White guilt[1][2][3] is a belief that white people bear a collective responsibility for the harm which has resulted from historical or current racist treatment of people belonging to other ethnic groups, as for example in the context of the Atlantic slave trade, European colonialism, and the genocide of indigenous peoples.[citation needed]
In certain regions of the Western world, it can be called white settler guilt,[4] white colonial guilt,[5] and other variations, which refer to the guilt more pointedly in relation to European settlement and colonization. The concept of white guilt has examples both historically and currently in the United States, Australia and to a lesser extent in Canada, South Africa, France, and the United Kingdom.[6] The feeling of white guilt has been described by psychologists such as Lisa Spanierman and Mary Heppner as one of the psychosocial consequences of racism for white individuals along with empathy for victims of racism and fear of non-white people.[7]
The politics of the players raised barriers - from European/white guilt to the exaggerated, I would argue, argument that imperialism 'caused' the failed-state syndrome that afflicts so much of the post-colonial world.
The potential risks of imposing on students White or European guilt, or of mystifying certain cultures and ethnocentric perceptions of human rights struggles, can be addressed in at least two ways
Bruckner's lucid analysis of European white guilt and its dangers offers finally little reassurance against Mark Steyn's ominous vision of Europe
Aboriginal scholars found a "soft analysis" (Huggins and Tarrago, 143) of the colonial past that allowed for a "catharsis" of white settler guilt (Langton, 31).
It endlessly reproduces white colonial guilt and folds it back into a certain streamlined history of oppression and colonialism that leaves no room for alternative agency.