The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA) published a research article in which a specific “condition” is described as something “one first acquires and then one has – a malignant, parasitic-like condition.” Sounds awful. And, “white’ people have a particular susceptibility” explains the research Abstract.

Yikes. What could it be? “Whiteness, of course.” The research, titled, “On Having Whiteness” was first published May 27, 2021, by Donald Moss. The Abstract describes “the condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world.”

As if discussing a tapeworm, the research goes on to say “Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate.”

Treatment? It’s not looking good as the author concludes “there is not yet a permanent cure.” However, “Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites – to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation” the research states.

“When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as a warning (‘never again’) or as temptation (‘great again’)” it states. But, don’t get too excited, as “memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression.”