Why I'm Ashamed to be a White American

It's not just because of the blatant racism that gave us MAGA and Trump; it's because of the liberal white hypocrisy that too often stands in the way of true progress

“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Over the last eight years — and particularly since November 2024 — I’ve found myself overcome with a sense of shame at being a white man in America. It’s not a shame born of the past sins of slavery and Jim Crow, because as evil as those periods in American history were, whites had ample opportunity to learn from and atone for those sins and redeem themselves for future generations. It’s not even a shame born solely from the blatant racism and white superiority that defines the MAGA movement that gave us Trump as president not once but twice. That’s because there are always going to radical elements of society motivated by hate and ignorance, and as long as the majority of people in a given society know better, and are willing to say and do what is necessary to keep those elements at bay, truth and justice will ultimately triumph.

No, the shame I feel as a white American is born primarily these days from fellow whites who profess to hold the same values and beliefs that I do when it comes to the equality, justice and democracy, who profess to feel the same disgust I do for everything that the MAGA movement stands for — up until the point that acting on such beliefs jeopardizes their comfort, their privileges or their relationships.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Black Lives Matters protests of 2020 that mobilized millions across the country, including millions of whites, in towns like my own. “White allies” such as myself held signs and marched in lockstep with people of color who had been victimized time and time again by a racist and unjust criminal justice system. And then we went back to the comforts of our own lives, self-righteous in the feeling that we had stood up and done our part to make a difference, at least for one day.

But people of color were asking more of their “white allies,” just as Martin Luther King Jr. had asked more of them a half century earlier. They knew that systemic racism would not be reversed through one march or one month or year of activism. As was the case during the long fight for justice against Jim Crow during the civil rights era, this movement would take years of perseverance and sacrifice.

Only too many whites were not interested in sacrifice. They were interested in only showing up when circumstances dictated that it would be popular, convenient and safe to do so. And once the backlash fomented, as it always does in fights for social justice, and they realized that too many family, friends, co-workers, social acquaintances or pickleball partners were on the other side of this struggle — that it was no longer a feel-good excuse to take selfies during a feel-good march — they grew silent. Or worse yet, they changed sides.

When I look back at the Black Lives Matter march in 2020 in my hometown, I recall one of the Black organizers telling us that if we really wanted to effect change, what happened that day needed to be the beginning of our activism, not the end of it, that we needed to show a commitment to the principles we had marched for that day on an ongoing, daily basis. But for too many of us, it was the end of our activism. We told ourselves that we had done our part. Now it was back to our privileged lives where we never had to worry about whether we or our loved ones would be the next George Floyd.

We’ve all seen first hand over the past few months how many powerful white-led institutions that talked the talk on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in 2020 have abandoned whatever conviction they claimed to have on the topic with the re-emergence of MAGA. Corporations have dropped DEI programs like hot potatoes. Billionaire tech bros have joined Trump and his racist allies in turning the term into a dirty word, all in an effort to preserve their own self-interests (I guess it’s true that no amount of money and power is really enough for the oligarch class).

But you don’t necessarily have to look across the national landscape to find such examples of white hypocrisy. Two years after Black Lives Matter, I got a bitter taste in my hometown of just how shallow the commitment of “white allies” was. When we had a school board election, some white political insiders who had been allies of Black Lives Matter two years earlier (or claimed to be) rallied around a white candidate without doing their homework. They based their choice on relationships and popularity in the community, not on whether the candidate shared the views they claimed to hold when they spoke out and marched to say Black Lives Matter. The school district’s teachers union, which had been outspoken in support of initiatives to combat systemic racism on school campuses, gave this candidate they knew through her years of involvement in the school community their endorsement.

Then a little research showed that the candidate was a regular campaign donor to Donald Trump and MAGA causes. The so-called “white allies” of the Black Lives Matter movement — as well as the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups — had apparently never bothered to ask the candidate where she stood on these issues before granting her their endorsement, or maybe they had and just didn’t care (as a reminder, this was the same year that the MAGA movement targeted school boards across the country as part of their “culture war” that featured book bans, whitewashing the teaching of racial history and attacking LGBTQ+ rights). Because in the world of white privilege, values are too often abstract concepts, while relationships — and the social status that come with them — are sacred.

