ABSTRACT
“White privilege,” “white fragility,” “white rage,” “white tears,” and “white innocence” are terms whose use has enriched anti-racist discourse. Andrea Dionne Warmack proposes that an additional description and state of being, white terror/ist and white fearfulness unifies these descriptions. Whiteness is constituted by two fears: fear of the other and fear of the white self, a refusal to bear witness to the self’s commitments to whiteness and the moral failures that surface in the wake of those commitments. Drawing on Black feminist and womanist thought, Warmack argues that white supremacy is emotionally stunting. She reads several contemporary incidents, including the Christchurch Massacre and the attempted coup of January 6, 2021, to show that loving struggle for one’s people is not what motivates white terror.
