Since the day our fore-fore-fore-fathers stepped upon the land we now know as North America, history has unbiasedly spun a timeline consisting of a few common themes: plague, disease, more plague, and white people. It’s rather unfortunate, because while white people did some really incredible things, inventing and creating and expanding boundaries previously not known to have existed, the amount of really awful aspects of white history have a tendency to (justifiably) overshadow the good. And while we are, as a society, moving forward and progressing towards a more liberal society (with the exception of a few, unfortunate, zany oddballs), it’s hard to often look at life as a white person as anything less than the glass being half-to-three-quarters full, and that is okay! Feel guilty! Yes, we did that.

In case you were wondering how white guilt can still be attached, not to past events, but to current ones, keep in mind the following:

1. Gentrification is often considered one of the fastest growing detrimental effects on our modern day cities. And no, it’s not just white people doing it to other ethnicities. But, for the most part, it is.

2. Most of our parents and grandparents were around before 1965 — this means before the Civil Rights Act, which put an end to segregation and surface racism. Just barely half a century ago. We are currently alive in 2017, and instead of moving forward, there is still racism, mass incarceration, disenfranchisement of black communities and a complete appropriation of black culture. This is now.

3. Since 1980, the pay gap between white women and white men has narrowed by 22 cents, from 60 cents to every dollar white men earned to 82 cents in 2015. By comparison, the pay gap between black women and white men narrowed by only 9 cents— from 56 cents to every dollar white men earned in 1980 to 65 cents in 2015.

4. White people elected Donald Trump to office with little remorse.

5. Native Americans, and anything white settlers ever did and continue to do to them now.

Therefore, the guilt is not only justified but expected. It’s not fair, because as easy as it may be to put a lid on the past and call it closed, in the same breath it’s important to make sure that we don’t forget our beginnings and learn from the mistakes we’ve made since then.

Oftentimes, history books have a tendency to hastily throw together their contents, disregarding key rebellions and figures, and focusing more on Ben Franklin and his libraries. Which, are very useful and deeply appreciated by a frequenter to the NYPL such as myself, but unfortunately do little to help paint a picture of what 1731’s conditions were like for those not fortunate enough to take books out. I only just learned about Pontiac’s Rebellion in my history class this past semester, and in the context of the class, it seemed like a very grand detail to just “leave out” for my 12 previous years of history education. But, in contrast, I know everything there is to know about Benjamin Rush, a signer of our constitution who did little worth knowing, aside from signing our constitution. It’s for this reason that I often feel the pangs of white guilt, recognizing that perhaps if the white world was a little more aware of the history of their fellow citizens, they would turn from their inadvertently racist ways and come into the light of equality.

I often look at the Housing Projects that run through the Lower East Side, with communities composed mostly of the non-white variant, and think to myself, “That’s not fair,” because it’s not. It’s not fair that generations upon generations of most cultures have struggled to pull themselves out of systemic racism and hatred, and that white culture has continuously disenfranchised ethnic groups to the point where they couldn’t get jobs and couldn’t support their families in the way they wanted to, and are now living in houses that we don’t fund. Travel two blocks upward and you’ll find yourself in a majority white neighborhood, with a stand that carries cortados, avocado toasts and a microbrewery. The buildings above storefronts still, externally, hold a reminder of the once struggling immigrant family that once lived there, but the insides are lined with smooth tile floors and central air conditioning. 1965 may have made strides towards eliminating segregation, but it certainly didn’t decimate it.

White guilt is, no doubt, nothing more than the aftermath of awareness, and in the society in which we currently live, it helps to be very well aware of the world surrounding us. Awareness means knowledge, and with knowledge, we can break from the past and move towards a more progressive future, one that doesn’t include any number of Jenners or Kardashians wearing their hair in cornrows. Because, as I said earlier, white people have done a lot of truly incredible things, and as we move into the future, perhaps those incredible things will work more towards ending the seemingly endless cycle of systemic racism and work towards uniting a society which tries to mask its separation.