Note, for example, the common guidelines many white organizations use when setting up discussions on race: assume good intentions, respect differences, speak for yourself. Whose interests do these guidelines serve? They serve white expectations for racial comfort: ensuring niceness and warding off direct challenges. In so doing, they are not accounting for the ever-present dynamics of power, assuming a universal (white) experience, and policing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) people into not engaging with authenticity lest they face the punitive power of white fragility.
