The White Privilege Mindset: Guilt With No Gospel

In 1989, feminist academic Peggy McIntosh at the Wellesley Centers for Women published an essay called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” It was an edited down version of an essay she’d written the prior year, and it wasn’t the first time the phrase “white privilege” had been used prominently in print (author William Miller Macmillan, for one, used it in his 1929 book, The Frontier and the Kaffir Wars, 1792–1836). But that 1989 essay has been remarkably influential in the decades since, both in the academic world and in the popular domain.

In the past several years the phrase “white privilege” has become ubiquitous, a normal feature of the American vocabulary. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary is happy to provide us a definition and selection of recent uses in the media. The United Methodist Church has a resolution about the immorality of white privilege. The National Institutes of Health’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion includes the term in its glossary of racial terms (along with “white fragility,” “whiteness,” and “microagression”). “White privilege” as an idea has wound its way into the American consciousness. And the regrettable part of this is not that there are no privileges that come with having white skin in America, but that the phrase assumes and assigns moral guilt to the people who have that shade of skin.

A Guilt That Can’t Be Aboslved

While McIntosh is not as overt in assigning moral blame in her essay, it is obvious that in the modern discourse around white privilege the talk is about a moral fault that white people bear. When we talk about “white privilege,” we are not talking about a privilege one is genuinely grateful for, like the privilege of speaking at a commencement or the privilege of serving in elected office. “White privilege” comes with an assumed ethical fault.

Almost 20 years ago now white hip hop artist Macklemore recorded his song titled “White Privilege.” Consider a few lines:

Claimed a culture that wasn't mine, the way of the American
Hip-hop is gentrified, and where will all the people live?
It's like the Central District, Beacon Hill to the South End
Being pushed farther away because of what white people did, now
Where's my place in a music that's been taken by my race
Culturally appropriated by the white face?

Macklemore’s self-defined white privilege comes with a moral price tag. He identifies himself as owing something because of a moral violation. Now, in the Western ethical system informed and shaped by Christianity, when a man has violated another he is obligated to make amends. Against competing ethical systems that might be fatalistic (assuming no bad action has any ultimate moral meaning and that no one is ultimately responsible) or pantheistic (everything in the universe, whether good, evil, or neutral, is ultimately God), Christianity rightly taught the world that human beings make real moral choices that they are accountable for. If a man sins against another, he is responsible to make it right before God and the victim. If a man commits a crime, he ought to be punished as a responsible moral agent. These Christian teachings correspond to the guilt our consciences testify to us and account for the sense of indignation we feel when we see outrageous evil. The Bible’s teaching on actual sin and actual guilt accounts for the world as it actually is.

But Macklemore (real name: Ben Haggerty) is singing here about a guilt he has been discipled to believe he has for which no full and final amends can be made. He cannot make this offense right. In the Bible, if a man steals an animal he is commanded to repay a specified remuneration more than what he stole (Exodus 22:1). If he steals a man and sells him as a slave, he is commanded to be put to death (Exodus 21:16). In other words, in the Bible a sin and crime is identified, and a full and final punishment is prescribed.

Question: What amends can Macklemore make to be fully and finally forgiven for the guilt of “white privilege” he feels and is expressing?

Answer: None.

This is the most destructive trait of the “white privilege” mindset. It introduces into a group of people a guilt that can never be atoned for. You can never be anti-racist enough to absolve yourself. Consider that 11 years later, in 2016, Macklemore recorded “White Privilege II,” which included these lyrics:

It's all stolen, anyway, can't you see that now?
There's no way for you to even that out
You can join the march, protest, scream and shout
But they see through it all, people believe you now?
You said publicly, "Rest in peace, Mike Brown"
You speak about equality, but do you really mean it?
Are you marching for freedom, or when it's convenient?

Want people to like you, want to be accepted
That's probably why you are out here protesting
Don't think for a second you don't have incentive

Is this about you, well, then what's your intention?

What's the intention? What's the intention?

Notice again those first two lines: “It’s all stolen, anyway, can’t you see that now? There’s no way for you to even that out.” He’s right, and that is the hellish spirit of this mindset: You are guilty, you must work off that guilt, but it will never be enough.

Relational Acid

The pair of songs together also form a perfect cultural artifact for illustrating the corrosive nature of the “white privilege” ethos. By assigning an irremediable moral liability on a subset of the American citizenry, the “white privilege” mindset eats away at the relationships on either side of its equation. And that corrosion is intentional. This ideology is not about identifying a particular evil and confronting it, ensuring that it is made right, and then restoring harmony between the parties. Reconciliation isn’t the mindset’s underlying goal. The guilt it charges is one that cannot ever truly be atoned for. And guilt that can’t be atoned for is relational acid.

Whether in a household, an institution, or a nation, you cannot have genuinely fruitful relationships where one party is believed to have an irrevocable moral fault. It is impossible. The guilt will always be a canyon between the one who is supposedly innocent and the one who is supposedly guilty. Any ideology that casts a vague, permanent blame on a person or group of people is going to produce shame, envy, and factiousness between the blameless and the blamed. There cannot be peace where there is a sin that can’t be forgiven.

In contrast to this way of thinking is the God who truly governs our world, the God of the Bible. He identifies wrongdoing, demands repentance for it, and then offers forgiveness through His Son. Among Old Testament Israel and the church He commands the same pattern: Name sin, confront it, forgive, and be reconciled. Even in the cases of sin that is criminal and merits capital punishment, the capital punishment itself brings an end to the matter. And in the far more normal, everyday instances of human wickedness and bad behavior, the pattern is straightforward: Confront real, identifiable sins, and then forgive.

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.

Luke 17:3-4

This pattern reflects the heart and wisdom of the God who made us and to whom we will each give an account of our lives and conduct. He is a holy God who is also gracious, long-suffering, and forgives the penitent. The posture of Satan, however, is that of the accuser, the one who condemns with no hope of restoration.

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.’

Revelation 12:9-10

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’

Zechariah 3:1-2

This spirit of accusation without hope is the spirit of the “white privilege” mindset. It is a mentality of permanent accusation and fixed division. It assigns guilt and shame that are as vague as they are vast. And it offers no hope of reconciliation.

In Closing

Anywhere where actual acts of racism have been committed, the sin should be confronted, dealt with, and forgiven. Sinful partiality and malice are an affront to the God who made and sustains our world. But no mindset of irredeemable and imprecise moral guilt can legitimately deal with sin and reconcile sinners. Instead it will further wound and divide them.

America has been subtly taught that people with white skin have an inherent moral stain that can never truly be wiped away. Where that is believed and is given place in relationships, the relationships will inevitably be littered with shame, strife, and envy. Forsake the “white privilege” mindset. It is a message of guilt with no Gospel.