Article
Racism, whiteness, and
burnout in antiracism
movements: How white
racial justice activists
elevate burnout in racial
justice activists of color
in the United States
Ethnicities
0(0) 1–25
! The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1468796819833871
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Paul C Gorski
Equity Literacy Institute, Asheville, NC, USA
Noura Erakat
School of Integrative Studies, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA, USA
Abstract
Social movement scholars have described activist burnout—when the stressors of
activism become so overwhelming they debilitate activists’ abilities to remain
engaged—as a formidable threat to the sustainability of social movements. However,
studies designed to map the causes of burnout have failed to account for ways burnout
might operate differently for privileged-identity activists such as white antiracism activists and marginalized-identity activists such as antiracism activists of color. Building on
previous studies of activist burnout in racial justice activists and examinations of the
roles of white activists in antiracism movements, this study represents one attempt to
fill this gap. We analyzed data from interviews with racial justice activists of color in the
United States who have experienced burnout to identify the ways they attributed their
burnout to the attitudes and behaviors—the racism—of white activists. These included
(1) harboring unevolved or racist views, (2) undermining or invalidating the racial justice
work of activists of color, (3) being unwilling to step up and take action when needed,
Corresponding author:
Paul C Gorski, Equity Literacy Institute, Asheville, NC 28806, USA.
Email: gorski@edchange.org
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(4) exhibiting white fragility, and (5) taking credit for participants’ racial justice work and
ideas. Implications for racial justice movements and the participation of white activists
are discussed.
Keywords
Racism, whiteness, activism, burnout, racial justice, social movements
Introduction
Racial justice activists endure a variety of stressors that could impact their abilities
to remain engaged and effective in their activism. Some face violence, or threats of
violence, from institutions or individuals hostile to their activism, including
law enforcement officers (Davenport et al., 2011). Some experience economic vulnerability, especially if they bring their activist commitments into non-activist
workplaces (Gorski, 2018b). Many struggle to cope emotionally with profound
levels of awareness of structural racism and its implications for communities of
color (Blaisdell, 2016). Others are worn down by judgmentalism and in-fighting
within activist communities (Plyler, 2006).
Social movement scholars have used the term activist burnout to describe when
stress associated with these conditions wreaks so much havoc on activists’ emotional or physical health that their abilities to remain effective and engaged in
their activism are compromised (Chen and Gorski, 2015; Cox, 2011). More than
nagging frustration or temporary weariness, activist burnout is a long-term and
accumulative condition that can be mentally and physically debilitating (Maslach
and Gomes, 2006). It can have dire consequences for individual activists,
often forcing them to disengage from movements in which they had invested considerable portions of their lives. Equally important, it can destabilize movements,
creating high rates of turnover (Rodgers, 2010) and deteriorating interactivist
relationships (Plyler, 2006). Pogrebin (1994) thusly characterized activist burnout
as the deterioration of the well-being of activists resulting in the deterioration of
social justice movements. He and several other social movement scholars have
described activist burnout as among the most formidable barriers to movement
persistence and success (Cox, 2011; Pigni, 2016).
Any activist can be susceptible to activism-associated stressors and, as a result,
to activist burnout. However, studies on activist burnout and persistence have
begun to show that their impact is not distributed equally. For example, research
has shown that women activists face intensified levels of public ridicule and invalidation when compared with their male colleagues (Bernal, 2006; Norwood, 2013).
Similarly, activists of color cope with intensified hostilities in response to their
activism when compared with white activists, including higher levels of criminalization (Davenport et al., 2011) and general violence in response to their activism
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(Jacobs and Taylor, 2011). In the United States, racial justice activists of color
contend with the stressors to which all activists are susceptible while also coping
with the impact of structural racism in their lives and in their activism (Gorski,
2018a)—an impact from which white racial justice activists are protected.
In two recent studies on the causes of activist burnout in US racial justice
activists, Gorski (2018a, 2018b) began to uncover a distinction in how activists
of color and white activists characterized causes of their burnout. In those studies,
based on interviews with racial justice activists who had experienced burnout,
participants of color identified among many sources of burnout the way they
were treated by white racial justice activists within their movements—not white
people in general, but white activists—as one primary cause. They shared how they
grew emotionally and physically exhausted coping with the ways white activists
carried their privilege and entitlement into racial justice movements—how it deteriorated their well-being, contributing to their burnout.
Although some racial justice scholars have described ways white antiracism
activists can undermine activists of color and racial justice movements in general
(e.g. Jonsson, 2016; Mallett et al., 2008)—we synthesize this scholarship in the
literature review—activist burnout scholars have been slow to incorporate these
conditions into their scholarship. Causes of activist burnout generally have been
described without consideration for how racism, sexism, and other forms of
oppression operate within anti-oppression movements. In order to begin to
unpack these conditions, we reexamined interviews with the 22 activists of color
in the United States interviewed for Gorski’s (2018a, 2018b) previous studies—
activists of color who have experienced activist burnout—in order to capture in
greater detail how they described the role white racial justice activists played
in causing their burnout. Although drawing from the same interview data, this
study differs from the previous two in that (a) it focuses specifically on how
activists of color attribute their burnout to the behaviors and attitudes of white
activists rather than focusing, as in Gorski’s (2018a) first study, on the full spectrum of burnout causes across a sample of both white activists and activists of
color, and (b) it focuses on activists of color whose racial justice work spans a wide
variety of contexts rather than focusing, as in Gorski’s (2018b) second study,
specifically on those based at institutions of higher education.
This study is contextualized in the existing literature on activist burnout—the
process, according to Maslach and Gomes (2006), by which the stressors of activism become so chronic and overwhelming that “the initial ‘fire’ of enthusiasm,
dedication, and commitment . . . ‘burn out’, leaving behind the smoldering
embers of exhaustion, cynicism, and ineffectiveness” (p. 43). More specifically, it
emerges from the body of activist burnout scholarship in which scholars detail
common burnout causes. Research on burnout in racial justice activists is thin.
