Guilt about being White involves shame and disidentification from one’s racial group.

Evidence

Shame and embarrassment imply a belief that others will perceive Whites negatively. This link between evaluations of Whites and White guilt is specifically mentioned by … White racial identity theorists. Hardiman (1982) claimed that people in the resistance stage of her White identity model not only experience racial guilt but they also feel “negative about their racial identity and Whiteness” (p. 189). Tatum (1994) stated that the guilty Whites in the disintegration stage of Helms’s (1990) White racial identity model feels shame and embarrassment because they are White. This is a stage in which Whites do not identify with other Whites. Whites only start to “create a positive self-definition as a White person” (Tatum, 1994, p. 469) in which feelings of pride and excitement replace guilt and shame when they later reach the fifth stage of Helms’s (1990) model. — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt, 27

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question about whether identity salience triggers guilt or glorification - these stage models predict guilt accompanies negative self-evaluation rather than ingroup glorification. — connects to: White guilt should correlate with negative evaluation of one’s racial group membership. — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt: Its Antecedents and…, 30; Guilt about group privilege may both require and discourage White identity — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt: Its Antecedents and…, 31; Vicarious group responsibility for others’ suffering triggers shame or guilt. — Emanuele Castano, On the Perils of Glorifying the…, 63

Broader Connections

• White guilt should correlate with negative evaluation of one’s racial group membership. #corroborates (0.95) — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt, 30
• Vicarious group responsibility for others’ suffering triggers shame or guilt. #expands (0.85) — Emanuele Castano, On the Perils of Glorifying the In-group, 63
• Guilt about group privilege may both require and discourage White identity #qualifies (0.80) — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt, 31