Are you guilty? That depends. Are you white? Then yes, you are guilty. But whiteness is no longer the only offense. Believe in God? Believe Christ saves sinners? Believe in objective morality, the rule of law, or marriage between one man and one woman? Then skin color hardly matters. You are guilty anyway.
Guilty of what? Guilty of the sins of history, the inequities of the present, and whatever new offense the racial racketeers invent tomorrow. At least that is what grifters like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo have spent years selling to America, often for staggering sums underwritten by universities eager to flatter the ideology. Arizona State University, where I teach, has offered classes on the problem of whiteness. ASU’s Barrett Honors College teaches the evils of settler colonialism.
You, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are footing the bill for Struggle Session 101.
That is the backdrop for “White Guilt,” the new documentary from Shelby Steele and his son, Eli Steele, which premieres this week at ASU. Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and recipient of the National Medal of the Humanities, has spent decades writing about race, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. In his 2006 book “White Guilt,” he argued that racial moralism had become a tool for gaining power over others rather than a path toward justice.
The film appears at a moment when Americans have begun to see more clearly how much of the modern racial industry depends on intimidation, guilt, and fraud.
Steele understands the temptation from the inside. As a young man, he felt drawn to the black power movement. His parents had been active in the civil rights movement, and he wanted to help his community. But he came to see that race blame solves nothing. It degrades everyone it touches. Blame wielded by race remains racism, no matter who aims it or who absorbs it.
The better question, Steele argues, asks what it means to live as a free and responsible person. What happens when an individual takes responsibility for his own choices? What kind of life becomes possible when dignity comes from agency rather than grievance? That moral vision sits much closer to the American ideal than the racial spoils system now preached across much of higher education.
Steele rejects the fashionable claim that slavery was America’s original sin. The deeper sin, he argues, is the use of race to gain power over others. That temptation did not die with Jim Crow. It adapted. It migrated into institutions, party politics, nonprofits, and university bureaucracies. Today it thrives in classrooms where professors insist they do not teach racism while teaching students to judge one another by skin color, ancestry, and inherited guilt.
That fraud has paid well.
Black Lives Matter offered perhaps the clearest recent example. In the wake of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, BLM became a moral brand for affluent liberals, activist professionals, and corporate America. Shelby and Eli Steele explored the lie at the movement’s foundation in their earlier film, “What Killed Michael Brown?” Their new film picks up a related question: How did the language of anti-racism become such a lucrative racket?
The answer is not hard to find. Much of the left’s social justice industry runs on a simple formula: Manufacture guilt, divide people by race, promise absolution, then collect money, influence, and institutional power. Sell moral panic to well-intentioned Americans, then invoice them for redemption.
RELATED: The campus isn’t ‘misunderstood.’ It’s mismanaged — on purpose.
Want to end racism? Write a check. Sign the DEI pledge. Sit through the seminar. Keep your head down while the consultants explain that your skin makes you complicit and your silence proves your guilt.
The strategy stays simple. Divide humanity into categories. Teach each group to resent the others. Tell people that the brokenness of the world is not a permanent feature of fallen life but the fault of their neighbors. Then arrive as the enlightened manager who can fix it all, for a fee. That formula has wrecked poorer countries for generations. Now left-wing elites have imported it into American life, dressed it up in therapeutic language, and sold it as virtue.
Anyone who has spent time around a university classroom knows the script. A professor begins with a banal truth: The world is filled with injustice. The class nods. Then comes the poisonous turn: Would you like to know who is to blame? Look around the room. Identify the oppressor. Assign the guilt. Require ritual silence from some students and ritual confession from others. Repackage humiliation as education.
And you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are footing the bill for Struggle Session 101.
Instead of surrendering to this politics of racial hatred, envy, and managed guilt, Americans should recover a better ideal. Freedom means more than license. It means responsibility. It means building a life through choice, discipline, and moral agency rather than through grievance and tribal score-settling. Whether the world crowns that life a success or a failure, it still belongs to you. No race hustler can take that from you.
“White Guilt” premieres March 25 at 6 p.m. at ASU Tempe in Bateman Physical Sciences F Wing, Room 166.
Democrats and legacy media have put forth several mischaracterizations and even flat-out lies about the GOP's latest election integrity bill.
The House passed the SAVE America Act Wednesday with unanimous Republican support and with even one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, joining the GOP. The bill would put in place basic election integrity requirements like providing proof of citizenship and photo ID to register and vote in federal elections.
'If you buy a 6-pack of beer you have to show an ID.'
The bill is now in the Senate, where Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is leading the effort to pass the legislation.
