Credit: Shutterstock In the early 2000s, University of Utah researcher William A. Smith coined the term “racial battle fatigue” while studying how racialized microaggressions—relatively inconspicuous, but potent, degradation of marginalized people—affected black students at predominately white colleges and universities. His paper, titled “ Challenging Racial Battle Fatigue ,” concluded that students of African descent constantly worry, have trouble concentrating, become fatigued, and develop headaches when navigating personal and professional spaces that have historically favored white people. Even more frustrating for undergraduates of color, Smith asserted, was an assumption by the majority power structure that leveling the playing field stopped at integrating them into institutions of higher education. Since then, a series of studies have built on Smith’s findings, with researchers coming to similar conclusions about what has been described as the pitfalls of living while bla...