white guilt

[hwahyt gilt, wahyt]

noun

1. the feelings of shame and remorse some white people experience when they recognize the legacy of racism and racial injustice and perceive the ways they have benefited from it.

Word History and Origins

Origin of white guilt¹

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

It has been almost 20 years since Shelby Steele published the best-known of his five books on race, “White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era.”

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He sums up the message of “White Guilt”: “If you can claim victimhood in America, it gives you leverage and power. For black Americans, the source of that power is ‘white guilt.’

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Eli and Shelby began working together on their film—also titled “White Guilt”—three years ago.

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Hamas’s atrocities, he says, “led us to shift our focus on white guilt to a global scale.”

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But antisemitsm on the right is also a ramification of white guilt, Mr. Steele says.

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