Although this proposal seems commonsense to most Americans, Democrats have caused a firestorm of hysteria and misconception. Here is the truth behind Democrats' most common rebuttals.
RELATED: 4 Senate Republicans evading MAGA's pressure campaign to prevent noncitizens from voting
The SAVE America Act aims to protect ballots from election fraud, particularly from illegal aliens and noncitizens. Democrats are quick to point out that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections, and those Democrats who are willing to admit that noncitizens voting does occasionally happen insist it takes place at a negligible rate.
This is partially true. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in American elections, and when it does happen, estimates show it occurs less than 1% of the time. But even if the rate is extremely low, it's not zero. And while many elections are decisive victories, some are decided by razor-thin margins, making every ballot count.
In the 2024 election, former Republican Rep. John Duarte of California was unseated by Democrat Adam Gray by just 187 votes, chipping away at a historically thin GOP advantage in the House. But it's not just local elections that are decided by such narrow margins. In 2020, former President Joe Biden won several swing states by just thousands of votes, including Georgia by 11,779 votes and Arizona by just 10,457 votes.
There's no way to know if any of those votes were cast fraudulently, which is precisely the problem. Americans should have total confidence that every ballot counted in an election is a legitimate vote that reflects the political will of a United States citizen. The SAVE America Act would help do just that.
Democrats are no stranger to playing the race card, claiming that requiring photo ID somehow unfairly affects minorities. Perhaps most notable of them all is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who unabashedly likened the SAVE Act to Jim Crow-era rules.
"I have said it before and I'll say it again, the SAVE Act would impose Jim Crow type laws to the entire country and is dead on arrival in the Senate," Schumer said in a statement earlier this month. "It is a poison pill that will kill any legislation that it is attached to. If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown."
Apart from Schumer's soft bigotry of low expectations, his claim is simply inaccurate. The SAVE America Act offers a wide range of acceptable documents to prove citizenship, including a valid U.S. passport, a REAL ID that indicates citizenship, a U.S. military identification card that shows birthplace in the U.S., a birth certificate or other equivalent naturalization documents, and even some tribal IDs like the American Indian card.
Presenting a photo ID is also already a requirement to vote in some states as well as for countless other activities and purchases, including boarding a plane and casting a vote as a member of Congress.
"If you buy a 6-pack of beer you have to show an ID," Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee joked in a post on X. "End this racism."
Another claim Democrats have repeatedly made is that the new requirements disproportionately impact women who have changed their names after marriage. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said that the name change "creates a real problem" for her, implying that the legislation is the GOP's latest attempt to suppress women's votes.
The absurdity of Warren's claim is self-evident. Married women often obtain documentation with their new names for other processes that require identification, such as purchasing alcohol or opening a bank account. In addition, women are not limited to producing birth certificates, but also may provide other forms of acceptable ID, such as a passport or a REAL ID.
RELATED: Lone Republican defies Trump, votes to tank the SAVE Act
Even in the rare case that a woman's ID is not updated with her new legal name, the SAVE America Act explicitly allows for name changes in documentation. The legislation requires states to establish fallback procedures for voters who have changed their names due to marriage, divorce, adoption, or another reason.
The reality is that none of the proposed requirements are novel or restrictive. They are simply common sense.
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Despite overwhelming support from the American electorate, over the past month Democrats have ratcheted up attacks on Republican-led nationwide voter ID legislation. On Sunday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) slammed the attacks from his party in an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
During the wide-ranging interview, the conversation turned toward the SAVE Act, a bill that would require voters to show government-issued identification to register to vote in federal elections. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states currently have voter identification laws.
‘As a Democrat, I do not believe it’s radical or extreme to just produce ID to vote.’
Host Maria Bartiromo asked Fetterman, “Why it is so difficult to get the SAVE Act into the portfolio and onto the floor? What’s wrong with having an ID to vote?”
The senator responded, “As a Democrat, I do not believe that it’s unreasonable to show ID just to vote. And I remind everybody that less than a year ago in Wisconsin, they added that to the constitution by a 63%, you know, passing to put that in the constitution, that you have to show ID to vote.”
Fetterman’s statement stands in stark contrast to his fellow Democratic senators, such as Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who went on ABC News’ “This Week” to fearmonger about voter ID laws by saying people "don't have the proper Real ID, driver's license, don't have the ID necessary to vote, even though they are citizens. This is another way to simply try to suppress the vote.”
RELATED: 'Vast majority' of Americans of all races agree with Nicki Minaj about voter ID, says CNN analyst
Fetterman responded to those sorts of attacks from members of his party by highlighting the results of a recent Wisconsin election. He said, “They also elected a very, very liberal justice into their supreme court. So it’s not a radical idea for regular Americans to show your ID to vote.”
