Dealing with guilt or discomfort
Difficult emotions can emerge on the journey to becoming more critically conscious of racism throughout society. We must acknowledge and work through these feelings. This is a lifelong journey that requires commitment. For example, guilt embraces a variety of different feelings; pain, despair, confusion, uncertainty and being overwhelmed are all reactions that may stem from learning about the persistence of racial injustices (Unitarian Universalist Association (n.d.).
We must navigate these feelings to arrive at a place of allyship and solidarity. Problems can arise when we focus on guilt rather than the injustices of racism. For example, in spaces where racism is being discussed, a critical component to creating safe spaces and having constructive conversations involves being mindful of responses that may cause additional harm.
This includes responses that express feeling:
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Defensive or argumentative
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Innocent or without fault
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Unsafe or uncomfortable discussing racism
The burden of these conversations often falls on racialized communities. In working through these feelings, we must not further exhaust, traumatize or harm racialized individuals.
Here are a few examples of responses that can cause additional harm or trauma to racialized people:
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The different degrees of privilege that come with whiteness have created the conditions for white people to not have to critically engage with the constructs of race and racism. As a result, when racial discomfort arises, the response is typically to blame the person or event that triggered the discomfort (usually a person of colour).
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Blame and self-defense results in a series of counter-moves against the perceived source of discomfort including penalization, retaliation, isolation and refusal of continued engagement. Therefore, white insistence on racial discomfort is a preservation strategy that ensures racism is not confronted and instead is continually perpetuated through the maintenance of comfort.
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In conversations around race and racism, comfort can be conflated with safety, so any experiences of discomfort are linked to feeling unsafe. This dismisses the histories and realities of racialized people navigating society and raises questions around what safety means from a position of privilege (DiAngelo, 2011).
The moral discomfort (or guilt) we experience can lead to a sense of responsibility about facing the reality of racism and making changes in our lives and work. To address this discomfort, you can acknowledge how white people benefit from a racist system that oppresses people of colour. You can also learn about adopting an anti-racist stance and translating that into practices (Unitarian Universalist Association (n.d.).
The Anti-Oppression Network (n.d.) offers a helpful list of ways to act out of responsibility rather than guilt:
Actively acknowledge your privilege and power and openly discuss them.
Listen more and speak less.
Do your work with integrity and direct communication.
Do not expect to be educated by others.
Build our capacity to receive criticism, be honest and accountable with our mistakes, and recognize that being called-out for making a mistake is a gift.
Embrace the emotions that come out of the process of allyship.
Recognize that your needs are secondary to the people you seek to work with.
Do not expect awards or special recognition for confronting issues that people have to live with every day.
What's the problem with being a so-called “not racist” person?
In his book, How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi (2019) writes:
“It is a claim that signifies neutrality: 'I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.' But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of 'racist' isn't 'not racist.' It is 'antiracist.' What's the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist.”