Don’t Talk to White People: On the Epistemological and Rhetorical Limitations of Conversations With White People for Anti-Racist Purposes: An Essay

Abstract

Productive dialogue with white people for anti-racist purposes is precluded by the political limits prescribed by the “principle of interest convergence,” occluded by the epistemological conditions of “white ignorance,” and disincentivized by the psychological burdens of “racial battle fatigue” borne by You and me, the Black would-be interlocutors. Nevertheless, much popular effort is spent—dare I say wasted—in attempts to talk white people out of their racism; or as I will define them in this paper, following James Baldwin, “those-who-think-of-themselves-as-white.” Consequently, I propose that we stop “talking” to those-who-think-of-themselves-as-white about racism, or at least adopt an attitude of extreme wariness.