However, the causes of burnout identified through that research have been largely
consistent with causes identified in studies of peace (Pines, 1994), feminist (Barry
and Dordevi!c, 2007), educational justice (Gorski and Chen, 2015), and other social
justice activists. These causes generally revolve around three burnout cause
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categories: (1) internal causes associated with the pressure activists put on themselves due to deep levels of commitment to social causes (Lowan-Trudeau, 2016;
Pines, 1994), (2) external causes associated with retaliatory repercussions of challenging institutionalized power and structural injustice (Jones, 2007; Pigni, 2013),
and (3) within-movement causes associated with how activists treat one another
and how activists are treated by social movement organizations (Plyler, 2006;
Rettig, 2006). Unfortunately, as stated earlier, activist burnout scholarship has
failed to account for what Gorski’s (2018a, 2018b) previous studies began to
show constitute one cause of burnout in racial justice activists of color: coping
with the attitudes and behaviors of white racial justice activists. As such, we
adopted a grounded theory approach. We examined interview data gathered
from activists of color who have experienced burnout in order to develop new
insights, through their stories, about the nature of activist burnout.
Embracing conceptualizations of “activists” used in previous activist burnout
studies (Gorski and Chen, 2015; Pines, 1994), “racial justice activists” and
“antiracism activists” in this study are people who identify antiracism activism
as their primary lifework. Following Szymanski’s (2012) study on the experiences
of racial justice activists, “activism” is action taken to effect social or political
change. Although a small number of participants worked full time for racial justice
organizations, most participated in their activism outside their non-activist jobs
(see Table 1 for a summary of participant identities and areas of activist focus).
Researcher positionalities
Paul is a white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class man who has been a racial
and economic justice activist for nearly 25 years. He has never experienced fullfledged activist burnout, but he has experienced and observed conditions that often
are associated with it. He feels particularly connected to this issue due to his role as
a mentor to young activists, predominantly women of color—a role he has played
as a professor teaching social justice-oriented courses and as a community activist.
He recognizes that his privileged identities can make it difficult for him to recognize and understand the nuances described by participants of this study.
Noura is a Palestinian-American, cisgender, middle-class woman, with the benefit of higher education and fluency in two languages. She has been active in social
justice movements in the United States and the Middle East for two decades in
her capacity as a student activist, a community organizer, an employee of a national advocacy organization, and a human rights attorney. Most recently, her move
to the academy has given her a comfortable distance from which to observe
movement work and become involved in her capacity as a scholar-activist.
She has experienced activist burnout at least three times over the course of her
involvement in movement work. She is aware of her privileges as well as the risk
of over-identifying with the participants and projecting her experiences onto
their narratives.
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Table 1. Participant demographics.
Participant
pseudonyms Race
Years of
Primary focus of racial
Socioeconomic activist
experience justice activism
Gender status
Alejandro
Latino
Male
Middle class
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Andrew
Anna
Barbara
Barry
African American
Latina
African American
African American
Male
Female
Female
Male
Middle class
Middle class
Working class
Working class
20
30
50
25
Beverly
Christopher
Cristina
Deborah
Felicia
African American
African American
Latina
African American
Latina and Asian
American
African American
Female
Male
Female
Female
Female
Working class
Poor
Middle class
Poor
Middle class
30
15
12
15
31
Male
18
Male
Male
Male
Lila
African American
African American
African American and
Native American
Arab American
Upper middle
class
Middle class
Middle class
Middle class
Female Poor
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Nicole
Norman
Rochelle
Rosa
African American
Asian American
African American
Latina
Female
Male
Female
Female
18
18
24
15
Gerald
Gregory
Jonathan
Kevin
Working class
Middle class
Middle class
Working class
15
16
30
Educational
opportunity
Youth justice
Chicanx justice
Foreign policy
Community organizing
in Black
communities
Healthcare
Judicial system
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
Educational
opportunity
Educational
opportunity
Police violence
Education
Food justice
Science, technology,
engineering, and
math access
Mass incarceration
Private schools
Juvenile justice
Undocumented
immigrant rights
Literature review
This study is situated at the nexus of two primary knowledge bases. The first, drawn
from the larger literature on activist burnout, is scholarship on its causes—especially
the within-movement causes related to how activists treat one another. The second is
the thin, but growing, scholarship on the attitudes and behaviors of white racial
justice activists and their implications for activists of color.
Within-movement causes of activist burnout
Rettig (2006) described activist burnout as when activists are forced to disengage
involuntarily from their activism due to the accumulative effects of
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activism-related stressors. Scholars have begun to identify the primary causes of
activist burnout, mapping the conditions that most often contribute to these stressors. As mentioned earlier, these conditions generally have been synthesized into
three categories: internal, external, and within-movement causes (Gorski and
Chen, 2015). Although most studies on activist burnout have focused on peace,
feminist, educational justice, and other movements (see, e.g. Pines, 1994), the
couple of studies on burnout in racial justice activism (Gorski, 2018a, 2018b)
drawn from the same data as the current study, confirmed the relevance of these
three cause categories when it comes to patterns of burnout in racial justice activists.
For example, activists attribute their burnout to in-fighting, ego-clashes, and judgmentalism within their movements (Nair, 2004; Norwood, 2013). They grow frustrated, then exhausted, enduring intergenerational tensions among activists, and
movement cultures that foster competition rather than cooperation (Gomes, 1992;
Maslach and Gomes, 2006). Activists even point to the reproduction of the conditions
they joined movements to fight—racism, sexism, and heterosexism, for example—
within their movements as a significant cause of their burnout (Finn, 1990;
Gorski, 2018a).
The present study was compelled, in part, by one notable difference between the
findings from the aforementioned studies on the causes of burnout in racial justice
activists and those from studies on burnout in other activists. In every case, withinmovement conditions proved in previous studies to be a major burnout cause (e.g.
Plyler, 2006; Vaccaro and Mena, 2011). In Gorski’s (2018a, 2018b) studies of racial
justice activists, however, activists’ attributions of their burnout to withinmovement conditions appeared intensified relative to their discussion of internal
or external causes. Based on interviews with 30 racial justice activists who had
experienced burnout—the larger sample, which included both white activists and
activists of color, from which the present study’s participants were pulled—Gorski
(2018a) concluded that participants described internal and external burnout
causes as though they were predictable costs of activism: “They expected backlash.
They recognized their propensities for working to exhaustion. These were predictable burnout sources” (p. 15). Participants described within-movement causes with
elevated incredulity, often saying explicitly they were the primary causes of their
burnout. Many participants described it as especially devastating when they found
the tensions, judgments, and ego clashes they experienced from non-activists reproduced within activist spaces. No previous study has specifically and deeply examined the impact of these sorts of within-movement tensions on activist burnout.
