A Reflection On White Racial Shame by Robin DiAngelo

By Robin DiAngelo

Allostatic load is the accumulation of wear and tear due to chronic stress. Racial weathering is a form of allostatic load caused by the wear and tear of chronic racial stress. In this political moment, we can expect the allostatic load of our Brothers and Sisters of Color to be high. Now more than ever, those of us who are white must show up in ways that do not add to an already exhausting environment.

Yet this can be challenging when we too are deeply distressed by the political moment. Tyranny depends on fear, despair, silence and compliance. Bullies want us to feel small and powerless. They seek to invoke shame and a retreat into impotent anger and a sense of injustice. Notice that these are all feelings that undermine constructive action.

We tend to see emotions as natural, emerging unbidden from some internal and private place out of reach from others: “Only I know how I feel.” Yet emotions are actually socio-political in two key ways. First, not all emotions are sanctioned; the legitimacy they are granted varies based on why, when, and how they are expressed, and––crucially––by whom. For example, white men can express anger and be seen as powerful leaders, while Black men expressing anger are seen as threatening. White women expressing anger are seen as shrill, while Black women are seen as aggressive and out of control. Even how long we feel particular emotions is shaped by the culture in which they are expressed. In Western cultures, grief is expected when a partner dies, but not too much grief and not for too long, or we become concerned about the person’s mental health. In other words, we are conditioned to express and interpret emotions in particular ways that have socio-political consequences; emotions are not simply “natural.”

Emotions are also socio-political in that they are externalized. Even if we want to hide our feelings, they are still driving our behavior, perhaps through silence, reserve, or anxiety-driven hyperverbosity. Externalized emotions impact other people. Thus, in thinking about white emotionality regarding racism, we need to consider both the feeling itself, and the expression of that feeling.

For those of us who are white and who seek to interrupt our collusion with racism, there are some feelings we will admit to and others we will not. I have observed that we readily express feeling shame about racism, but not feelings that are likely much more common, such as apathy, defensiveness and resentment. Why is shame so comfortable for us to acknowledge, when many other feelings regarding racism are not? In racial equity work, shame may be seen as socially legitimate; a sign that we care and that we feel empathy. Yet shame in this context renders us compliant and ineffectual, while relieving us of responsibility. What can I do when I feel so bad, when indeed I am so bad? If this is who I am, how could it be possible to change? And how long would it take? Certainly time and resources will be required––perhaps a self-care retreat? Given that the self-help movement has taught us that no one should feel shame because we are all inherently good, expressing shame compels those around us to offer reassurance and encouragement to “work on our own issues first” and “take care of ourselves.”

Both bell hooks and Audre Lorde have noted that feeling bad about racism or white privilege can function as a form of self-centeredness in which white progressives turn the focus back onto themselves. hooks considered shame as the performance of whiteness and not an indicator that whiteness was being interrupted. Feminist writer and independent scholar Sara Ahmed states, “The shameful white subject expresses shame about its racism, and in expressing its shame, it ‘shows’ that it is not racist: if we are shamed, we mean well. The white subject that is shamed by whiteness is also a white subject that is proud about its shame. The very claim to feel bad (about this or that) also involves a self-perception of ‘being good.” In other words, if I feel bad enough, I both demonstrate and retain my morality.

Within antiracist education, much time and attention is expended to protect white people from bad feelings in a desperate attempt to keep them in the conversation. This dynamic is heightened when the shame narrative emerges; we now must tread very carefully so as not to cause the white participant to disengage (the consequences of being seen as pushing too hard will be especially serious for BIPOC people). In this way, white shame expressed in public space functions as a means of garnering sympathy and resources, as well as a means of social control as we scramble to reassure and pull back from directly challenging whiteness.

When we get stuck in shame, we are hooked into the good / bad binary: I am racist and bad, therefore I feel ashamed. Systemic racism in all its manifestations is of course bad, but we could not have avoided absorbing the racist messages of our culture. The good / bad binary is an individualistic framework that keeps us focused on ourselves and undergirds shame. Understanding systemic racism is a liberatory framework and undermines shame. I didn’t have the choice to be socialized into racism but I do have the choice to take responsibility for the outcome of that socialization. Taking that responsibility is the antidote to shame.

It is normal to feel some shame when we realize we are implicated in racial harm, and shame is a very difficult feeling to tolerate. Beverly Daniel Tatum describes white racial shame as “...part of the hidden costs of racism.” While being intentionally shamed is not useful, feeling shame does not mean one is being shamed. Some moments of shame just go with the territory. But as with all feelings regarding race, the key is what we do with them. Do we use them as opportunities for deeper self-awareness or as excuses to disengage? Do we use them as motivators to work through the issue or to collapse in the face of their manifestations? Do we build connections that support us or do we separate ourselves in defensiveness and embarrassment? We cannot interrupt racism if we can only tolerate comfortable feelings and retreat in the face of difficult ones. We don’t need to be rescued from shame, we need to build our tolerance and trust that the more authentically we internalize an antiracist framework, the less immobilizing shame will be. We are needed now more than ever. Let’s lighten our Brothers and Sisters’ allostatic load, not add to it.

Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Basic Books (2003).

bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (Between the Lines, 1989); Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press (1984).

Robin DiAngelo. Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm. Beacon Press (2022).

Sara Ahmed, “Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism,”  Borderlands 3, no. 2 (2004).

Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny. Penguin Random House (2017).

Robin DiAngelo

Dr. DiAngelo is an Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington. In addition, she holds two Honorary Doctorates. She is a two-time winner of the Student’s Choice Award for Educator of the Year at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work. She has numerous publications and books. In 2011 she coined the term White Fragility in an academic article which has influenced the international dialogue on race. Her book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism has been translated into 13 languages and adapted for Young Adults by Toni Graves Williamson & Ali Michael. Her follow up books are Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm and The Facilitator's Guide for Leading White Affinity Groups. Her work and interviews have been featured on CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC, NPR and PBS, among many other forums. In addition to her academic work, Dr. DiAngelo has been a consultant and educator for over 25 years on issues of racial and social justice.

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