A frequent strategy of the pro-white is to call for an end to white guilt. To call it “guilt,” however, is to play into the hands of those who would use shame to suppress white voices and white interests, and to abuse whites. This is because it is not about white guilt. It is about white shaming.

The word “guilt” refers to the negative feeling that arises when one becomes aware that one has done something wrong. It is obvious why this is the word choice of the anti-white. Whites, after all, are instructed to believe that they have done something wrong. “Racism,” they say, is something wrong that whites have done, in the active sense, and continue to do, and can never truly stop doing, no matter what. The action of “being racist,” in which all white people are said to be participating perpetually and without conscious effort, is enough to justify constant feelings of mandatory guilt from all whites.

The word “shame,” on the other hand, refers to a negative feeling that can arise from guilt, but is not the same. Shame is a negative feeling based not upon what one has done, but on who or what one is. The concept behind the system of willful suppression that is commonly called “white guilt” is that white people cannot hope to avoid that which implicates them in the collective crimes of their race and ancestry. Though the anti-whites would like us to believe that we are guilty of something, the truth is that they aren’t blaming whites for anything in particular. They are characterizing whiteness itself at a much more fundamental level as something that is itself wrong, innately and inescapably.

We now live in an age in which two (perhaps even three) generations of whites in the West have grown to adulthood ready to be post-racial. Gen X and Millennial whites were fully prepared to act as though race is nothing more than the tone of one’s skin, and to treat everyone equally, regardless of their background. Unfortunately, whites were the only members of these generations who were prepared to espouse those beliefs. Other races (“POC”) were, and still are, told that whites are responsible for all of the world’s ills and, what’s more, any problems that a non-white person may experience in their day-to-day lives, can be blamed on whites also.

The result of this institutional, civilization-wide psychological abuse is that a generation of young whites has grown up believing themselves to be innately, unavoidably flawed as individual beings. This is not guilt for something they have done. It is shaming for something they are.

The only option is to begin calling out white shaming wherever it occurs. We must call it what it is: psychological abuse. We must speak out against it. We must not allow ourselves to be affected by it. Most importantly, we must know, truly and fully, that it is not accurate, and that it is morally wrong. There is nothing wrong with being who you are. It is okay to be white.

No more #WhiteShaming.

Thorgil Bjornson is a technologist and father of two who lives in the Midwest. He is interested in tech, news, politics, social commentary, and cultural critique. Thorgil can be found on Twitter at @PThorgil.