This finding was our impetus to look more closely at these tensions within
the stories of the participants of color from that previous study. They became
the sample for the current study.
White activists and the burnout of activists of color
A small subset of scholarship on racial justice activism examines the ways white
racial justice activists carry privilege and entitlement into racial justice movements.
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Although white racial justice activists tend to philosophically embrace a critical
consciousness regarding their whiteness and racial positionalities (Eichstedt, 2001;
Warren, 2010), many struggle to apply that consciousness in antiracist practice
(Case, 2012; Jacobs and Taylor, 2011). As a result, they risk undermining movement initiatives and impeding movement progress.
For example, Jonsson (2016) described how white racial justice activists tend to
appropriate antiracist organizations by usurping power from activists of color.
In their study of a racial justice grassroots organization, Jacobs and Taylor
(2011) found that white activists wanted activists of color to assume leadership,
but that this was less about a desire to be in service to leaders of color than a desire
to relinquish responsibility for engaging deeply in the organization’s work. In her
study of white racial justice activists, Case (2012) determined that, despite dedication to racial justice ideals, many struggled to recognize manifestations of racism
that were obvious to activists of color. A study by Warren (2010) showed that
white activists tended to carry defensiveness, a symptom of white guilt, into
their movements, potentially undermining the possibility of effective and efficient
collective action. The scholars who conducted these studies did not connect
their findings explicitly to burnout in activists of color. However, they described
conditions that could exacerbate the threat of burnout for activists of color by
reproducing racism within antiracism movements.
A couple of essays about activist burnout and persistence have alluded to ways
that sexism could exacerbate burnout in women feminist activists (Barry and
Dordevi!c, 2007; Bernal, 2006), but these studies referred to how women activists
were treated by forces outside their movements. Scholarship on activist burnout
has only recently considered how these sorts of oppressive conditions within social
movements—conditions dominant-identity activists (such as white racial justice
activists) cause for marginalized-identity activists (such as racial justice activists
of color)—differently inform their burnout experiences. Based on the aforementioned previous studies of burnout causes in racial justice activists, Gorski (2018a,
2018b) reported that, among other within-movement causes, activists of color
commonly attributed their burnout to racism they experienced from white racial
justice activists, white “allies,” who undermined their work, refused to accept leadership from activists of color, and took credit for their ideas.
Those previous studies focused broadly on burnout causes in racial justice movements—internal, external, and within-movement causes. Given this breadth and
the need to describe findings from a variety of burnout causes, they did not deeply
or specifically explicate the relationship between burnout in activists of color and
the behaviors and attitudes of white activists—the objective of this study. In fact,
previous to this study, no study has focused specifically and deeply on how the
behaviors and attitudes of white racial justice activists contribute to burnout in
racial justice activists of color. The only study we could find that began to address
these conditions was Vaccaro and Mena’s (2011) study of the mental health implications of activist engagement for queer college activists of color. They described
how, among other stressors, participants experienced racial alienation within
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majority-white queer justice organizations. Although they did not provide much
detail about the behaviors and attitudes among white queer justice activists that
alienated the activists who participated in their study, Vaccaro and Mena (2011)
appear to be the first scholars to at least allude to this sort of tension in a study
related to activist burnout.
Methodology
Due to the thinness of existing scholarship on the impact for activists of color of
white activists’ engagement in racial justice movements, and the near-absence in
this scholarship of analyses regarding the relationship between this impact and
activist burnout, we opted to embrace a grounded theory approach. Charmaz
(2013) argued that grounded theory offers flexibility to produce fresh analyses,
especially when studying social justice related phenomena largely unexplored in
existing scholarship. Due to our interests in racial justice and with the sustainability of fellow activists and racial justice movements, we embraced Charmaz’s (2008)
framing of constructivist grounded theory, understanding that the research process
is interactive and informed by the researchers’ positionalities—that data are, in
essence, co-constructed by researchers and participants. Our hope was to begin to
develop an understanding of the relationship between burnout in the racial justice
activists of color we interviewed and the challenges they face coping with the
behaviors and attitudes of white activists.
Participants
The focus of our analysis was a series of 22 semi-structured interviews of racial
justice activists of color in the United States who had experienced activist burnout.
These interviews were drawn from a larger sample of 30 interviews with racial
justice activists—both of color and white—who had experienced burnout and
comprised the data for Gorski’s (2018a, 2018b) previous studies of burnout in
racial justice activists. They met two criteria. They (a) identified racial justice
activism as their primary lifework and (b) reported experiencing burnout from
their engagement in racial justice activism. In order to avoid confusion about
popular uses of burnout, prospective participants were provided a description of
activist burnout based on existing social movement scholarship as synthesized
earlier (Maslach and Gomes, 2006; Rettig, 2006) and chosen only after confirming
they had experienced burnout according to that description. Due to our specific
interest in how activists of color characterized the roles of white activist allies in
their burnout, we excluded white participants and included all participants of color
from the original sample.
Participants in that original sample were identified through snowball sampling.
Social media posts were used to recruit activists interested in participating. Sites
used by antiracism activists, such as the Facebook page of the White Privilege
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Conference, were targeted. We invited potential participants reached in this
manner to send the request to others potentially interested in participating.
Participants were diverse identity-wise and in terms of the racial justice issues
they addressed in their activism. We assigned each a pseudonym and avoided
using potentially identifying institution or place names to protect their anonymity.
Table 1 provides an overview of participants’ identities and activist foci.
Data collection
The interview protocol, which was crafted based on understandings of activist
burnout gleaned from existing burnout theory (Cox, 2011; Maslach and Gomes,
2006) and from previous studies on the causes of activist burnout in social justice
activists (Chen and Gorski, 2015; Plyler, 2006), contained 12 open-ended items
constructed to elicit participants’ stories about the symptoms, causes, and consequences of their burnout. When it came to the causes of their burnout, participants
were asked to identify the primary causes, the extent to which they attributed their
burnout to conditions inside and outside their organizations or movements, and
how they would describe those conditions. Participants were not asked specifically
about their experiences with white activists or any other specific potential cause
of burnout.
