This is normally called "backlash", I am thinking about lashes to one's back in that case. As it seems Black Lives Matter believes, I believe it is important to accurately name things in order to address them effectively. Maybe Dr. Carol Anderson could have titled White Rage, "Whitelash" instead.
One of the ways that racism hides is in all the ways we take race out of the description of events. I would say there are situations where the race of the person(s) doesn't matter but as long as racism exists as a system, it is better to err on the side of acknowledging the role racism may have played in a sequence of events unlike Keyon Harrold, Jr.'s attacker. In a recent example, I shared a photo that jokes about terrorism as if it is fine wine from France. The one I shared called the terrorism, "White terrorism" and another I saw this morning called it "terrorism" without the "White" descriptor.
Much of our society winces at naming whiteness, especially in a negative light. Because of our language, darkness is ominous and bad, and whiteness is pure and good. We seem to struggle psychologically to understand the horror of the history of White people since many have ditched their ethnicity for an American cultural existence, and we are socialized not to name White crimes, only we seem to need hyphens and descriptors. Sticking to regional labels hinders people from identifying the global and systemic nature of racism, alongside the local and regional expressions of it. A great example of that is the growing use of the term, "European Slave Trade" instead of continuing to tag the ocean ("Transatlantic Slave Trade"), which had no initiating part in it. I am actually thankful for the ocean that caught our bodies that did not arrive in the West alive. Dr. Robin DiAngelo wrote a whole book about how White people don't want to talk about race called, White Fragility. I suggest everyone read it, not just White people. It will help you to begin to understand the scaffolding of racism that surrounds and girds the systems we live in each day. It will specifically help Black people to know what is operating in those insufferable moments of White fragility we experience. This was expressed by Austin Channing Brown's opening of her book, I'm Still Here with, "White people are exhausting." Dr. DiAngelo and Ms. Oluo speak about the fact that White people are never told they are White, and they certainly don't think of themselves as White. As a matter of fact, if you ask them, most of them will say they are human and wince at claiming a race. In Ijeoma's book, So You Want to Talk About Race she calls them "non-racialized" people.
Putting the word "White" into the equation is just like correcting a math problem. We have been trying to solve the problem of race all these years without putting the essential factor into the equation. White people have certainly joined the effort but mistakenly thought they should be educating and leading us in the solution, many have recently learned otherwise. There has always been White people who aided in the struggle for Black liberation but Black people should set the goals and say when we've arrived. White people do play an essential role in addressing and educating each other as needed. I am especially thankful for my allies that show up on social media threads to share the burden of replying to a White person who is being exhausting. I am thankful for all the efforts thus far, and all the strides we have made, let's put White into the right part of the equations and get this thing solved. Black Lives Matter shared their overview of instances of Whitelash in this post, although there are countless that haven't captured. #EndWhitelash #EndTheLieOfWhiteSupremacy
