Whitehat is a term to let people feel like they're all safe and angelic and shit
Most people differentiate blackhat as spamming the internet, and whitehat as spamming the internet slowly. (even if they don't say it that way)
really there's no difference you're still spamming. somehow spamming slowly is "ethical" to most people. lol.
That being said you can pay more attention to details when you're doing stuff manually/slowly (aka "whitehat"), which means you're more likely to write more readable articles / get approved on higher quality sites etc.
imo the only place these terms are valuable is when you're writing sales copy / branding. "powerful whitehat 100% SAFE google approved links!" "underground secret blackhat techniques the big gurus use that NEVER get discussed publicly finally revealed..."
Really all link-building is "blackhat". I suggest you ignore the terms whitehat/blackhat and just go with what delivers RESULTS.