Social movement scholars who would have been eligible to participate were
invited to review and share feedback on the instrument. The final protocol reflected
their feedback.
We focused in the present study on burnout causes and particularly on those
related to engagement with white racial justice activists. However, due to the openended nature of the interviews, participants often described burnout symptoms,
causes, and consequences simultaneously. As a result, all data in the 22 interviews
were examined in an attempt to understand how participants characterized the
impact of white activists on their burnout.
Interviews, conducted in person or via telephone or teleconference, lasted 60–90
minutes. In several cases, we requested follow-up interviews to clarify participant responses.
Analysis
We analyzed data using Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) three-tiered coding approach.
First, using open coding, we arranged data by general themes. For example, a
theme that emerged early in the analysis was that participants did not feel they
could trust the intentions of white activists. Then, we reexamined data organized
by these big themes, looking for patterns and relationships in order to delineate
more specific subthemes—a process called axial coding by Strauss and Corbin
(1990). We found, for example, that participants characterized the relationship
between their distrust for white activists and their burnout more specifically
around ways they felt undermined by white activists who softened the politics of
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racial justice work and ways they felt white activists failed to prepare themselves
with sufficient understandings of structural racism. The researchers engaged in
open and axial coding separately, then met to compare and discuss what we
found until we reached consensus on major themes and subthemes. Lastly, we
collaboratively used Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) collective coding to revisit these
subthemes with the goal of identifying each one’s intricacies and relationships with
the others. These became our primary findings.
Quality and trustworthiness
We took several actions to attend to quality and trustworthiness, starting with
participant selection and data collection. In an effort to strengthen credibility, we
used a form of member checking (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), inviting participants
to review transcripts and notes from their interviews. Additionally, we practiced
triangulation, incorporating both analyst triangulation (using both researchers to
examine data and findings separately) and theory triangulation (examining data
both through activist burnout theory and elements of critical race theory) into our
analysis process (Creswell, 2007).
For the purposes of conformability, we reflected constantly on our positionalities
as researchers and how they might influence our data collection and analysis.
Specifically, we followed two suggested processes for reflexivity (Merriam, 2009).
First, we engaged in ongoing dialogue throughout our collaboration as coresearchers coming from very different perspectives and identities, allowing us to
question and reflect on our own and one another’s biases and presumptions related
to the research process and findings. Second, we crafted researcher positionality
statements in order to help readers understand our potential subjectivities.
Findings
Overall, of the 22 racial justice activists in our sample, 18 (82%) identified the
behaviors and attitudes of white racial justice activists as a major source of their
burnout. This finding is notable, again, in light of the fact that participants were
not asked specifically about white activists. They were asked open-ended questions
about, for example, the extent to which their activist burnout could be attributed
to “conditions within racial justice organizations and movements.”
In this section, we report findings from an analysis of how those 18 activists of
color characterized the ways white activists contributed to their burnout. Analysis
resulted in five cause themes: (a) harboring unevolved or racist views, (b) undermining or invalidating participants’ racial justice work, (c) being unwilling to step
up and take action when needed, (d) exhibiting white fragility, and (e) taking credit
for participants’ racial justice work and ideas. Although some of these themes
overlap—participants described individual experiences that could fit into more
than one theme—we distinguished them in order to delineate the variety of ways
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white activist engagement in racial justice activism can be associated with burnout
among activists of color.
Harboring unevolved or racist views
Thirteen participants (72.2%) attributed their burnout, in part, to unevolved or
racist views among white activists. They described activists who failed to enter
movements with the depth of understanding necessary to contribute to movement
goals or who failed to engage without unleashing their privilege and entitlement
onto activists of color. Participants felt disappointed and emotionally exhausted
regularly encountering white people within their movements who espoused racist
views. As Gerald emphasized, his frustration with white people who self-identify as
activists is “more challenging if it’s [somebody] you’ve been partnering with” who
is espousing racist views, such as by “say[ing] something from a very cultural deficit
perspective.” White activists’ lack of understanding of racism and habit of carrying
racist views into racial justice spaces imposed a burden on activists of color. They
were forced to expend activist energies teaching white “allies” about racism and
withstanding pushback from white activists who refused to scrutinize themselves,
hastening their burnout.
Rosa captured many participants’ disappointment with the lack of preparation
of white activists and with having to shoulder the burden of educating them, often
in the face of resistance. Her burnout was exacerbated when she learned over and
over that:
. . . my [white] allies aren’t really the allies I thought they were . . . As an educator
I know everyone is developing from wherever they are . . . But I feel like if we’re
colleagues you should at the very least listen to what I’m saying. At least try to
understand where I’m coming from. So my burnout comes from being everyone’s
teacher, including people I think should know better.
Several participants attributed their burnout, in part, to white activists who were
resistant to learning from activists of color and who often perceived themselves as
more racially conscious than they actually were. Anna’s burnout was elevated by
“white males who . . . think they know it all and have never researched [racism],
have never talked to other people about it; they just ‘know’. And they act on what
they know and . . . there you go.” Coping with this attitude among white activists
and its implications exacerbated burnout-inducing stress for participants, whose
understandings and commitments were based, not only on trainings and literature
but also on lived experiences they could not escape. In this spirit, Nicole grew
exhausted coping with the lack of lived knowledge among white activists, especially
when mixed with delusional perceptions of expertise. She shared:
It’s just crazy to me. How can you represent a community that you don’t derive from
or have done some extensive work in—fieldwork, on the ground grassroots work?
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I don’t understand it . . . They just read a couple books and did a couple of workshops
and it validates their expertise. That’s crazy to me.
Reflecting Warren’s (2010) description of white activist defensiveness, participants
also attributed their burnout to instances when white racial justice colleagues took
instructive critique personally. As Jonathan explained, when he tries to point out a
white activist’s privilege, “all hell breaks loose.” Deborah described the stress she
endures explaining to white activists that racial justice work is not about “targeting
an entire race. We are targeting the system.” It is racial privilege, she pointed out,
“that allows . . . [white activists] to [not understand] the complications of this systemic
racism.” Even when participants endured the stress of spending their activist energy
explaining racism to white activists—activists who, in their view, demonstrated entitlement simply by entering movements without the basic understandings necessary to
engage effectively—they often were met with stress-inducing defensiveness. (We discuss this defensiveness and its relationship to white fragility in more detail later.)
