Thread by @WokeTemple

A question: Are ancestral guilt and collective guilt fundamentally liberal and tolerant subjects? Can people (“we”) be guilty for sins (“torture”) committed centuries ago (“past”) by people who look like us?

Trying to understand the scholar's reasoning (I did read the book twice):

1. All white people have anti-blackness;
2. That anti-blacknesss comes from our feelings of deep guilt.
3. That guilt is based on our complicity in things other people (either our ancestors or . . .

people who looked like us) did that we now consider morally wrong;
4. That knowledge (in our complicity int those actions) is unbearable for us;
5. To deflect that unbearable knowledge we develop anti-blackness (a sort of psychological defense mechanism).

Do I have that right?

6. The assumption is that everybody has this anti-blackness,
7. And those who say they don’t are merely in denial;
8. And this paragraph explains the roots of that anti-blackness (which we may not be aware of). . .

9. And those roots are based on our deep guilt (whether we admit it or not) of things (here torture) that other people did in the past.

So far so good?

10. To accept the scholar's thesis, we must believe in the validity of collective guilt & ancestral guilt.
11. But what if we don't believe in their validity?
12. What if we believe that collective guilt & ancestral guilt are fundamentally illiberal, intolerant concepts?

13. I’m trying to make sense of all this. I know the scholar doesn’t debate or discuss or even answer difficult questions, so I’m sort of stuck trying to figure it out on my own.
14. Any help much appreciated.

#WhiteFragilty #CollectiveGuilt #SinsOfTheFather