I can say as a white person I feel an intense amount of shame and guilt regarding racism. I feel shame in how so many white people don't see the institutionalized racism. They don't see the microaggressions or understand that centuries of slavery and then continued legal oppression or segregation would cause cultural and community trauma. I feel shame in what has been done, and the continued lack if inaction. I feel guilt in how I have involuntarily contributed to this system. I can't say that I feel exceptionalism too often- but I do feel like I am a good person and that I never have mal-intent towards others. That does not mean I have been anti-racist in the past. It doesn't mean my implicit bias hasn't made me not make eye contact or clutch my bag. I have always attributed this to general distrust of people- not because it is a person of color.