Participants attributed their burnout to a variety of other manifestations of white
activists’ shallow understandings of racism. One highlighted a white activist referring
to an acquaintance as a “black friend” and using a racial slur to describe that friend.
Another described a white activist saying, “I hate the Confederate flag” to earn
social affirmation from activists of color while harboring significant misunderstandings about the historical significance of Confederate symbols. In other cases white
activists’ racial justice vocabulary and theoretical knowledge masked deeper, unexamined, racism. Rochelle shared how she initially was drawn to a white activist who
had well-cultivated racial justice vocabulary and theoretical knowledge, but eventually learned in practice that “she was often the bigot and the racist in a group.”
Encounters with white activists’ racist views were not only stressful but, over time,
affected how participants saw themselves as people and activists. Mirroring the stories
of several participants, Nicole explained that the inability or unwillingness of white
activists to understand how whiteness is socially constructed to reify and justify racism
frustrated her to such an extent it deteriorated her effectiveness as an activist—a key
sign of burnout. “Anger wouldn’t allow me to tap into my higher self,” she shared.
Undermining or invalidating racial justice work
Eight participants (44.4%) attributed their burnout in part to white activists
undermining their racial justice efforts and invalidating their perspectives as activists of color. In the worst cases, white “allies” attempted to sabotage them and
disrupt racial justice initiatives. These experiences exacerbated a sense of frustration and mistrust within the organizations in which participants were involved.
The frustration stemmed, in part, from an expectation among participants that
their lived experiences in marginalized communities should afford them some
authority in racial justice movements. Capturing many participants’ feelings,
Deborah explained, “White allies need to understand that . . . [they] need to take
directions from us.” Many participants described specific experiences in which
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13
white activists instead minimized or silenced their expertise. For example, Nicole
shared how a white activist asked her to collaborate on a racial justice initiative in
a Black community, then ignored her advice. Like other participants, the way she
was treated by her white activist colleague made her feel invisible even though, as
an African American woman, she felt she had more expertise and experience than
him. Andrew recounted witnessing white male activists speaking excessively in
meetings, marginalizing women of color. He described this as a “double
whammy”: “They are getting hit from all sides and their voices often . . . are
never heard.” Like many participants, Andrew’s intersectional consciousness as
an activist of color heightened his sensitivity to micro- and macro-aggressions,
intensifying the impact of his frustration with white activists. These experiences
led him and other participants to distrust white activists, making collaboration
inefficient and mentally exhausting.
Participants also attributed their burnout to white activists asking them to
temper their emotions. Notably, research on racial justice activist engagement
shows that individuals’ experiences with structural racism is an important predictor of engagement—the more individuals perceive they are impacted by structural
racism, the more likely they are to engage in antiracism activism (Szymanski, 2012;
Szymanski and Lewis, 2015). So it became an additional stressor when white
activists asked participants to swallow their emotions; it felt like a rejection of
the activists themselves and a dismissal of their experiences withstanding racism.
Andrew described how, despite demands from white activists, he could not curb his
emotional response to injustice: “This [victim of racism] could have been me; this
could have been my kid.” He lamented how “tiring” it becomes when “well-intentioned, progressive [white] people who think they are lovers of justice” consistently
marginalize his emotional responses to racism.
In the worst cases, activists of color described explicit attempts by white activists
to undermine them, igniting their burnout. Capturing the experiences of many
participants, Alejandro shared a story about a white colleague who identified as
an activist while regularly undercutting Alejandro’s antiracism efforts:
There was this guy who would always smile at me and undermine what I wanted to
do. He was, like, not even passive aggressive; he was not even that veiled. He had been
in the [organization] for 32 years. And so he had a lot of power, but he pretended not
to have a lot of power. And I was undermined by this white dude.
This white “ally” not only undermined Alejandro, but failed to own his institutional power, exacerbating Alejandro’s stress, eventually feeding his burnout.
Gerald described an incident in which a white activist who worked for the same
organization for which he worked falsely accused him of a crime for attending a
preconference session held the day before a racial justice conference:
[I] got accused of embezzlement once because I attended [a racial justice conference] . . . I was going with a white ally who was also an administrator [in my
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organization] . . . I signed up for a [preconference] institute and I went a day early [to
attend the preconference session the day before the conference began]. I returned and
[my supervisor] said, “I’m concerned that you are misappropriating funds. I looked
online. The conference didn’t begin until Thursday, yet you flew down Tuesday
evening . . . ” And I’m thinking, where are you getting this information? . . . Later I
find out that my white ally . . . who came down two days later, had provided her
with this information.
Gerald perceived the white ally’s false accusation as betrayal, especially because
the ally presumed he was doing something wrong without asking him, elevating his
distrust of white activists. Like many of the participants, he grew emotionally
exhausted managing ways white activists forced him to expend activist energy
dealing with exertions of white dominance within a racial justice context.
Being unwilling to step up to take action when needed
Nine participants (50%) attributed their burnout to the strain caused when white
activists are unwilling to “step up” and take action to advance movement goals.
Capturing a sentiment shared by many participants, Alejandro shared his frustration with being in spaces dedicated to racial justice activism where white activists
were slow to engage beyond conversation. They mistook cross-racial dialogue and
conversations about racism as activism, rarely getting around to acting on what
they learned. He explained, “It was more a case of [white activists] wanting to talk
about things but do nothing . . . Being aware is one thing, but what is going to be
different? . . . What are the outcomes to this awareness?”
The tendency among white racial justice activists to refuse to make themselves
vulnerable for the cause when activists of color were vulnerable simply by virtue of
being activists of color was particularly troubling for participants. Cristina attributed her burnout in part to seeing “[white] people who actually have the power to
create systemic change” but are not willing to take a risk to achieve that change.
Nicole felt worn down by not being able to escape her vulnerability as a Black
woman. That vulnerability, in her words, “creat[es] a different kind of dynamic
when you’re doing the work.” The unwillingness of white activists to bear part of
the burden of her vulnerability exacerbated her stress. She asked, “How do you
deal with that without losing your mind? How do you deal with that without
resigning or becoming the angry Black woman?”
