Transforming the Shame of Whiteness for Collective Healing – Detailed Study Notes

Context and Genesis of the Work

In March\,2018, clinicians Robin Schlenger (white, MSW, LCSW) and Alana Tappin (Black, PsyD) met at a Washington, DC conference originally meant to feature Dr. Kenneth Hardy. In Hardy’s absence, they attended Soul Work: Unmasking Internalized Superiority and Overcoming Internalized Inferiority hosted by the Eikenberg Academy for Social Justice. The gathering highlighted how conversations about ancestors revealed contrasting emotional legacies for white participants versus People of Color (POC). Many whites struggled to name admirable ancestors, often grappling with the weight of collective historical complicity, whereas POC readily cited strong legacies of resistance and brilliance. This stark difference highlighted the unacknowledged burden of racial legacy for white individuals.

Tappin realized the centrality of shame: when whites confront their complicity with white supremacy, an overwhelming sense of shame often paralyzes them, impeding accountable antiracist behavior. Together, she and Schlenger envisioned a training to help white bodies remain engaged in racial justice work by cultivating shame resilience through empathy, mindfulness, connection, and accountability.

Central Problem: White Supremacy, Shame and Accountability

White supremacy, defined by Sensoy & DiAngelo as the pervasive, normalized dominance of whites, profoundly devastates BIPOC lives through systemic oppression and simultaneously erodes white humanity by compromising their moral integrity. Sue (2016) extensively catalogs centuries of oppression—including genocide, torture, microaggressions, and invalidation—and the dismissive responses (“too sensitive,” “race card”) that BIPOC continually face. While whites must wrestle with their inherited privilege, excessive, unprocessed shame about racism blocks responsibility and active engagement, leading to paralysis and leaving the racist status quo intact. This paralysis prevents genuine engagement with racial justice and ultimately maintains the very systems of oppression that damage all lives. The authors assert: dismantling white supremacy cannot be achieved by shaming; genuine transformation requires confronting shame, not reinforcing it.

Distinguishing Shame from Shaming

• Shame (experience) – an embodied belief of fundamental deficiency (Kaufman, 1992), a deeply internal psychological state.

• Shaming (act) – external diminishment or retaliation that compounds pre-existing shame (Gianotti, 2020), often an interpersonal dynamic.

White antiracists must learn to feel and process their own intrinsic shame (often specifically “immorality shame,” stemming from perceived moral transgressions) without being subjected to additional external shaming. Genuine internal processing of shame is crucial, as external shaming often triggers defensive responses that shut down learning and accountability rather than fostering it.

White Supremacy Culture and Internalized Racial Superiority

Jones & Okun (2001) list organizational traits of white supremacy culture—such as a sense of urgency, either/or thinking, paternalism, power hoarding, written-word worship, quantity over quality, objectivity myths, entitlement to comfort, conflict avoidance, individualism, perfectionism, and critique-focus. These pervasive traits permeate families, education, science, justice systems, and faith communities. For instance, 'either/or thinking' can prevent nuanced self-reflection about complicity, and 'entitlement to comfort' enables avoidance of the discomfort inherent in confronting racial injustice and one's role within it.

Internalized Racial Oppression (IRO) has two arms (Pender Greene et al., 2016):

1. Internalized Racial Superiority (IRS) – whites internalize societal messages of dominance and inherent worthiness.

2. Internalized Racial Inferiority (IRI) – BIPOC internalize societal messages of subordination and unworthiness.

These traits often operate as deeply ingrained cultural mechanisms, serving as collective defenses that unconsciously shield white bodies from the profound psychological distress of shame, powerlessness, grief, terror, and remorse associated with historical and ongoing racial injustices.

The Psychology and Dynamics of Shame

Brown (2007) defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of being unworthy of acceptance and belonging.” Shame elicits primal bodily fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses, which are a primal effort to protect the self from perceived existential threat, and inherently generates isolation. Kaufman (2004) notes both toxic and adaptive facets: while toxic shame screams “I am worthless” and paralyzes, adaptive shame alerts us to violated relationships and signals a rupture in connection, which can powerfully fuel repair and motivate individuals to make amends.

Key distinctions:

• Guilt – a feeling of shame specifically about moral transgression (“I did something bad”), often focused on behavior rather than identity.

• Shame resilience (Brown, 2006) – the acquired capacity to tolerate and metabolize shame effectively, allowing for authentic accountability and sustained engagement rather than withdrawal.

