everyone.  To be apathetic is worst than being a racists.  It is to actively know what is happening, know that it is wrong yet refuse to change it.  You need to take this guilt and transform it into an agent for change.  You can not just let injustices go on unaddressed.