It's not about "guilt" with any particular ethnic group... but the "effects" a given culture is actually responsible for in general. All immigrants to this land are responsible for certain good and bad things they've contributed. White culture has surely NOT been sinless or perfect (not by any means). One would have to read the most doctored of historical summaries/accounts, to view Whites (primarily Europeans who migrated to the Americas) as not having committed atrocities and oppressing millions of other human beings here on this continent and others. It's not any surprise that "guilt" or any sense of "responsibility" for many of the legacy effects of White oppression have largely been baked-out of American society. History has been white-washed a great deal... allowing many White Americans to wield a fairly distorted view of their own heritage and culture. To be certain... we Americans who are White, hardly have a spotless record; in fact, very much the opposite.
If you don't think that liberals are constantly shaming white people for being white you aren't paying attention.
Every color of every society has a tainted record. Slavery, among other evils was not strictly a white thing.
It's an objective truth. Blm, calls for reparations, and social justice in general (which stands in opposition to actual justice) are all leftist platforms that are white shaming.
See? I told you. YOU are the one pushing white guilt if you see reparations as shaming. There are economists who have recommended it as a way to improve the economy.
There is institutionalized racism now, but it's because of the attempts to fix it. Us white guys are the victims, but that's changing.
The USA, at least on a governmental level - but also increasingly on social values - is the antithesis of the principles this country was founded on and for at least the first century plus longer. The concept was there would be no government in your way and you could do virtually anything you wanted. But the other side of that was you were on your own. Freedom inherently meant self reliance. Sink or swim. That was the very core of the American principle. Other than national defense, there was virtually no federal government and each state was largely its own country. The purpose of government - 95% of that state and local government - was to enforce state and local criminal laws and to protect property (land) rights. It was the United States of America, not the American Federation as it is now.
I would not make the claim that a person's color is what defines their culture. But it IS culture (pick any) which can be singled-out in history for certain real and long-lasting effects. An open and honest student of history and culture can readily understand the reality of that.
Immigration was 99% limited to immigration by white people. Muslims either were virtually banned or 100% banned. For some projects where the goal was the absolute lowest labor costs, specific immigrants were brought in such as Chinese to build the railroads. Immigration quotas were set specifically per country and ethnicity. Western Europeans allowed in more than Eastern Europeans. Blacks were essentially prohibited, as were Arabs, Asians, SE Asia Indians, and people south of the border. The USA wanted white people. Only white people. The more Western European the more they were wanted. The further from Western European the less they were welcomed or allowed in. Even the poem on the Statute of Liberty is a poem by an author who was deceased when it was selected. The author was a woman who was a vocal Zionist and the poem was her vision and hope for a Jewish homeland ONLY for Jews, no one else let it. The "gives us your tired, homeless..." etc was exactly about a fully non-diverse country as a safe refuge from all the conflicts, chaos, wars and death from the clashes of different peoples of different ideologies in the same space will cause in her view. When people say the poem is about letting everyone of any ideology, race, religion, ethnicity etc into the USA, that is 100% diametrically opposite from the truth. Mingling of people was not American, it was anti-American. Even indigenous Americans ("Indians") were not allowed citizen under law and constitution. The goal was not to build a great world melting pot. But a great new Western values white empire - and they succeeded massively, becoming the wealthiest and most powerful empire on earth. There was one clear winner at the end of WW2 and that was the USA. The USSR came in a far distance 2nd place. We are still living off the tail end of the wealth and power that victory caused - but it has about run its course. Beyond profit motives, the USA as the world's police is trying to hold back the growing tidal wave of others who are far more into competition, collective identity in expansionist goals, openly seeking power including at our expense.
Does it count when we led the world in defeating Nazis, Imperial Japan, and even Soviets and asked for nothing in return save for cemeteries to bury our dead?
The goal was to fill specific needs at specific time there was a famine going on in Ireland and the union needed troops to fight the Civil War so lot of Irish were brought. there was a labor shortage in the west so Chinese are brought in to build the railroads had nothing to do with some sort of great white nationalist plan
No, it is NOT an objective truth. There may certainly be incidental cases of the same... but no, no one with a credible view of American history and society would describe social justice or even reparations as being wrong. It is clear that some cannot understand or accept the notion of the same being afforded this/that group... but again, this nation's history is LOADED with accounts of myriad offenses, many of which belong or can be placed directly in the lap of Whites. That's not about shame/guilt... but fostering truth; which in the end is the ONLY way certain lingering problems will be identified and improved/resolved.
There were no government safety nets. The price of freedom was the cost of self reliance. Sink or swim. The government wouldn't stop you from swimming nor stop you from sinking. Hunger and freezing are great motivators. Freedom and dependency are diametrically opposite concepts.
Many on the left hate historic truth, the reason they want all monuments, statutes and symbols of any wrongs in the past eliminated and erased. Nor is social justice equal at all. While they openly oppress women, gays, etc, the left demands respect of Muslims, while demanding intolerance of someone with a Confederate flag - total hypocrisy and - again - more white guilt in control. You can not despise Muslims because the majority are not white. But you certain must despise people with Confederate flags because they are white. The limousine-class white liberals also want to totally deny and erase the truth that they are in that limousine because of the actions of white people before them that they condemn - and instead write a different history that it was black women, Latinos and Muslims who made that all possible for them. Remember President Obama saying that Islam and Muslims did so many great things for the USA, never once saying that Christian and Christians had?
There was a time in Louisiana when the Mississippi flooded they would go into the black funeral homes and use the deceased as bagging on the flood dikes times change