Many participants highlighted how vulnerability for white activists is always a
choice. In some cases, participants shared, white activists were choosing not to
engage fully because it would require deep self-reflection. Gerald offered an indicative experience:
I got burned from so-called white liberal progressive allies who were on board until it
meant that they needed to do self-reflection, until it meant that they needed to learn
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15
about themselves and this wasn’t about learning about . . . the poor black kid from
the Bronx . . .
Others grew frustrated over time as white activists justified their unwillingness to take
significant action by fretting over others’ potential discomfort. Andrew explained:
A lot of white folks want to benefit from [identifying with racial justice] . . . But they
don’t want to call [racism] out because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. They
don’t want to press it. It’s like, well what about those people who deal with it? I have
to deal with it . . . That’s been a huge source of stress and burnout.
In their efforts to avoid discomfort, participants explained, white activists intensified it among activists of color, contributing to burnout.
Participants also had to manage the damage done by white activists who were
willing to engage but only on their own terms. Rochelle shared a story about
working with a white activist who wanted to focus on “self-healing.” This white
activist aligned herself with racial justice groups and engaged intellectually but
never took action when movement toward racial justice was “at stake.” Like
other participants, Rochelle had to expend emotional energy assessing whether
she felt “safe” around white activists who seem unwilling to step up or who
appear to engage only for self-serving reasons.
Exhibiting white fragility
Eight participants (44.4%) attributed their burnout in part to white fragility—
defined by DiAngelo (2011) as an expectation among white people that they will
be insulated from race-based stress. This expectation creates an intolerance in
white people for discussions about race, often leading to defensive outbursts.
Notably, although white fragility has been associated with white people in general
(DiAngelo, 2011; Hines, 2017), it has not to our knowledge been associated specifically with white racial justice activists. According to participants, white activists
regularly exhibited this fragility, draining energy from activists of color and undermining organizational conversations about eliminating racism.
Felicia described an instance when she tried to explain to a white activist how
the activist was exhibiting racism. She explained, “When I told her about [how she
was exhibiting racism], she went back to [her] whiteness and said, ‘Well you’re just
going to oppress me and call me some colonialist.’” In addition to rebuffing
Felicia’s intervention, the white activist also framed herself as a victim, accusing
Felicia of oppressing her.
Two participants, both women, described how merely being themselves—
agentic, outspoken, and passionate—triggered defensive responses from white activists. Beverly described how her assertiveness was perceived as aggressive, leading
white activists to question her ability to facilitate group conversations. They feared
that she was “angry all the time” and framed her as an “angry Black woman.”
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This put her in a position of having to defend herself not just from racism outside
her movement but also from white activists in her movement, exacerbating the
threat of burnout. Rosa had a similar experience:
I have been . . . told that people don’t like my attitude, that I’m too aggressive . . . Right
now stating something clearly in a declarative way would be perceived [by white
activists] as aggressive. So not only do I have to try to tell the truth about injustice
in the world and the injustice in which we operate as an institution, but I also have to
make other people feel good about it.
Rosa’s experience illustrated how, in order for some white activists to “hear”
activists of color, activists of color have to spend energy navigating white activists’
fragility; participants felt they had to take a “feel good” approach to these interactions even as they bore the emotional burden of racism. Ultimately, Rosa
explained, “It was the defensive response of [white] people who I call friends
and who I respected [that] burned me out.”
Taking credit for the work and ideas of activists of color
According to Barry, “For whatever reason, [white activists] feel like they need the
spotlight.” Their need for the spotlight led some to exploit activists of color either
to acquire benefits—leadership positions or speaking invitations, for example—or
to win validation from activists of color. In either case, nine (50%) participants
described how white activists’ habit of taking credit for their work or of exploiting
them in other ways contributed to their burnout.
These participants attributed their burnout in part to white activists, in
Deborah’s language, “coopting” their activist work for self-benefit. Rosa shared
how white activists take credit for ideas they previously dismissed from her:
If we are sitting around the table . . . and I have a suggestion . . . and I’ve been thinking
about it, I’ve been sharing it, and it’s gone and ignored. And then a white colleague of
mine will say the same thing, but then it’s hers.
Felicia, an activist-educator, shared how white colleagues who do racial justice
work attempt to exploit her expertise:
You know that whole dynamic of, “I need a black best friend.” Now for academics,
they need [to be] published with a person of color who could teach whiteness so that
they end up [looking] like a racially just worker . . . So these are [white] people who just
want to get their name published with someone who is recognized for doing
racial justice.
In these cases, white activists accept benefits, such as credit and recognition, for
ideas and work produced by activists of color.
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17
Due to their need for attention and validation, participants explained, white
activists speak over them, speak for them, or find other ways to assert the expertise
that already exists among activists of color. Jonathan described how a white activist “who wants to be seen” as a racial justice expert contributed to his burnout by
consuming space in his organization while failing to demonstrate humility.
Rosa shared that she works with white activists who will “offer to speak for
me.” She described how this undermines her contributions.
In the most egregious cases, participants bemoaned white activists who outrightly appropriated their work to advance themselves. Anna, a Chicanx and
immigrant rights activist, described these activists as “white knights” who will
take the work developed by marginalized people and “put their name on it.”
Felicia explained, “I have white racial justice workers who . . . even record me or
photograph something I post and use it as if it’s theirs, without giving me credit . . . as they coopt it and reappropriate it in a way that is dangerous.” For this
reason, while she thinks white allies are “great,” on the whole they cause her more
stress than relief.
Discussion
The findings of this study support and complicate existing scholarship both on the
impact of white activists on United States racial justice movements and on activist
burnout. For example, existing social movement scholarship demonstrates how
white activists take fewer risks than activists of color, lack racial justice consciousness despite having antiracist convictions, and carry insecurities about their whiteness into their activism while seeking validation from activists of color (Case, 2012;
Eichstedt, 2001; Warren, 2010). The current study’s participants described conditions within their racial justice organizations and movements that support this
scholarship.
