Cate -- I didn't intend to sound as though I was necessarily asking my question on behalf of White people as a whole. I was asking it specifically on behalf of those of us who have autism and chronic anxiety.

Looking beyond systemic racism: even when I have friends of any skin color who have suffered a recent loss (e.g. death in the family) or have been through something traumatic...I don't randomly ask them how they are doing. Why not? Because I feel it'd be presumptuous of me to assume they *DO* want to talk about it. I know that, for myself -- if I lost, let's say, my mother, to some form of cancer...the last thing I'd want is to constantly be reminded (by one person after another) of the pain I'm enduring.

So I take this principle and apply it to something like racial trauma. Who am I to take it upon myself to dredge up something a friend of color is most likely already constantly thinking about? If, on the other hand, they say, "Eichy, I need to talk" and they want to vent/cry/discuss/etc. -- I'll be there for them!