AVERSIVE RACISTS AND OTHER FOLKS WHO EXHAUST US ©

This article introduces what I term the Missy Anne Archetype (Johnson, 2025), a framework for understanding aversive racism rooted in perceived innocence, social image, and moral withdrawal.

In case most haven’t already figured it out after the 2025 election, Black women are over it — exhausted. We’ve reached the point where the performance, the platitudes, and the carefully curated “solidarity” gestures don’t move us anymore — because we’ve seen the playbook too many times to mistake it for progress. And that playbook? It’s straight out of the Missy Anne era — the same well-rehearsed sweetness, the same “I’m with you” smile, and the same refusal to risk anything that might disrupt her comfort.

If you’ve ever seen Roots, think of Missy Anne, the plantation owner’s daughter — a white woman raised alongside Kizzy, the daughter of Kunta Kinte. To Kizzy, Missy Anne was a friend. They laughed, shared secrets, and even broke rules together. Missy Anne taught her to read — something forbidden and dangerous for an enslaved Black girl.

As Roots begins, Kunta Kinte is the central figure: a young man from the Mandinka tribe in Gambia who was captured by slave traders in the 1700s and brought to America. Even after being enslaved on a Virginia plantation, Kunta Kinte refused to let anyone strip him of his name, his culture, or his dignity. In one of the most unforgettable scenes, he’s whipped nearly to death for refusing to answer to “Toby,” over and over, insisting his name is Kunta Kinte. Eventually, the torment became unbearable, and he conceded.

Without knowing the language, he knew his culture, his pride, the traditions and values of the Mandinka people — things not easily surrendered. His story makes one thing plain: in an oppressive hierarchy, your value isn’t measured by ability, intelligence, or contribution. It’s decided — often before you open your mouth — by a system that’s already determined where it thinks you belong. A tale as old as time.

Kizzy was Kunta’s only child. Young and hopeful, Kizzy believed that she and Missy Anne were truly friends. However, to Missy Anne, Kizzy was essentially her toy. Her entertainment. Her property. And as Kizzy would soon find out — she was disposable.

For Missy Anne, their relationship had clear limitations. When Kizzy’s literacy was discovered, the punishment was swift: she was sold away. As Kizzy begged for help, Missy Anne closed the shutters and turned away. Years later, when their paths crossed, Missy Anne pretended not to know her.

That’s the blueprint: proximity without loyalty, affection without advocacy, inclusion only until it costs them something. However, Missy Anne didn’t vanish when slavery ended — she just traded petticoats for pencil skirts and paper coffee cups. Mz. Ann is now in leadership.

After the murder of George Floyd, she joined the diversity committee and even delivered keynote speeches about “equity” as if she were single-handedly leading the march to freedom. She smiled for photo ops (holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign), collected the praise, and quoted Baldwin or Coates with flawless cadence — all while gatekeeping opportunities, ignoring bias in her own backyard, and making sure the hierarchy stays intact.

I’ve watched her move through rooms with the confidence of someone who thinks reading about racism is the same as unlearning it. She’s memorized the language but skipped the workbook — the lessons that require living it, owning it, and holding herself accountable. But application was never her goal. Fact is, someone telling me they’ve “read the book” is an instant turn-off.

As James Baldwin reminds us, “I can’t believe what you say, because I watch what you do.” That has always been my mantra.

And nine times out of ten, what I watch is a masterclass in avoiding the mirror. If it were an actual test, she’d fail miserably — because she refuses to see herself in those pages.

Because the performance is the point. The committee seat, the LinkedIn post, the polished panel appearance — all of it is currency. And she spends it protecting her image, not dismantling the system. And when she’s called out? She becomes the victim, more upset about the accusation than the behavior that earned it. Because when bias shows up in the room, she looks away. When you speak up, she hears it as a personal attack. Call it racism, and she becomes the victim — more outraged at the word than at the behavior that earned it. She prides herself on saying she “voted for Obama” — as if a single ballot could erase the bias woven into her everyday actions.

Modern-Day Mz. Ann Is Only Able to Offer “Allyship”

She’ll tell you she’s with you, but only from a safe distance — far enough to protect her access. Her “support” is performative. She’ll smile in solidarity at the staff meeting, then co-sign the decision that undercuts you. This is not co-conspiracy. This is not liberation work. This is a curated image of goodness, wrapped in the language of allyship, designed to keep her welcome in every room — including the ones where your name gets dismantled.

