Discussing Contemporary Racial Justice in Academic Spaces: Minimizing Epistemic Exploitation While Neutralizing White Fragility

Abstract

In light of contemporary racial justice issues in the United States, the academic classroom can be a precarious environment to engage in intellectually humble dialogue on racial injustice. This article expands upon the concept of epistemic exploitation raised in Nora Berenstain’s 2016 article, which explains the exploitative and emotionally taxing burden marginalized persons feel when compelled to educate privileged persons about their unearned privilege and the nature of marginalized person’s oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is more likely to occur in academic classrooms if white guilt and fragility are not acknowledged and neutralized. My assertion is based on the premise that as racial justice conversations increasingly occur, the need to satisfy white fragility exceeds the need to engage in healthy discussions on racism and white supremacy. Race is, therefore, deemphasized and other social status markers (e.g., gender, class, age, sexuality orientation) are overly emphasized or are used as proxies for race. In such cases, colonizing narratives of groups racialized as non-white are perpetuated via colorblind explanations about social problems.