On February 2, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) labeled the SAVE Act “Jim Crow 2.0” in a Senate floor speech. The minority leader said, “Now as for the SAVE Act itself: It has nothing to do with protecting our elections and everything to do with federalizing voter suppression. The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0.”
Fetterman is not buying that characterization: “Those things are not Jim Crow or anything.”
The senator from Pennsylvania’s position is in line with a large majority of American voters. CNN polling analyst Harry Enten recently told his audience, “A photo ID to vote is not controversial in this country. It is not controversial by party — and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree with Nicki Minaj.”
Minaj has also expressed support for voter ID laws.
Enten’s data showed that over 75% of Americans favor a photo ID to vote, including the highest support on record in 2025 at 83%.
In closing, Fetterman said, “As a Democrat, I do not believe it’s radical or extreme to just produce ID to vote.”
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In a recent poll from Pew Research Center, a whopping 71% of Democrats said they favored requiring photo ID to vote — a shocking departure from what Democrats like Chuck Schumer appear to believe.
“We’ve got to get this done and we’ve got to get it done very quickly. The SAVE Act is an abomination. It’s Jim Crow 2.0 across the country. We are going to do everything we can to stop it,” Schumer told reporters.
“How is it Jim Crow to ask for ID, a picture ID? That’s what the SAVE Act is. That you’d be required to have picture ID to go in and vote or to register to vote and then to vote. OK, that is not unreasonable,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck explains.
“You need a photo ID to get a driver’s license to drive a car, or to renew your driver’s license, or replace your lost license, get a learner’s permit. You need a photo ID to rent a car, to pick up a rental car, even if you prepaid it, to buy car insurance, to file auto insurance claims, to register your vehicle, transfer your vehicle's title,” he continues.
But that’s not all, as Glenn also points out that you need a photo ID to get a parking permit, use car sharing apps, buy an airline ticket in person, to board a commercial flight, and enter the TSA pre-check.
“Is it Jim Crow to ask for photo ID as they scan your eye? Is it racist to ask for photo ID when you check a bag at the airport or when you rent a U-Haul truck or a moving truck, buy a bus or a train ticket in person? Is that really ‘no blacks'?” Glenn asks.
“No blacks can ever go on the bus or the train or an airplane. Really? Really? No, it’s just too hard for them to get a photo ID,” he says, joking, “What a racist.”
And of course, the list of reasons one might need a photo ID is never-ending.
“You want to open a bank account. You want to withdraw a large amount of cash. You want to cash a check, even your own check at many banks ... you need a photo ID to deposit cash, to wire money,” Glenn says.
“But let’s get into your daily life of just housing. You want to rent an apartment, you need a photo ID. No blacks have ever rented an apartment? Really? No Hispanics, no blacks. It’s racist to say we need a photo ID voting, because you can’t get a photo ID somehow or another,” he continues.
“Yet you need one to rent a house or an apartment or to apply for public housing,” he adds.
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
America again stands on the edge of betrayal, watching mobs assault federal officers while judges call it “restraint.”
This is not new. Between 1876 and 1878, the same script played out as those sworn to uphold the law were branded as tyrants and those undermining it claimed the mantle of freedom. When the federal government lost the will to enforce its own laws, violence filled the vacuum.
After the Civil War, Republican coalitions in the South — freedmen, poor whites, and Northern reformers — were crushed by white Democrats who called themselves “Redeemers.” They promised “home rule” but delivered a racial caste system enforced by terror and political exclusion.
The Redeemers invoked ‘home rule’ to dismantle Reconstruction. Today’s Democratic left invokes ‘human rights’ to paralyze national defense.
The last obstacle to that counterrevolution was federal protection of black voters. During the disputed 1876 election, President Ulysses S. Grant stationed troops at polling sites across the South to deter fraud and Ku Klux Klan violence. Democrats in South Carolina vowed to “wade in blood knee-deep” if necessary to reclaim power.
Those troops were the only shield between freedmen and their former masters. But in the Compromise of 1877, federal forces were withdrawn to buy political peace. Reconstruction governments collapsed, schools for freedmen closed, and voting rights vanished. As W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”
Southern Democrats soon made that withdrawal permanent. Wrapping themselves in the rhetoric of liberty and “local control,” they pushed the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, criminalizing use of the Army for domestic law enforcement except when Congress expressly authorized it.
The narrative was set: Federal troops at the polls meant “tyranny”; “home rule” meant “harmony.” In truth, the act cemented the collapse of Reconstruction and led to the birth of Jim Crow, which paralyzed federal defense of civil rights for nearly a century.
