Beyond Guilt: How to Deal with Societal Racism

Abstract

This article addresses the specific form of racism that we refer to as “societal,” and provides a method of responding to the guilt-based reactions of many European Americans to the subject of racism. We examine the “daily indignities” to which people of color are subjected and the additional hurt they feel when those indignities are either denied or blamed on them. Finally, we provide practical methods for European Americans to engage in micro-revolutionary change, using their invisible privilege to interrupt the small-scale, insidious incidents of injustice that pass before their eyes.