I just read yet another news flash about a college training students “who identify as white” in letting go of their “privilege.” I’d link to the piece, but what’s the point? By tomorrow there will be two or three more. (Indeed, another one showed up in my email right about the time I was halfway through drafting this article.)

And there will be more gut reactions coming back from whites who feel completely misunderstood, and more explanations of how that serves as proof that whites really don’t get it after all, and around and around we’ll go without end.

Could we just pause the merry-go-round and think a moment? Is there an actual problem here that really needs solving? Is “letting go of privilege” really the solution?

The answer, I believe, is yes, yes, and no. Yes: There’s a real problem. Yes: It needs solving. But no: Talking about “privilege” confuses the situation and makes it worse than before.

Yes, Inequality Is a Problem

Let’s start by acknowledging there’s a real problem. Life really is different for non-whites than it is for whites. If we don’t know that as white persons, it’s because we haven’t asked or haven’t listened. Whites may want to say defensively, “No, it’s not so!” yet it is.

Blacks and other non-whites get it. For them it’s a living reality. All other things being equal, there are advantages that come with being white, here in 21st century America.

It’s a Group Difference. Individual Differences Matter Too

Of course that condition is crucial, “all other things being equal.” Things never are equal though. People are different in too many ways, and privilege attaches to many different life circumstances. Is a black person raised in the home of a Silicon Valley executive less privileged than a white person raised on a small farm in middle Kentucky? Answer: don’t jump to conclusions. Even that much information is nowhere near enough to go on. Did they have parents who loved each other and nurtured them well? How is their health? And so on.

To view life purely according to race is stereotyping, overlooking the unique differences that make us individuals and not just group members.

Stereotyping is offensive no matter who it’s aimed at. To say that whites must “check their privilege” just for being members of the group “white” is offensive. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure that offense is intentional in many cases. It’s a way to inflict injury for injury, scoring points back at whites for hurting non-whites.

But returning injury for injury can’t be the right solution. We all end up getting hurt by it. It breeds resentment, when what we really need is respect. It contributes to moral confusion.

Confusing Moral Categories

The confusion gets even worse than that, though. “Privilege” activism induces guilt on one side — whites — while assigning something like automatic moral excellence to the other. And it’s all based strictly on group membership, without anyone actually having done anything right or wrong.

But a person’s morality should be evaluated by what he or she has done, not by the ethnic group he was born into. Didn’t Martin Luther King, Jr. dream of the day when a man would be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin? Yet whites are treated as guilty no matter how they’ve acted, and non-whites are assigned with “virtue” which again has little to do with anything they’ve actually done.

This turns morality on its head.

Group Membership Doesn’t Dictate Morality

Granted, whites have the opportunity to commit a certain kind of harm that non-whites do not: they can take undue advantage of white privilege. Granted also, there’s a kind of nobility minorities can achieve through suffering that the dominant class can never experience in the same way.

But neither moral failure nor excellence comes just by being in a position where it could potentially happen. People must still make their choices. After all, there’s also a kind of moral failure that only the oppressed can really know: resentful, angry bitterness. And just because it’s possible for whites to take undue advantage of privilege doesn’t mean that all do. Some people really do rise above.

So moral failure and excellence don’t come automatically with being either white or non-white; but “privilege” activism tends to make us think they do.

Making Shame the Only Solution

Meanwhile this activism pushes real answers almost completely out of reach. For what does a white person do to relieve the guilt that comes with simply being white? How can a white repent of whiteness? What option is there except to walk in shame over it?

The position of shame is bent down, eyes to the ground, shoulders slumped. It’s also a characteristic position for the oppressed. Roles are reversed: non-whites have the upper hand as whites become the ethical underdogs.

No doubt for many non-whites there must be some satisfaction in seeing whites stooped over that way. I suspect some whites feel better in that position, too, knowing no other way to manage their guilt. But shame is a lousy and ineffective solution to guilt, as every counselor knows. In the larger white population it’s certain to lead to more and more resentment, fostering backlash rather than building bridges.

Conclusion: Confusion

My conclusion? We’re confused. Yes, we have a real problem, which is that the non-white experience in America is less privileged than the white experience. Stated that way it appears as if the problem could be solved by whites checking their privilege. But that answer only leads to moral confusion: shame, automatic assumptions of guilt or innocence based on group membership, and a lessening of individual moral responsibility.

We’ve got to find a better solution. We’ve got work to do. I suggest we start by re-stating the problem. Focusing on it as “white privilege” has done nothing but mix up our moral thinking.