If Ms. Ann Were a Co-Conspirator

She would have been brave enough to post her outrage about the murders of Michael Brown, George Floyd, and Trayvon Martin with the same conviction she used to mourn slain animals — no qualifiers, no “both sides” caveats, no silence when it’s inconvenient. She wouldn’t say things like “All Lives Matter” and “I don’t see color.”

She’d match her public compassion for endangered species with public compassion for endangered Black lives. Because if she can find her voice for a poached lion but not for a murdered Black child, she’s telling us exactly where her courage — and her priorities — end.

If she were my friend, she’d understand why I must have “the talk” with my son — the one that isn’t about the birds and the bees, but about survival. She doesn’t have to have that conversation with her son. Her worry isn’t whether he’ll be seen as a threat for wearing a hoodie, or whether reaching for his wallet will be mistaken for reaching for a weapon. She gets to worry about curfews and grades — not about him becoming a hashtag.

And if she were truly a co-conspirator, she wouldn’t just nod when I share this. She’d carry the weight of that truth into every vote she casts, every policy she supports, and every room she sits in where our lives aren’t represented.

In truth, she owes us nothing — but we’re watching. Watching whether her outrage is universal or conveniently selective. Because best believe, we know who the riders are.

Mz. Ann Is the Aversive Racist

She’s the one who rejects blatant racism in theory, has read every trending book on the subject, but still engages in the subtle, everyday behaviors that uphold racial hierarchies. In the Black community, her one-liners — “I voted for Obama” or “I have Black friends” — are jokes that we repeat in unison at the kitchen table. First, we don’t care. Second, if you truly had Black friends, you wouldn’t have to announce it. More than likely, you just happen to know some Black people — one of them probably being your nanny.

You don’t know us — because if you did, you’d know we see right through you. If you knew us, you’d know how unimpressed we were by those statements.

What Is Aversive Racism?

Aversive racism isn’t loud. It doesn’t wear a hood, wave a flag, or use slurs. It’s subtle — operating in quiet behaviors and polite avoidance. It shows up in the person who rejects blatant racism but privately benefits from and participates in the structures that sustain it. It’s the smile that masks a microaggression. The “I didn’t mean it that way” after a cutting remark. The silent bystander who refuses to defend you in the moment but reassures you later they were “on your side.”

Aversive racists protect their “good person” image at all costs while keeping the social order intact. And that’s how Missy Anne survives in 2025 — unchallenged, undetected by those who want to believe she’s harmless, and still doing damage to the people she claims to care about. Always undetected by those who are ignorant of the ways of an aversive racist and who will always equate smiles with innocence.

Things They’d Never Think Could Be Racist — but Are:

• Deferring technical or decision-making questions to others in the room — even if you’re the subject matter expert.
  
  
• Pretending to be interested in your opinions — smiling, nodding, asking for input with no intention of ever acting on it.
  
  
• “Checking in” on your tasks more than they do for peers with similar roles.
  
  
• Only including you in conversations when they need your help — not your insight.
  
  
• Making comments about your “tone” instead of addressing the issue you’ve raised.
  
  
• Making “jokes” about your role, hair, name, or culture and brushing it off with “you know I didn’t mean it like that.”
  
  
• Expecting you to explain all things race-related, as if you’re the office spokesperson for Blackness.
  
  
• Acting surprised by your expertise or professionalism, as if it’s unexpected.
  
  
• Assigning you stereotyped tasks outside your role because they assume “you’re good at it.”
  
  
• Corresponding with clipped, condescending emails while speaking warmly to others.
  
  

Workplaces as Modern Caste Systems

We’re exhausted because we’ve come to acknowledge that workplaces often operate like a modern caste system, where titles are equated with intelligence, credibility, and value. The higher your title, the smarter and more capable you’re presumed to be. Because obviously, no one in leadership has ever failed upward. And nepotism, favoritism, and politics don’t exist either.

But for Black women in leadership, that equation shifts. Your title doesn’t insulate you from bias — it just changes the rules of engagement. You can have the corner office and still be treated like you snuck in the side door or you’re a part of the housekeeping staff.

In the corporate world, Mz. Ann moves in ways you can’t always call out. She hides behind process and politeness, undermining you with “questions” in public meetings that are really just thinly veiled indictments — designed to make you stumble while she smiles. Mz. Ann’s insecurities flare the moment you outshine her — not because you’ve done her harm, but because your excellence forces her to see her own limits.