Similarly, this study built on glimpses provided by previous studies into how
these conditions—results of the attitudes and behaviors of white activists—exacerbate the threat of burnout for marginalized-identity activists, including antiracism activists of color (Srivastava, 2006; Vaccaro and Mena, 2011). This study
appears to be the first focused exclusively on the relationship between white
activists in racial justice movements and burnout among activists of color, explicating ways activists of color attribute their burnout to the attitudes and behaviors
of white activists. These include patterns of (a) embracing unevolved or racist
views, (b) undermining or invalidating the work or racial justice activists of
color, (c) showing a lack of willingness to step up and take action when needed,
(d) exhibiting white fragility in activist spaces, and (e) taking credit for the work
and ideas of activists of color. Notably, unlike previous scholarship exploring the
power and limitations of white activists through the experiences of white activists
(e.g. Case, 2012; Warren, 2010), this study also appears to be the first to explore it
through the experiences of activists of color and their struggle to sustain
their activism. In addition to demonstrating troubling attitudes and behaviors, it
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associated those attitudes and behaviors with feelings of marginalization, emotional exhaustion, and eventually burnout among activists of color—an outcome that
could undermine the effectiveness of racial justice movements (Maslach and
Gomes, 2006; Pogrebin, 1994).
Complicating theoretical constructions of activist burnout
Most specifically, we explicated a specific way burnout can operate differently for
activists of color than for white activists. Activists of all racial identities contend
with stressors commonly associated with burnout, such as resistance (Cox, 2011)
or activist in-fighting (Norwood, 2013). Although social movement scholars have
shown that activists of color shoulder a greater load from some of these stressors,
such as the threat or reality of police violence (Davenport et al., 2011), any activist,
to some extent, can feel their effects.
However, participants of this study, racial justice activists of color, also
contended with stressors associated with racist attitudes and behaviors from
white activists. White activists, by virtue of their whiteness, are protected from
these stressors. The activist burnout literature to date largely has been silent on
this matter, describing burnout causes without distinguishing between privilegedidentity and marginalized-identity activists and their interactions within social
movements (Gorski, 2018a). A more useful theoretical framework for activist
burnout must consider these distinctions more thoroughly.
The findings provide another crucial insight that complicates understandings of
activist burnout and white activists’ roles in racial justice movements. The racism
that propelled participants into racial justice movements was reproduced within
those movements. For many participants, this was a particularly disappointing and
stress-inducing condition because they had entered movements hoping for a
reprieve from the racism with which they coped outside their movements.
In some ways, other causes of their burnout were predictable. As scholars studying
activists’ experiences have documented (e.g. Potter, 2011; Rettig, 2006), activists
expect, for example, that they will encounter resistance from individuals hostile to
their movements. But they may not similarly anticipate this resistance from activists within their movements—people, in Rosa’s words, who “should know
better.” The strain of coping with racism within movements created to battle
racism became a significant contributor to participants’ burnout.
Critical race theorists have used the concept, the permanence of racism, to
emphasize that racism is woven systemically and permanently into the history
and present of all aspects of society (e.g. Bell, 1992; Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Milner,
2017). It is not merely transactional, solvable by responding strategically to individual racist interactions. The findings support this notion—racism is so permanent, so insidious, that activists of color interviewed for this study are not immune
from it, even within racial justice movements. This includes explicit, purposeful
forms of racism—being silenced and actively marginalized by white activists—as
well as the more subtle, implicit forms of what Essed (1991) called everyday racism.
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19
Notably, participants did not distinguish the relative impact of subtle or explicit,
micro-aggressive or macro-aggressive, and unintentional or purposeful racism they
experienced from white activists. Instead, the accumulative impact of this racism in
all its forms contributed to their burnout. They were worn down by the ways their
activist spaces became sites of the racism they hoped to destroy.
This reality is virtually unaccounted for in existing theoretical constructions of
activist burnout. Other than an occasional brief mention (e.g. Cox, 2011) or
calls for scholars to consider within-movement oppression in future studies (e.g.
Gorski, 2018a), scholars have described symptoms and causes of burnout without
distinguishing how they might appear differently for privileged-identity and
marginalized-identity activists. More concerted efforts to study these distinctions
are needed to develop more accurate and meaningful constructions of, and
responses to, activist burnout.
The roles and impacts of white activists in racial justice movements
In order to broaden understandings of the roles and impacts of white activists in
racial justice organizations, it is important to note, first of all, that white people
who become involved in activism derive benefits from that involvement (Warren,
2010). For example, activist spaces give white activists whose antiracist views leave
them feeling alienated from their families and communities important points of
interpersonal and political connection (Case, 2012). As several respondents
highlighted, often white activists limited their involvement to a praxis of educating
themselves within the movement, what Tuck and Yang (2012) might describe as
“conscientization,” as a way to benefit themselves without necessarily combating
racism. They characterize settler-colonial practices of becoming more conscious
and aware without contending with the settler-colonial structure mediating their
relationship to the land and Native nations, as a “move to innocence.” This benefits the settler who might feel like a change-maker while also facilitating their
ongoing colonizer role. While we did not specifically examine indigenous movement spaces, Tuck and Yang’s (2012) notion of moving to innocence through
awareness raising is apt. From the perspectives of this study’s participants, white
activists derived benefits from their involvement in racial justice activism at the
expense of activists of color who, in turn, were silenced, undermined, disrespected,
and eventually burned out.
For example, multiple respondents highlighted how their movement contributions were initially dismissed only to be celebrated when repeated by white activists. In other instances, participants felt tokenized by white activists who
collaborated with them on a superficial level in order to attend to their own
interests. Moreover, participants felt that white activists often derived these benefits without making themselves as vulnerable as activists of color; without a willingness to act when movement goals required them to do so. In fact, participants
viewed this hesitation among white activists as an indication of their ability to
escape risk, a choice not available to activists of color.
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In other words, in participants’ experiences, white activists derived benefit at
least partially through exertions of racial privilege. These conditions harken to
what critical race theorists and whiteness studies scholars have described as whiteness as property (Harris, 1993; Lipsitz, 2006). The social construction of race in the
United States has imbued whiteness with a significant “property” value through
exclusion and preferential treatment in immigration, housing, employment, criminal justice, and other systems. This condition appears to be replicated in participants’ activist experiences. White activists who participate in racial
justice activism gain benefits, including growing their consciousness and finding
community (Loewen, 2015), while also bearing less risk than activists of color,
without having to divest their whiteness. Meanwhile they may be oppressing
activists of color whose contributions are devalued, marginalized—sometimes
even criminalized.
