White Guilt (book)
| Author | Shelby Steele |
|---|---|
| Genre | non-fiction |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 2006 |
| Pages | 181 |
| ISBN | 978-0-06-057863-3 |
| OCLC | 148665150 |
White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era is a book by American author Shelby Steele in 2006.
In the book, Steele argues that white guilt is much more than just a race problem.
Steele describes his experience growing up as a young black man in an era of racism and white dominance. From a young age, he dreamed of becoming a batboy for an all-white baseball team. With segregation at large, Steele feared his dream would never become a reality, but he spent many weeks watching and admiring the baseball players.
After catching the coach's attention as someone with immense passion for baseball, he was granted the position of batboy, his dream now becoming a reality. The high of achieving his goal soon became shattered when the baseball team was to play at a whites-only stadium. When reflecting back on this event, Steele states, "I am certain that racist rejections like this do not cause low self-esteem in their victims. They cause disenchantment with the world. My self-esteem was not diminished in the least by what happened to me on that Saturday morning."
Throughout the years, he watched the era of white power transform into an era of white guilt, the underlying theme throughout Steele's book. He believes that the lack of time between transitioning from white supremacy to white guilt is what ultimately led to the destruction]] of the Cvil Rights Era. According to Steele, since the transformation from white power to white guilt was presented to society without a cooling-off period, Americans were not able to feel a sense of neutrality towards racism.
A bargain came about that blacks in the political spotlight appealed to whites to take hold of white guilt and to use it to their advantage. Steele talks about how being black can be an advantage because of heavy white guilt is. Steele says that it happens often: blacks appealing to white guilt to use it to their advantage, which is how blacks and whites together destroyed the promise of the Civil Rights Era.