White privilege is the same concept as White mans burden used to justify the same top down progressive systems.
The reason Colonialism was considered a burden was because it WAS a burden to the the majority of the European population.
It was not a justification to alleviate guilt. It was the active excuse made by elites for why the populations had to support the massive costs associated with conquering and securing different areas around the world from which only a select few connected people benefited from.
(Tangent: important context)
Colonialism is not what made regular people in the West rich, that didn't happen until legal changes increasing property rights and freer markets led to an increase in optionality which enabled more trial and error and adaptation which led to growth.
In the prosperity graph you can see that wealth barely moved during the older colonial periods of the 16, 17 and 18th century in times when plenty of resources were being moved around, but things didn't explode until enlightenment ideas manifested themselves in politics in the 1800's.
Today people think white mans burden was an excuse we used to make ourselves feel less guilty about the perceived benefits of colonialism.
But it was about getting regular people to accept having to sacrifice to support a select few people in their efforts to get wealthy from the colonies.
This is why when Marrie La Pen tried to justify old colonialism during the french presidential election the first thing she cited was the schools and railroads built in colonized countries.
"During the interview with BFM RMC TV, the French presidential hopeful said that Algeria owes a lot to French occupation. Thanks to colonization, she said, Algeria has “hospitals, roads and schools"
Funny enough people reacted angrily accusing her of justifying colonialism without realizing that is exactly what they did in the past, and what progressives are doing now within their own countries.
White guilt creates a burden to provide benefits through the state which justifies the states expanded role. This ultimately serves to concentrate power in society, not distribute it.
If you listened to Utopians today you would think you can solve everything with more central control, poorly planned infrastructure and shitty schools. Doesn't seem to have changed much.
The populations supported colonialism because of either a perverted altruistic desire to socially engineer people they viewed like children, or a desire for intervention through a motivation of disgust. Or the combination, a motivation of disgust disguised with virtue signaling. Not unlike today.
Now you have systems creating massive inequality these including but not limited to: the federal reserve, licencing monopolies and regulatory capture, minimum wage, tariffs, subsidies, price controls all things that increase rent seeking and hurt the poor, especially the poorest, for the benefit of smaller groups. And it is all justified under the guise of helping people.
As these dynamics continue resource distribution will increasingly be decided politically and the factions that emerge around it will be more and more prominent, increasing tribalism and reducing the amount of interactions in which goods are allocated through private property and free trade.
Funny enough the only real positive effects of colonialism were legal influences, for example countries colonized by England eventually ended up with stronger property rights embedded in the law are more prosperous globally that countries colonized by other European powers.
Nothing is better correlated with prosperity globally than economic freedom, represented by protection of private property.
https://humanprogress.org/dwworld?p=393&yf=1970&yl=2015
So if we insist on colonizing ourselves, we should do the things that worked in actual colonies.
Instead we are undermining free markets and private property at the expense of the poorest for the people who benefit from monopolized elements of the system which are justified on altruistic claims.
People are suckers for virtue signaling.
TLDR: White Mans Burden=White privilege