Title: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White Poeple to Talk About Racism
Author: Robin Diangelo
Date Read: August 27, 2020.
White people can’t really talk about racism. Racism is a loaded and pejorative term that white people go out of their way to shun. The fragility arises in attempting to deflect hard conversations about race by insisting they are ‘colour-blind’; ‘that they don’t see race’; ‘that they were taught to treat everyone equally’; ‘that they have black friends.’
DiAngelo addresses her book mostly to white people, and she reserves her harshest criticism for those whom she sees as refusing to acknowledge their own participation in racist systems. She makes clear that: “[r]acism is deeply embedded in the fabric of our society. It is not limited to a single act or person. Nor does it move back and forth, one day benefitting whites and another day (or even era) benefitting people of color. The direction of power between white people and people of color is historic, traditional, and normalized in ideology. Racism differs from individual racial prejudice and racial discrimination in the historical accumulation and ongoing use of institutional power and authority to support the prejudice and to systematically enforce disctiminatory behaviours with far-reaching effects.” (DiAngelo, 22).
One of the most potent ways that white supremacy is propagated is through media representations which have a profound impact on how we see the world. The people who write and tell these stories (and who are predominantly white, upper class, males) help shape our worldview. All of our societal systems create an inequity that favours and privileges white people. “At the most general level, the racial frame views whites as superior in culture and achivement and views people of color as generally of less social, economic, and political consequence; people of color are seen as inferior to whites in the making and keeping of the nation. At the next level of framing, because social institiutions (education, medicine, law, government, finance and the military) are controlled by white, white dominance is unremarkable and taken for granted (DiAngelo, 34).
Most white people have limited information on what racism is and how it works. But they almost always have predicatable reactions to the suggestion that they benefit from, and are complicit in, a racist system. These reactions are characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue.
Watch this quick video in which DiAngelo explains how white fragility reinforces racism.
The current climate in the United States makes this book extremely important and timely. We need to be open to real conversations about race.
In some ways, what has unfolded on the streets of Kenosha, Wis., over the past week has had a wearying sense of familiarity. There was another demoralizing shooting of a Black man by the police, another angry outcry in the streets, another disturbing trail of destruction that had the potential to overshadow the message of the need to end police violence and racism.
Trevor Noah asks in this video: “Why was Jacob Blake seen as a deadly threat for a theoretical gun, while this gunman, who had already shot people, was arrested the next day and treated like a human being whose life matters?”
Simply, white supremacy. Which means white people need to start having real conversations about race. Use DiAngelo’s book as a tool to help navigate real ways to start these important conversations with an open heart and a willingness to accept feedback with grace and a desire to move us toward equality instead of division.