ABSTRACT
This vignette of what it was like to take part in a small dinner at Henry's restaurant in New York City with some of the Black analysts who took part in the Black Psychoanalysts Speak conferences and video—conveys why I (a white analyst who shared in organizing these things) was silent and felt I needed to listen to them. It was not only their examples of the frequent microaggressions or microassaults they experienced in life and my recognition of how my white skin—my white privilege—protected me in life, even as a civil rights worker; it was also that their open and heartfelt discussion led me to another recognition: that I and the whites in our society are constantly subject to “microaggressions to our integrity.” That is, friends, colleagues, and whites who may be an integral part of our lives make private remarks that assume that Blacks are “less than”—lacking in some attribute. The corrosive and unspoken assumption behind these remarks is that we (as fellow whites) must share in their views. I discuss this challenge to whites' integrity in our culture.