This can be particularly exacerbating for activists of color who see themselves as
having specialized racial justice knowledge because they endure racism’s primary
impact. In fact, as we mentioned earlier, one predictor of activism engagement for
activists of color is the extent to which individuals perceive themselves as targets of
structural racism (Szymanski and Lewis, 2015). This makes their activism, in part,
a pursuit of self-determination. For this reason, even unconsciously demeaning
acts by white activists can be deeply triggering, hastening burnout. Moreover,
based on the disproportionate distribution of harm associated with racism, activists of color sought spaces where they could assume leadership positions and
where white activists would be willing to support their leadership. They expected,
in Deborah’s words, white activists to “take directions from [activists of color].”
In contrast to these expectations, white activists failed to understand or consider
these dynamics. Instead, they enjoyed connection and growth while activists of
color coped with burnout. Notable, again, is the fact that activist burnout scholarship has been near silent on these conditions; even conceptualizations of activist
burnout have been framed in a way that privileges privileged-identity activists
while obscuring a cause of burnout among activists of color.
An important point of clarification is that participants tended to share stories
about specific white activists or particular types of white activists who exacerbated
their burnout; none referred to “all white activists.” Many were appreciative of
white activists’ willingness to engage but, in the end, found that the behaviors and
attitudes of many white activists created more stress than benefit for activists of
color and the antiracism goals of their movements. But presuming—as previous
scholarship provides evidence to do (Eichstedt, 2001; Warren, 2010)—that all
white activists to some extent carry the implications of their whiteness into
racial justice movements, there seemed to be a broad desire for more mindful
engagement among white activists in participants’ movements. As Jacobs and
Taylor (2011) explained, based on their examination of white activists’ engagement
in a racial justice movement, the “need for white participation is equal to the fear
of white ‘takeover’ of the organization” (p. 699). White activists had an important
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21
role to play, they argued, but often in the course of playing that role they made the
work of activists of color more emotionally and physically draining.
In this spirit, participants’ insights could be seen as points for conversation
within racial justice organizations regarding white activists’ responsibility to
engage in ways that potentially contribute to the sustainability rather than the
burnout of activists of color and, as a result, to the sustainability of racial justice
movements. These responsibilities, gleaned from participants’ insights,
might include:
1. doing deeper self-work by examining their privilege, their fragility, and the gaps
in their misunderstandings of structural racism more thoroughly before entering
racial justice movements;
2. being willing to defer to activists of color and movement leaders of color, especially when the lived experience of being targeted by racism is central to the
cultivation of movement strategies and goals;
3. prioritizing movement goals over their needs for recognition and validation;
4. policing one another around concerns related to credit- and spotlight-grabbing
behaviors (such as coopting the ideas of activists of color) so activists of color
do not need to expend energy doing so; and
5. stepping up and making themselves vulnerable to the cause, rather than behaving as though just being present at meetings and awareness-raising opportunities
is “activism,” remembering that activists of color are vulnerable simply by
virtue of being activists of color.
Future research could examine attitudes and behaviors among white activists
that lend themselves to movement stability rather than burnout.
Despite having, perhaps, a philosophical commitment, white activists unwilling
to respond to these challenges could be bigger threats than assets to racial justice
movements. As social movement scholars (Pogrebin, 1994; Rettig, 2006) have
pointed out, burnout’s impact on individual activists affects not only those activists but also the viability of social movements. From this perspective, participants
were providing insights not only on white activists’ contributions to their burnout,
but also on the potential toll white activists take on the effectiveness of racial
justice movements. For example, several participants described needing to calm
their emotionality in order not to be perceived by white activists as “angry.”
Individually, they were impacted within their movements by the same silencing
dynamics that exist outside their movements. In addition to contributing to their
individual bouts of burnout, this silencing also could cheat their movements out of
the full expression and engagement of knowledgeable activists of color.
Future research should attend more specifically to this issue. If, as the results of
this study indicate and as other scholarship (Case, 2012; Jacobs and Taylor, 2011)
suggests, at least some proportion of white activists are creating additional strain
on activists of color, scholars should explore within-movement strategies for
responding to the attitudes and behaviors of white activists. They also should
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explore strategies for attending to activists of color who should not bear the
burden white activists’ troubling attitudes and behaviors. To date, much of the
popular discourse about activist burnout focuses on self-care as the key strategy
for sustaining activists (e.g. Gorski, 2015; Khan, 2015; Ross, 2017). The trouble is,
no amount of self-care can curb the portion of burnout activists of color attribute
to racism from white activists.
Conclusion
Activist burnout and social movement scholars have suggested that burnout is
among the most formidable barriers to the sustainability of social movements
(Maslach and Gomes, 2006; Pogrebin, 1994). In order to maximize the effectiveness of strategies for responding to burnout and its impact on individual activists
and social movements, we should begin with as intricate an understanding as
possible of the causes of burnout. Theoretical constructions of activist burnout
must to do a better job accounting for how white activists and activists of color
experience burnout differently, including how white activists contribute to the
burnout of activists of color. Existing theoretical concepts like racial battle fatigue,
white fragility, the permanence of racism, and whiteness as property can help.
Additionally, continued research on how white activists engage in racial justice
movements and organizations will help. This study was one step toward filling this
gap in the literature, beginning to bridge understandings of activist burnout with
the role of white activists in racial justice organizations and movements.
Limitations
One benefit of qualitative studies is the analytical depth they offer when examining
participants’ lived experiences. The trade-off for this depth, due to relatively
low sample sizes (in this case, 22) is a lack of broad applicability. As qualitative
understandings of activist burnout in racial justice and other activists grows, an
important next step could be to use the emerging knowledge base to design bigger
quantitative studies in order to examine not only the causes of activist burnout but
also rates of burnout and its common symptoms. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we did not ask participants in this study specifically about white activists.
A study in which interviews or other collected data focused solely on this issue
likely would reveal additional, or more detailed, examples of how these conditions
impact activists of color. Future studies could focus more intently and purposefully
on this issue rather than examining it alongside many other burnout causes.
Another possible limitation is that we focused specifically on how white activists’
attitudes and behaviors informed burnout in activists of color, potentially limiting
the scope of what we could learn about how white privilege, micro-aggressions,
and other conditions affect activists of color, including those who never have
burned out. Future research could expand beyond the activist burnout frame to
Gorski and Erakat
23
look more closely at how some of the concerns raised in this study affect all
activists of color and racial justice movements more broadly.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with
the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the
1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
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