Abstract
A “racial enactment” (Leary, 2000) is presented in which—unlike many racial enactments discussed in the past—the difficulty is marked not by an explosion of dissociated content, but by a collusion to use multicultural discourse to avoid a difficult confrontation. A complex technical issue is explored in relation to the case, one particular to race because of its function as a container of psychotic anxieties. Leaving race unaddressed can lead to silence and transference issues that are experienced as forbidden or unspeakable. On the other hand, speaking race explicitly can draw the dyad into a sterile, whitened, multi-cultural discourse that claims to speak across difference, but actually serves to reify race and foreclose on an open dialogue.
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