Just like Missy Anne’s power over Kizzy wasn’t about ability but about a hierarchy she didn’t create, modern Black women leaders often find themselves navigating authority without full autonomy. They’re brought into the room to “represent” — much like Kizzy being taught to read as a parlor trick — but still expected to know their place.

Here’s the trick: at that level, aversive racism gets even quieter. It’s not the blatant snub — it’s the hyper-scrutiny, the constant “double-checks” on your decisions, the sudden group text you’re not on. It’s the tokenized visibility where you’re showcased, but not supported. The private conversations that happen without you, even when the topic is you.

Missy Anne’s modern reincarnation doesn’t have to sell you away — she can just withhold the information, the budget, the introduction. The power is still in deciding what you get access to, how far you can go, and whether the shutters stay open.

When race intersects with this hierarchy, the bias sharpens. The lower you’re placed on the org chart, the easier it becomes to justify treating you as “less than” — no matter your actual intelligence or contributions.

For Mz. Ann, the priority is the same as that of her ancestor: to protect the good-person image. She smiles while undermining you, chips away at your credibility, and controls access to opportunities. If you’re not in the clique or coffee clutch — the real decision-making circle — you’re on the outside. You get the meeting invite, but not the meeting before the meeting.

She’ll smile at you like she’s a barista asking, “Do you want anything else?” — polite enough to pass, but heavy with the subtext that you’ve already overstayed your welcome. It’s not always a headline-level offense. Most days, it’s the slow drip of micro-slights, the quiet calculus of who gets full humanity and who gets the watered-down version.

And if you’re a Black woman, that drip starts before you even get to your desk. Before you’ve even had your coffee, the world has already tried to remind you where it thinks you belong.

A Day in the Life

All I did was leave my house. On the way to work, I stop for chapstick. The store clerk suddenly finds a reason to “re-stock” every aisle I walk down. Leaving the store, I step onto the sidewalk and here they come — white women walking two and three across, refusing to move, attempting to force me to go around. I reach my building: “Do you work here?” No greeting, just suspicion.

I step into the elevator. She clutches her purse — the one that cost less than mine — like I’m about to take it. Inside, I’m spoken to in clipped tones — the kind used for people you assume can’t push back.

I check my email: a rude note from the office’s “difficult” person — the one who always gets a pass because “it’s easier” and she’s often dysregulated. It’s only Monday morning, and here I am, rolling my eyes before lunch — to be repeated again tomorrow.

Over Time

It’s not one incident — it’s the accumulation. The daily erosion. The way bias wears into your mind and body. That’s how racialized PTSD settles in — not from a single explosive event, but from the constant hum of subtle and overt harms that keep your nervous system on high alert.

Your body learns to flinch at certain tones, brace at certain phrases, tighten at certain smiles. Even when you’re “off,” you’re never off. You take this shit home.

You ration your reactions, memorizing the unspoken rules: keep your tone even, your face neutral, your body language “non-threatening.” Your email is triple-checked for tone. Your wardrobe is strategic — not because you want to play the game, but because you know the cost of losing.

Slowly, something shifts. You stop volunteering ideas. You stop taking on the extra project no one else wants. You stop speaking up in meetings unless you have to — because the return on investment isn’t worth the cost. They call it “disengagement” in leadership books, but it’s really self-preservation.

The cost isn’t just emotional. Your body keeps the score: migraines, stomach pain, insomnia. The weathering effect — the accelerated aging caused by living in a state of chronic racialized stress. Your cortisol never really drops, your heart rate stays a little too high, and your immune system pays the price.

Psychologically, identity fatigue sets in — the exhaustion of constantly performing an “acceptable” version of yourself. Hypervigilance eats at creativity. Confidence gets chipped by the constant second-guessing, even when the facts are on your side.

Because here’s the thing: as you mature, you realize the real danger isn’t that you get used to it. It’s that they expect you to.

That’s when something shifts. You stop chasing validation. You stop explaining. You stop letting their “good person” image override the harm they do.

Now you’re resentful.

And you start keeping receipts — every email, every side comment, every half-smile they thought hid the knife. Not because you plan to weaponize them today, but because you might have to.

