Member-only story
Erasing Guilt With Love
Paying it Forward
**All of the proceeds from this article will be donated to Chive Charities.
White guilt is a thing, even if you’re not white. Or guilty. I can verify this because I’ve never hurt anyone, as far as I know. But I still carry around “white guilt” wherever I go. You know that feeling you get when you’re sitting in your car in a parking lot and someone notices you and you feel like a creep? Or when you’re not speeding but go past a cop and you worry anyway? It’s like that, but subdued and omnipresent.
However, I’ll tell you right now that it’s not always about race, or gender, or ethnicity. In fact, for the purposes of this piece, I’m taking race out of it altogether. I’m calling it grey guilt. Or generic guilt. Whatever — just keep reading. This guilt feels like humility and gratitude and appreciation for all the shit I haven’t had to deal with.
It’s about privilege.
It’s about a pang of generic guilt that I’ve felt all my life. Maybe it stems from actually being Caucasian and knowing how lucky I am. How was I so lucky to be born where I was? To have parents care for me the way they did? To have everything I’ve always wanted in life? To have the privilege and opportunity to do what I wanted with my life and career?