RELATED: Stop pretending Posse Comitatus neuters the president
Debates over the Posse Comitatus Act dripped with moral inversion. Southern Democrats like Rep. John Atkins of Tennessee and William Kimmel of Maryland denounced President Rutherford B. Hayes as a “monarch” who preferred bullets to ballots. Federal soldiers protecting black voters were smeared as bloodthirsty brutes and “tools of despotism.”
In that twisted language, enforcing the law became tyranny, while mob rule became freedom.
It was early information warfare: delegitimize the protectors, vindicate the aggressors, and freeze lawful authority into submission.
A century and a half later, the pattern repeats. Democrats, left-wing activists, and their media allies now use essentially the same language to delegitimize immigration enforcement. ICE and Border Patrol agents, upholding laws passed by Congress, are branded as “fascists.” Federal defense of government facilities is denounced as “militarization.”
Judges cite the Posse Comitatus Act to block National Guard deployments meant to protect ICE offices from violent assaults. In Illinois, U.S. District Judge April Perry ruled that deploying the Guard could “add fuel to the fire that they started,” claiming no evidence of impending “rebellion.” The ruling came days before No Kings Day demonstrations.
The Department of Homeland Security had extended fencing around its Broadview facility after earlier attacks — rioters hurling fireworks, bottles, and tear gas while local officials looked away. When the DHS finally reinforced its defenses, the courts ordered them torn down.
Since June, ICE and Border Patrol have endured shootings, arson attempts, and coordinated ambushes. In Dallas, a sniper targeted an ICE field office. In suburban Chicago, federal agents were rammed and pinned by cartel-linked drivers before returning fire. Local police en route to assist were told to stand down.
Within hours, left-wing outlets and activist networks declared the clash proof of “authoritarianism.” The strategy is deliberate: manufacture chaos, provoke a lawful response, then cite that response as evidence of tyranny.
This is a textbook reflexive control operation — using perception to paralyze power. The Redeemers of 1878 called federal troops “despots” and “usurpers.” Their descendants call federal agents “fascists.” The aim is identical: Erode public trust in lawful authority and make enforcement politically impossible.
Then, as now, the real fight centers on citizenship itself.
In the 19th century, freed black Americans embodied the principle that allegiance and equality before the law, not race or birth, define membership in the republic. That ideal shattered the old Southern order, so Redeemers destroyed it.
Today, citizenship threatens a different order — the globalist one. Citizenship implies borders, duties, and distinctions. So progressives seek to redefine it as exclusionary or immoral. Illegal aliens become “newcomers.” Enforcing the law becomes oppression. The federal obligation to protect citizens morphs into a liability.
What began as Redeemer propaganda has evolved into a post-national orthodoxy: Sovereignty is shameful, and the citizen must yield to the “world citizen.” The result is the same — federal paralysis, selective law enforcement, and mobs empowered by moral cover.
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The parallels are precise. The Redeemers invoked “home rule” to dismantle Reconstruction; today’s left invokes “human rights” and “de-militarization” to paralyze national defense.
The Posse Comitatus Act was never a sacred constitutional barrier — it was a political tool of retreat. Then it left freedmen defenseless; now it hinders protection of federal agents, citizens, and borders. By turning law into spectacle and restraint into virtue, it leaves our republic unguarded.
History teaches a blunt lesson: Retreat invites terror. When the state retreats, mobs rule. When courts mistake optics for justice, defenders become defendants. The same moral inversion that once enslaved men through “home rule” now threatens to enslave the republic through lawfare.
To survive, America must recover what it lost in 1877 — the courage to act as a nation. Withdrawal is not peace. Compromise, in this instance, is not order. The freedman of this century is the American citizen himself — and the question, once again, is whether the nation that freed him will defend him.
Lawmakers in Louisiana are weighing new policies that align with the vision for addressing America’s homelessness crisis outlined by President Donald Trump last summer. This approach breaks with a misguided, decades-old national practice of offering homeless people publicly funded support without also asking them to help themselves. In response, outraged activists have compared Louisiana’s proposals […]
Equating voter ID with Jim Crow-era atrocities is a disgrace to the memory of every patriot who fought, bled, and died for the right to vote.
The only explanation there could be for opposing requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is a desire to have noncitizens voting.
The left and their media allies have taken to assassinate Kirk's character, twisting his words, distorting his record, and in many cases, just making things up out of thin air.
Instead of trying to generate fake controversy about Trump, NPR should put more faith in humanity, its listeners, and its workers.
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