When the day comes, it’s not rage that shows up — it’s precision. You pull out dates, times, subject lines. The “just circling back” that was really surveillance. The “tone” comment was really a shutdown. The meeting “oversight” that just happened to erase your contribution. Every little “misunderstanding” laid out in black and white.

And you watch it land. Not in a shout, but in the silence of someone realizing you were the person they never should have underestimated. The truth is right there — in their own words — and nothing terrifies a liar more than that.

It’s no longer you wondering how they see you. It’s them who should start wondering what you think of them — what’s behind your smile.

Simultaneously, you realize — the kinfolk you’ve been trying to reason with, work alongside, or even protect? They’re the ones Harriet would have left behind. Or shot. Because liberation ain’t for the ones who’d run back to warn massa. It’s not for the ones who trade your safety for their seat at the table. It’s not for the ones who’d rather keep their spot in the house than risk the walk to the woods.

Receipts and Resistance

I pay more than lip service to this work. Coupled with my background in Applied Psychology, my professional life and my lived experiences, it’s more than passion — I’m true to it. I’ve co-facilitated a master’s-level course designed to dismantle bias at its roots. The program wasn’t about checking a diversity box or breezing through a single training once a year. It was an intensive, 11-week, evidence-informed process that required participants to confront their own conditioning, unlearn harmful narratives, heal from the trauma of oppression, and put real change into practice — with no shortcuts and no escape routes.

Over 400 educators have come through that program knowing me as the one who will challenge you for the better.

And here’s the truth: not everyone is ready for that level of work. Some arrive thinking their reading list is enough, that allyship is a matter of language instead of action. But the real test isn’t in the theory — it’s in the choices you make when solidarity costs you something. It wasn’t uncommon for us to lose students along the way because the work was intensive and the denial was real. Mz. Ann can miss me if she thinks I’m fooled by her performative wokeness.

Harriet as Strategist

I will forever admire Harriet — not just for freeing bodies, but for freeing minds. She understood that liberation wasn’t about shouting the loudest; it was about knowing the terrain, knowing your enemy, and never letting them cloud your strategy.

Hundreds underestimated her — mistaking her silence for submission, her small frame for fragility — never realizing she’d already mapped every exit, memorized every weakness, and planned for every betrayal.

The Cost of Erasing Black Women’s Excellence

Mz. Ann will never acknowledge that the loss of Black women’s excellence isn’t just a personal setback — it’s a national crisis. It’s cultural, historical, and political.

Black women are among the most educated demographic groups in the country, outpacing all other race-gender groups in college completion. Even within the Black student population, women earn the majority of degrees: 64% of bachelor’s, 71.5% of master’s, and nearly 66% of doctorates and professional degrees. On top of that, 92% of Black women turned out to vote in the last election — not just a statistic, but a statement: they’re consistently on the right side of history.

Yet, in workplaces, our brilliance is marginalized. Our labor, ideas, and talent rarely get the credit, while gatekeepers and aversive racism rewrite the rules of engagement. The result? Systems that lean on Black women’s competence to function while diminishing their deserved rewards.

But here’s the truth: you can’t keep a system running by erasing the very women who make it work. Every stolen idea, every sidelined voice, every uncredited win is a withdrawal from a well you did not build — and it will run dry. History is full of moments where Black women carried the load and then carried the movement. We don’t just show up; we show out.

So, if you’re still underestimating us, remember this: 92% of us showed up to vote in the last election, and we are the most educated demographic in this country. We’ve been on the right side of history so many times, we are the proof that it bends toward justice.

We are exhausted.

And when the day comes that we stop giving our excellence to systems that exploit it, the whole structure will shake. Not because we left quietly — but because without us, it cannot stand.

The Intellect of Harriet Tubman

The intellect of Harriet Tubman should be studied — especially by those who still find comfort in proximity to whiteness. She wasn’t just a conductor of bodies to freedom; she was a master strategist who understood power, psychology, and human nature.

Harriet read people like maps — discerning who would stay the course, who might turn back, and who could not be trusted to keep the path safe. Her genius was in knowing when to move in silence, when to act with force, and when to leave someone behind for the sake of the mission.

Those who romanticize whiteness could learn from her clarity — that liberation is not found in being favored or accepted by those in power, but in building a world where their approval is irrelevant.

References

Haley, A. (1976). Roots: The saga of an American family. Doubleday.

Johnson, L. (2025, August 13). From Missy Anne to Ms. Ann: Aversive racists and other folks who exhaust us. The Miranda Foundation.