Historical trauma compounds white shame. Menakem (2017) argues European bodies carried centuries of brutality (e.g., medieval torture, plagues) that were never metabolized; this unresolved historical trauma, passed down through generations potentially impacting epigenetic expression, was then tragically displaced onto Indigenous and African bodies during colonization and enslavement in the Americas, perpetuating cycles of violence and harm.

Shame Manifestations in Racial Dialogue: Personal Vignettes

Schlenger recounts co-facilitating a five-week virtual course with a Black colleague. When under time pressure, a white participant challenged her presentation (“huge generalizations about white people”). Deeply triggered by an old shame narrative—'I’m not good enough; I’ll be abandoned'—Schlenger instantly entered a physiological fight mode, leading her to harshly silence the participant. Her inability to regulate her nervous system in the moment revealed her underlying terror of inadequacy and abandonment. Through subsequent internal processing that involved mindfulness, peer consultation, and a sincere apology to the participant, she recognized the critical importance of noticing triggers, regulating the nervous system, leaning on community connection for support, and authentically repairing harm when it occurs.

Impediments to Accountability: White Fragility and Shame Defenses

DiAngelo (2018) defines white fragility as whites’ low tolerance for racial stress, born of a lifetime of racial superiority and entitlement. The authors posit that this fragility is largely an incapacity to bear immorality shame—this incapacity stems from a lifetime of being shielded from racial stress and discomfort, coupled with an internalized sense of superiority that makes acknowledging complicity unbearable.

Defense styles (adapted from Lyon & Rubin and Danielian & Gianotti) employed to avoid the visceral anguish of shame:

1. Withdrawal – involves physical and emotional isolation, the pervasive 'white silence' around racial issues, and an emphasis on individualism that denies collective responsibility.

2. Denial/Avoidance – manifests as intellectualizing away racial realities, rationalizing oppressive systems, claiming 'color-blindness,' minimizing racial harm, using credentials to dismiss critique, numbing oneself to painful truths, or insisting on 'objective' racial discussions.

3. Moving Toward (Appease) – involves performing as a 'good white person,' displaying excessive niceness, engaging in 'white-saviorism,' adopting paternalistic attitudes, or asserting superiority by comparing oneself to 'worse' white individuals to avoid deep self-examination.

All these defense mechanisms serve to dodge the visceral anguish of shame and thus inadvertently perpetuate white supremacy.

Framework for Shame Resilience as Antiracist Practice

Goals:

• Build stamina for discomfort: This involves incrementally increasing one's capacity to remain present and engaged with the visceral unsettling feelings that arise when confronting racial injustice and one’s own complicity.

• Recognize triggers in body, thought, affect: Developing acute self-awareness to identify the earliest signs of shame activation.

• Employ mindfulness to stay within a “window of tolerance”: Using techniques to effectively regulate their nervous system and prevent responses that are either overly emotional (hyper-arousal) or shut down (hypo-arousal).

• Use empathy (from self and community) to neutralize worthlessness messages: Counteracting the isolating and diminishing effects of shame with compassion and connection.

• Foster connection; culture change emerges through collective, body-centered practices (Menakem): Emphasizing that healing and transformation are relational processes.

Empathy’s paradox: unearned privilege dulls empathy; shame further diminishes it. Therefore, deliberate and active cultivation of empathy for both oneself and others is a foundational prerequisite for effectively metabolizing shame and engaging in just, accountable action.

The Shame Resilience Training: Curriculum and Methods

Total core instruction: 16 hours.

Formats:

• 2-day intensive ( 8 hours/day).

• 4-week series ( 4 hours/week).

• 9-week series ( 2 hours/week, total 18 hours) for slower pacing to allow for deeper integration.

Sequence of Modules and Methods:

1. History of Whiteness & U.S. Racial Caste (Wilkerson, 2020): Exploring how 'whiteness' was constructed as a social and legal category to confer power and privilege, and how the U.S. racial caste system (as described by Wilkerson) operates to maintain hierarchy and oppression.

2. Impacts on biology, psychology, spirit, culture for whites and BIPOC: Examining the profound and often invisible ways interlocking systems of oppression and racism affect the well-being and lived experiences of both white individuals and BIPOC.

3. Somatic check-ins after each content block; visceral data prioritized: These intentional pauses allow participants to connect with and process visceral sensations and emotions arising in their bodies after engaging with challenging content, prioritizing embodied learning over purely cognitive understanding.

4. Identify Shame Triggers – participants list 3 unwanted racial identities (e.g., “racist,” “Karen,” “colonizer”): Participants delve into the specific racial identities they most fear being labeled with, understanding these as points where fundamental worthiness feels threatened.

