What happens when an education about America’s racial history ends with an understanding of its failures, but leaves little room to consider what comes next?

Coming out of my junior year, during which we studied slavery, segregation, and our nation’s history as it pertained to race, many students felt as though we had ended the year with the failures of our country.

White Guilt, a documentary by Shelby and Eli Steele, offers an opportunity to examine these questions from a different perspective. Rather than simply revisiting the injustices of America’s past, the film explores the role of racial guilt in contemporary American society and challenges viewers to consider how our understanding of history shapes our present.

The purpose of this film is not to convince society that America is perfect, nor is it to erase or minimize the injustices we have studied. Rather, it is to give people the opportunity to consider what comes after acknowledging those injustices. It presents a perspective that may challenge some, reinforce the beliefs of others, or cause someone to reconsider an opinion they already hold.

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The goal is not to indoctrinate anyone. The goal is to get someone thinking.

If someone watches the film and leaves with a stronger conviction in what they already believed, that is valuable. If someone else leaves having considered a perspective they had never encountered before, that is valuable, too. People should be able to engage with an argument, question it, challenge it, defend it, or reject it.

Saying, “Here are all the good things America has done; remember these and forget the bad things,” is not the answer. But neither should our education end with, “Here are the bad things America has done; now accept them for what they are.”

It is important for students to learn about the failures and injustices of our nation’s history. It is equally important to give them the opportunity to consider how our nation moves forward from those failures.

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About the Filmmakers
Dr. Shelby Steele is an acclaimed author, documentary filmmaker, and scholar whose work has focused on race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He received the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. His writing for the 1990 PBS documentary Seven Days in Bensonhurst also earned an Emmy, a Writers Guild Award, and recognition at the San Francisco Film Festival. Following a career as a university professor, Steele served for many years as a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Eli Steele is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work examines cultural and social issues. He collaborated with his father on What Killed Michael Brown?, a documentary that became a top-ten film on Amazon for four weeks. His other works include Killing America, which explores antisemitism in Bay Area schools, and How Jack Became Black, which examines identity politics and the experiences of multiracial Americans. His writing has appeared in Fox News, Quillette, The Free Press, Newsweek, and other publications.

Watch White Guilt
White Guilt is available through streaming platforms, including Prime Video and Apple TV. For additional information about the documentary and available viewing options, visit the Official Movie Site.

Watch the film, consider its arguments, and come to your own conclusions. Agreement is not a prerequisite for thoughtful discussion.

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