"White Fatigue"

I've mentioned before that the current ESPN Ombudsman (or in this case, Ombudswoman) is really, really good at her job.  Her latest column is yet another example; it contains this gem on race:

"The harsh reality is that unless ESPN's handling of race-related issues is near perfect, as it was with "Black Magic," it is not likely to get credit for trying. ESPN will keep encountering a phenomenon that has been dubbed "white fatigue" -- an impatience that wishfully equates issue-exhaustion with issue-resolution."

I've often wondered how best to phrase the hostility to conversations about race that I have encountered from a few white people over the years, and this is the best description I've seen of the phenomenon.  White fatigue is commonplace.  Basically, if someone brings up an issue in the context of race, and the white person doesn't recognize it as a racial issue, that person will accuse the person who brought up the issue of needlessly fanning the flames of racial division.  Or, put another way, accuse him/her of making shit up that isn't there.

This seems to come from a sense of weariness of the whole issue.  Most whites are aware of the explosive and divisive nature of racial history.  But some of them are so sick of talking about it that they get angry when the issue is brought up in a way that points the finger at whites in the present, rather than discussing issues of the past.  They want to believe that since the worst is over, society should move on. 

Put another way, since civil rights protesters aren't getting lynched in the South, blasted with fire hoses or attacked by police dogs while campaigning for basic rights, we can't compare any of the obvious, overt events of the past with possibly-race-tinged events of the present. 

This is untrue, of course.  The history of race still impacts everyone today in a variety of predictable and not-so-predictable ways, and its influence is still very visible in the media and in conversation...as long as you know what to watch and listen for.  The trouble is, many people don't know what to watch and listen for.  And that lack of awareness leaves these people frustrated when the subject of race is broached in discussions revolving around the present. 

In response, they lash out at the messenger.  They accused him or her of race-baiting, or of engaging in twisted and unpleasant fantasies stemming from some sort of psychological defect that prevents the topic-raiser from seeing things outside of the prism of race.  Although it doesn't always come from whites, this is the "white fatigue" Schreiber is alluding to.  She didn't even have to offer a full-fledged description for me to figure out what she meant.  

None of this is an attempt to make an assertion that deliberate racial antagonism doesn't exist.  Of course it does.  The Al Sharptons and Pat Buchanans of the world, having fallen from their previous heights of respectability long ago, resort to it in an attempt to halt their inevitable slide into irrelevance. 

That being the case, it is still sad that a commonplace response to someone who tries to make a legitimate argument that brings up race in the context of America's present is to accuse them of being psychotic or a race-baiter.  Really?  There are terms and descriptors for those who classify everyone who doesn't see the world the same way they do as crazy.  I'll let you come up with your own list of them.  

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