White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era (P.S.)

Chapter 17 addresses a key problem brought about by the civil rights movement: power without authority. Acknowledging racism diminished the moral authority of White people, but it did not strip them of power. Whites still held institutional power, dominating the political system, the judiciary, police departments, education, and so forth. Consequently, American institutions lacked legitimacy.

The power of White people became contingent on certain social and moral values. Without these social and moral contingencies, power lacked legitimacy. President Johnson’s Great Society programs served as an apology for racism, while also restoring legitimacy to American democracy. Similarly, the military—one of the country’s most powerful institutions—explicitly dissociated itself from racism through affirmative action policies aimed at increasing the number of non-white officers. Steele argues that any attempt to gain legitimacy through engineered parity leads to double standards, and to the stigmatization of minorities, who are seen as second-rate. In the age of White guilt, however, the appearance of legitimacy is more important than the true advancement of minorities and the fair application of merit.