White People Fatigue Syndrome

Dear Editor:
In this season of giving, why is it that certain white folks continue to give black folks the same gift year after year, a hard time? This year, I have fallen victim to an acute attack of WPFS better known as White People Fatigue Syndrome. With serious consideration, the AMA could classify this as a legitimate medical disorder as research studies link racism to hypertension. In the midst of our holiday shopping, my wife and I contracted this disorder after coming in contact with this infectious white woman. At South Point Mall while looking at Christmas gifts, this contagious disease carrier, in her late 50s early 60s brushed by us as though we were not there, simply invisible. (It’s hard to believe that two Black people, one with locked hair could be invisible at a Banana Republic) Ten minutes later, a sales associate who was consciously helping this same woman ignored our presence to take a sweater we were both looking at, to promptly deliver to her. Discombobulated and overwrought, we firmly corrected this gross misstep resulting in our immediate visibility. Evidently, the assumption of visibility personifies being human which appears to be exclusive for white people, at least according to Peggy McIntosh, the authority on Whiteness studies. Investigating the social theories of “whiteness,” is nothing compared to the actual experience of its aloof normalizing effect. To be rendered visible and invisible within one second, on demand, in a proprietary manner, can force any person of color to a state of psychological trauma. Just once, could these “good intentioned” white folks give black folk something different for Christmas, some peace and genuine goodwill?