White guilt perpetrates microtraumas to Black people, forcing them to comfort the oppressor.

After having confronted white people about comments or behaviors that are prejudicial in nature, I have found myself feeling shame, difficulty thinking, and an aggressive desire to apologize to them. These projections occur across all social settings that include white people with strangers, friends, and colleagues including those within the psychoanalytic community. I perceive a deferral of responsibility exemplified through statements like “I didn’t mean it that way,” “I’m not racist,” or “you know what I meant.” These statements may seem minor, but illustrate the wish of the aggressor not to be wrong. These wishes can be so strong that many times, I end up being the one offering an apology instead. While the intent may not be to make me feel at fault, where is the guilt to osmose if not to its original source, white people, but to me instead? In this way, Caflisch’s (this issue) observations ring true: white guilt can “cover over” (p. 581) and lead to demands for comfort and forgiveness. What is covered over does not evaporate, it serves as a reminder to the POC that they cannot breach the white person’s sense of reality or put themselves at risk for negating their own. The POC must then choose whether to continue the conversation and risk drifting deeper into the denial of the aggressor, preemptively internalize the blame before it is further projected onto them by the aggressor, or dissociate from the experience altogether. There are more hopeful possibilities, such as sublimating into a positive outlet, though these are only available if a POC is able to do so amidst the bombardment of daily racially themed assaults.

For these reasons, I identify with Dr. Caflisch’s discussion of paranoid anxieties from her perspective as a white person: I have felt them. For the POC who empathizes with the white subject, the desire to avoid white guilt makes sense, and demands for forgiveness may be met albeit superficial. However, the consequence of a refusal to interrogate white guilt is that it removes the option for harm reduction the next time conflict happens—and the cycle of harm continues. Many times, I have been faced with the decision to confront a white person about racist comments with the fear of immediate harm to me as well as downstream harm to POC. The most psychologically damaging conflicts are those that are met with skepticism about my claims of racism, or those that result in critical statements about POC in general. Most often, these statements serve to label POC as “unprofessional” using coded language that really signifies “not-white” behavior. Both have the potential for widespread harm because not only do they undermine the reputation of POC through trickle-down social dynamics but also reinforce aversively racist gestures to others in the vicinity who are susceptible to influence. In these moments, I am left with two undesirable options: either confront the speaker for the prejudicial nature of the comment and risk being perceived as unprofessional myself. In either case, I risk bearing the responsibility for processing these feelings with the aggressor after they have been projected into me. The end result is hurt; hurt that is sometimes too painful to keep present in consciousness and is cast out into the subconscious of my psyche.