Not long ago I was the lone conservative at a panel discussion on race and politics at the famous Aspen Institute in Colorado. The day before the panel was to take place, some of us were asked - as a way of opening what was to be a weeklong conference - to say a few words about what we wanted most for America. This was surely a summons to grandiosity, but it did trigger a thought. When my turn came I said that what I wanted most for America was an end to white guilt, or at least an ebbing of this guilt into insignificance. I then used my allotted few minutes to define white guilt as the terror of being seen as racist - a terror that has caused whites to act guiltily toward minorities even when they feel no actual guilt. My point was that this terror - and the lust it has inspired in whites to show themselves innocent of racism - has spawned a new white paternalism toward minorities since the 1960s that, among other things, has damaged the black family more profoundly than segregation ever did.
- From Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country by Shelby Steele
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