Oh, how I wish the video is closed captioned. Is there a transcript available for us Deaf folks?

Transcript for those who need/want it:

Questioner (off-camera): Um, as a white male, should I feel guilty for the sins of my fathers. I affirm that they exist, but should I feel guilty for them?

Tim Wise: No. You should feel angry. And you should feel committed to doing something to address that legacy. It's like, for instance, with pollution, right? We think about the issue of pollution. Now none of us in this room, to my knowledge, are individually responsible for having belched any toxic waste into the air, or injecting toxic waste into the soil, or done any of the things... we didn't put lead paint into the housing, you know?

Individually we're innocent of that. But someone did that stuff, and we're living with the legacy of it right now, or in this case might be dying with the legacy of it, getting ill, right?.

So it isn't about feeling guilty about what someone did, even if you were the direct heir of the chemical company that did the pollution, but it is about saying, all of us in the society have to take responsibility for what we find in front of us. There's a big difference between guilt and responsibility.

Guilt is what you feel for what you've done. Responsibility is what you take because of the kind of person you are, right? And so if I see a set of social conditions that have been handed to you, and which not only did wrong by othrs but elevated me and give me advantage that I did not earn, it's not about beating myself up, I'm not responsible for that having happened, I'm not to blame for it, so guilt is totally unproductive

But in order to live an ethical life, to live ethically and responsibly, I have to take some responsibility for the unearned advantage, which means working to change the society that bestows that advantage. It's not guilt, but it is responsiblity. It's no different than looking at the issue of pollution or if you became the CFO of the company, you wouldn't be able to come in and say, "I intend to use the assets of this company, and I insend to put them to greater use, and I intend to use the revenue stream we've got going, but that whole debt side of the ledger? No, I'm not paying any of that because I wasn't here when the other person ran all that debt up. You should've gotten them to pay it before you gave me the job. Now I'm here, and I'm innocent." We would realize that made no sense.

So isn't about innocence and it isn't about guilt, it's about responsibility, that's something we all have to take. White folks have to take it, people of color have to take it, uh, men and women have to take... everybody has got to take it, because we're living with... if we don't do it, no one does it, and it doesnt' get done. We're the only hope we have.

Absolutely awesome video. All 3 of my friends are women of color and I'm white and I've been working really hard to figure out this whole race/color/privilege thing. I get that there is unequal privilege and I know it's my duty, as it's everyone's duty to stand up against racism and unequal privilege. However, the way I should feel about it all is very complicated.

This video really straightened things out for me and gave me a clearer view on how to better myself and the world around me.

Great post.

Thank you!

The clip is great, as far as it goes. I would have loved for him to have linked responsibility to privilege explicitly, however--with the analogy to environmental pollution, for instance, it's the folks who have benefited most from past corporate policies who have the most responsibility to change things now, just as the folks who have benefited/are benefiting from gender and race injustice historically who have the most responsibility to make changes now.

He's very right, it is about responsibility. I was just talking about the same thing (how whites can be more anti-racist) on my blog. I think I'll add this video, too. Thanks for posting!

Just a thought - sexism works both way's , and i just wonder what your readers reactions would be if i posted " should a white woman feel guilty "

I fight to achieve true gender equality , and this is yet another example of people using politically correct statements about gender to bash each other on the head , usually to suit their own pathetic ends .

Should we not be acting like adults - here , and cut out the name calling , and actually strive to achieve gender equality.

This is such a good way to answer this question. It comes up a lot when I talk to my friends and family about white privledge..."well it wasn't ME!"

This is a wonderful explanation of true responsibility. I struggle to explain responsibility as a concept--the word has so much stigma now, and it's hard to see past the fallacies of it to the real meaning.

We do feel angry that rabid racists like Tim Wise exist in this nation. We feel angry that we generously gave millions of people like Tim Wise the opportunity to come to this nation only to have such people desire nothing less than our extinction.

Tim Wise is the man who fired the opening salvo in the coming civil war, the first person of nationally recognized authority to advocate genocide. The blood will be on his hands.

As for the commentators on this site, there is clearly no responsibility to anyone. The vast majority of non-white people in the US came to this country out of their own free will. We owe them nothing, and certainly according to the materialistic and hedonistic values of liberalism, they are far better off here in our lands than anywhere else in the world.

When it comes to the descendants of slaves, there is no more time, money, or interest in helping them. Enslaving them was wrong, but again - they are far better off here than any of their kin by a huge margin.

These are dangerous times. Everyone who desires piece must stop pretending to be a god, as if you have the means to change human nature. Focus on your local community, and forget the rest of the world and even your empire. The new word of the day is not responsibility, but sovereignty.

When someone argues my grandfather had an equal chance at competition in a free market while other peoples' grandfathers' were out right denied that opportunity and therefor my grandfather, my father and I myself and all we have achieved has been accomplished through some unfair advantage, WHAT DO I SAY?

That argument is basically valid-regardless of how poor I grew up-I probably benefited from bad racist policies, because my parents and grand parents benefited from them.

My success today may have been as a result of unfair immoral inhumane and illegal practices that caused another persons grandson not have the benefits I have had-and therefore they have to work harder, longer and have less of a chance at success than I.

Now should I feel guilty?

NO.

I am a human. I cant help that I was born a white male, I was born well after the 1964 Civil Rights Amendment and do endeavor to judge people on their character and not their culture color or sex/sexuality.

Should I have to feel guilty about what some person who resembles me did before I was born? If I do then that makes me somehow responsible for all the sins of every human (regardless of race/culture) who has ever committed a crime against humanity.

If my similarities to a group of criminals (racists)  in the past are based solely on my appearance-then the fact that I wear glasses must mean I am automatically responsible for everything every person with glasses ever did wrong-and I am somehow responsible for the victims of you people who don't wear glasses.

Bad example, but I hope the point is clear-please excuse the babbling incoherent rant it's late and I have had too much jolt cola.