5. Map Defenses – understand personal patterns of withdrawal, denial, appeasing: Participants learn to identify and self-monitor their habitual responses to racial stress, recognizing how personal patterns of withdrawal, denial, or appeasing behaviors serve to avoid shame.

6. Mindfulness & Compassion Interventions – RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) style exercise (Brach, 2019) to pause, sense, and care for vulnerable parts: Utilizing techniques like the RAIN exercise, participants learn to compassionately pause, sense, name, and care for vulnerable parts of themselves that surface during moments of racial discomfort.

7. Racial Microaggressions Module – awareness, impact on POC, practice acknowledgment and repair: Focuses on understanding the subtle, often unconscious, daily indignities and invalidations faced by BIPOC, and practicing authentic acknowledgment and repair strategies for white participants.

8. Intra-white Dynamics – confronting racism in loved ones; manage one’s shame to intervene effectively: Preparing participants to navigate and confront racism within their own families and social circles, emphasizing how managing one’s own shame is essential to intervene effectively without becoming defensive.

9. Accountability Groups & Lifework – between-session practice: Providing structures for ongoing practice and support, where participants engage in between-session exercises and reflections to integrate learning into daily life.

Continual emphasis: regulate nervous systems, foster “settled bodies” that can remain present rather than react defensively, and build a white antiracist culture with new stories, healing rituals, and collective wisdom from experienced 'elders' within the movement.

Participant Feedback and Outcomes

Testimonials report increased reflection on teaching, relationships, speech, and willingness to risk antiracist action. Participants' feedback indicated a deepened capacity for self-reflection across various domains of their lives, including their teaching practices, interpersonal relationships, and communication styles. They reported an increased willingness to embrace the discomfort and risk involved in taking meaningful antiracist action. Attendees note revelations about how shame "separates and hardens" individuals from connection and accountability. Many praise the facilitators’ powerful modeling of empathetic listening while holding accountability — a blend of compassion and challenge that resonated deeply, with many reporting an internalization of “inner Robin and inner Alana” voices that now guide their ongoing antiracist practice and responses to shame.

Post-training monthly consultation groups extend learning: participants share shame moments, metabolize them communally allowing participants to process and integrate difficult emotions collectively, and turn insight into concrete accountability practices.

Personal Reflections by the Authors

• Tappin (Black) – finds the work deeply moving yet recognizes ongoing rage at the persistence of white supremacy and the 'protective heart-closing' that arises from the daily threat and emotional labor associated with systemic racism. She acknowledges her own internalized racial inferiority (IRI) which can manifest as an instinct to caretake white individuals to mitigate perceived danger. Her perspective balances a deep hope for liberation with a guardedness that persists as long as white supremacy remains pervasive.

• Schlenger (white) – actively applies the training skills in her personal life, continuously interrogating her own internalized white supremacy, naming her shame narratives when they arise, cultivating empathy for herself and others, and diligently engaging in harm repair. She has found that her willingness to vulnerably share her own shame experiences often serves to dissolve defensiveness in others, thereby fostering greater interdependence and shared purpose. Each workshop she facilitates further deepens her sense of community, love, and purpose within the antiracist movement.

Key References and Theoretical Foundations

• Sue, D. W. (2016) – BIPOC open letter on racism’s omnipresence and pervasive impact.

• Sensoy & DiAngelo (2017) – foundational definitions of whiteness & white supremacy as a pervasive system.

• Jones & Okun (2001) – characteristics of white supremacy culture as it manifests in organizations and society.

• Kaufman (1992, 2004) – comprehensive shame theory; guilt as a specific variant of shame related to moral transgression.

• Brown (2006, 2007) – research on shame resilience; empathy as a powerful antidote to shame and isolation.

• Menakem (2017) – exploration of historical trauma, its transmission, and the importance of body-centered collective healing.

• DiAngelo (2018, 2021) – detailed analysis of white fragility and associated defensive maneuvers in racial dialogue.

• Fosha (2000) – emphasis on experiential therapy; prioritizing bodily affect and emotional processing in therapeutic work.

• Brach (2019) – mindfulness & compassion (RAIN) protocol for emotional regulation and self-compassion.

• Danielian & Gianotti (2013); Lyon & Rubin (2021) – frameworks for understanding and identifying shame defense schemas.

• Wilkerson (2020) – caste framework for understanding systemic hierarchy in the U.S. racial context.

These notes delineate the article’s comprehensive exploration of how cultivating shame resilience in white bodies—through psychology, somatics, mindfulness, empathy, and structured training—can transform paralyzing shame into accountable antiracist action, fostering collective healing for both BIPOC and white communities.