Shelby Steele on White Guilt

Despite the fact that Shelby Steele's article "White Guilt and the Western Past" is largely intended to advocate a more belligerent course of action towards the Islamic world, nevertheless he does hit on some very important points about what's wrong with Western society today; namely the fact that it refuses to acknowledge its own rich heritage and given its internal enemies the moral highground.

And he pulls no punches when exposing the cause of this self-hatred:

"After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West–like Germany after the Nazi defeat–lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority."