White Fatigue: Rethinking Resistance for Social Justice explores how,
despite the pleas and research of critical scholars, what passes for
multicultural education in schools is often promotion of human relations
and tolerance rather than a sustained critical examination of how race
and racism shape social, political, economic, and educational
opportunities for various groups, both historically and currently.
Simultaneously, our nation's social mores have changed over time and
millions of White Americans find racism morally reprehensible. This book
illustrates that despite that shift, it is not uncommon to experience
White Americans--in classrooms and other spaces--struggling to
understand how racism functions. This struggle is often talked about as
White resistance, White guilt, and White fragility. White fatigue is an
idea that helps explain and differentiate this struggle for better
understanding among White folks who feel racism is wrong but do not yet
have an understanding of how racism functions. White Fatigue:
Rethinking Resistance for Social Justice ultimately argues that if we
are to advance our national conversation on race, educators must be
willing to define reactions to conversations about race with more
nuances, lest we alienate potential allies, accomplices, and leaders in
the fight against racial injustice.