UW Oshkosh hires counseling prof who specializes in 'racial battle fatigue'

The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh tapped a counseling professor to focus upon “racial battle fatigue” and “microaggressions.”

The university hired Teysha Bowser — who wrote a dissertation called “Gendered Racial Microaggressions, Racial Battle Fatigue and Intergenerational Learning with Three Generations of Black Women” — and highlighted her work in an article posted to the university website.

Bowser’s work examined “coping mechanisms in response to racial battle fatigue” — which Bowser defines as “a stress response that people of color experience from constantly dealing with racism and microaggressions in their daily lives.”

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Bowser will incorporate her research into graduate level courses for professional counseling students, according to UW Oshkosh Today.

“At first, some Black women might feel like the gendered racial microaggressions they experience are not that bad, but then they build up and gradually make an impact,” explained Bowser. “Counselors should emphasize the need for Black women to check in with themselves and incorporate more balance in their lives, but they also need to understand the context and barriers that may make it difficult for them to do so.”

“While it is important and necessary for Black women to find time to take a breath and be more attuned with what they are experiencing in body, mind, spirit, they will not be able to fully do so if we as counselors are not able to identify and address what prevents them from doing so,” she added.

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As National Association of Scholars Director of Research David Randall explained to Campus Reform, “counseling is already a heavily politicized field” and noted that “therapeutic managerialism” has become the “raison d’etre of the American elite.”

“A field dedicated to training ‘counselors’ will have a vested interest in telling society that they need well-paid counsel,” he explained. “The racialized version is particularly noxious in that it says that to be black (or a member of any other ‘oppressed’ group) is to be so mentally damaged as to require permanent ‘counseling.’ Because our progressive elites ascribe social status to claims to this sort of ‘mental damage,’ too many Americans are willing to claim they are sufferers, as a means to acquire social status.”

“It is always difficult to tell how many such status-seekers sincerely believe themselves to be mentally damaged,” he added. “But surely too many habituate themselves to the impaired life of the ‘mentally damaged.’ The counseling profession, along with the other therapeutic managers of American society, certainly lessen Americans’ vigor, cheer, and self-reliance.”

Campus Reform reached out to Bowser and the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @BenZeisloft