And when the MAGA support became known, what did they do? They stayed silent. Because for so many “white allies,” that is always the easiest thing to do when values collide with white relationships. This wasn’t a question of judging a MAGA supporter’s character (judging people, even ourselves, is never productive); or a question of whether to sever a personal relationship with a MAGA supporter (though plenty at this point have chosen to do so for their own emotional well-being). It was about backing a MAGA supporter for elected office when MAGA values are diametrically opposed to the ones you claim to hold, and stand to harm people you claim to support. That is a circle that simply cannot be squared. Fortunately, enough voters put their values first and denied the MAGA supporter a seat on the school board.

Fast forward two more years. In the 2024 election, the lone ethnic minority on the school board — the one who had won the race against the MAGA supporter two years earlier — ran for and won a county school board seat, leaving her school district seat vacant. The four remaining board members — all white — had two well-qualified candidates to choose between for the appointment, one a longtime teacher and former teachers union president who had recently retired, and the other a child of Mexican immigrants who had graduated from prestigious UC Berkeley and had gone on to hold a number of college adviser roles with the university.

Understanding the importance of representation and diversity in a school district where more than 30% of students are categorized as Hispanic, the school board picked the candidate who would bring those qualities to the board that badly needed it. Then the backlash ensued — not a MAGA backlash from those who believe any minority picked for a position of leadership must automatically lack merit. No, it was was a backlash from the same sort of “white allies” who had talked the talk on diversity, equity and inclusion when it was popular in the spring of 2020 but had quickly forgotten about it when it was time to choose a school board candidate to support in 2022.

Sure, they believed in representation, diversity and all that, but in this particular case the “most qualified” candidate had been passed over, and that “injustice” needed to be remedied. So they collected petition signatures to force an unprecedented special election that terminated the appointment of the only minority member of the school board — because, of course, “qualifications” always must center on those things white candidates are always more likely to have in abundance, not abstract notions like “lived experience” that could give an elected official specific insights into the challenges of marginalized groups — and how to best address their needs. Because in “White Ally World,” all one needs to do is believe in the concept of “equity” and be opposed to “racism” to be able to put their lifetime of “qualifications” to work for the benefit of “all” regardless of background. Whatever a “white ally” lacks in lived experience they can readily make up for, at least according to their way of thinking, with the “qualifications” necessary to remedy the social injustices perpetuated by the misguided, racist whites, with whom they share absolutely nothing in common.

And, of course, there’s not any “racism” in any of that, right? As long as we “white allies” never dare utter the N-word, never dare engage in an off-color joke, always greet every person of color with a wink and a smile, the problem is never with any of us. It’s all about those awful MAGA types, whom we will ultimately save the marginalized and oppressed from (with a nice boost to our egos in the process).

For the record, I’m not hear to point the finger at my fellow white allies without reflecting on the manner in which I have engaged in this same type of thinking during periods of my life. I’ve been guilty of this way of thinking, too, and it makes me ashamed.

Then we scratch our heads and wonder why so many people of color in America seem skeptical of our “ally” credentials. Why they would even think of sitting out an election or, worse yet, voting for the racists who hate them, when we, their “white allies,” had said all the right things — at least when it was popular and convenient. How could they show such a lack of gratitude? Shouldn’t they be ashamed?

No, they’re smarter than we would ever give them credit for. Martin Luther King Jr. knew full well in the 1960s that the obstacles to racial justice in America were not just the blatant racists embodied by Bull Connor and George Wallace and so many like them. No, in addition to their bullhorns and firehoses, he and other civil rights leaders had to deal with a much more subtle, yet no less formidable, obstacle: the arrogance of “white allies” who refused to see beyond their own comforts and assumptions and confront their own racial ignorance, whose own sense of superiority made them unwilling or unable to learn and evolve.

More than a half century later, the fight for racial and other social justices in America continues to face the headwinds of a two-headed white monster: one of right-wing hate and another of left-wing arrogance, woven together by the common thread of racial ignorance.

I know which head makes me more ashamed these days.