White Fragility: Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
by Robin DiAngelo.
“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”
In 2004, I was a freshman at Antioch College in Ohio. Antioch was the first place where I learned about institutional racism and that all white people are racist*. This is where I learned about gender non-conforming people, although the terminology has evolved since that time. I also learned that I am a mediocre painter and Jungle Juice parties are generally a terrible idea. College is an interesting place. But, I digress.
I remember going into the cafeteria one day for lunch as usual. I went with my friend, C, who happens to be blind (which is relevant to this story). The usual cafeteria set-up had been altered and there was one buffet line with plates of food on two sides. The right side had polished plates and silverware with fresh appearing food options. The left side had paper plates and dirty looking food, nothing fresh, and limited options. I imagine there were even flies on the left side, but I doubt this is accurate. There were signs on the right that said “Whites Only” and signs on the left that said “Coloreds Only & Dogs.” White students were sitting on the right side of the room and appeared to be eating from the fresh, right side food options with polished silverware. The students of color were sitting on the left.
My details of this event may be slightly off, but I do remember that I felt frozen. If I had been alone, I might have gone to the opposite side of the cafeteria and eaten cereal for dinner. But, C asked me what was going on. I don’t remember how I explained the scene to her and I don’t exactly remember her response but it was something like, “Oh.” I do remember thinking “Should we do something?” but not wanting to cause a scene.
I remember getting our plates and going through the line and describing the food options on the right side of the buffet to C. We quickly grabbed our food from the line and found a seat on the right (see: White) side. We sat with other white students and we did not talk about race. In fact, I remember there was a conscious effort not to talk about race.
Later, at the community meeting, race was discussed and at length. The students of color (and rare white person) said this was a college full of “progressive” or “leftist” people and the white people did nothing in this situation at all, even the most self-proclaimed “radical” of the bunch. We (white folks) followed the “rules” but who was stopping us from doing something else?
This story is one of many examples of my own white fragility, when I did nothing at all. DiAngelo describes many scenarios and examples in the book, and ends with her own story & later apology. Her personal example ended the book on a humble note and reminded us (white folks) that we will make mistakes & we need to learn how to apologize and improve our discussions on race & actions in these types of situations. DiAngelo has a PhD in multicultural education and has been teaching social & racial justice trainings for over 20 years according to her website. So, she is well-versed in this subject matter.
The book explores the many pieces that make up white fragility including but not limited to white innocence, avoidance of conversations discussing racism, anti-Black sentiment, verbal incoherence when discussing race, and making mistakes among many others.
DiAngelo talks about the concept of white innocence and living our (white) lives without being aware of (or paying attention to) systemic racism. She discusses (white innocence),
“this concept is analogous to suggesting a person could walk through life with other people stuffing money into his or her pockets without any awareness or consent on the walker’s part.”
White folks can choose to ignore white supremacy, but that does not make the reality less real. We cannot discuss racism without acknowledging that all of us (white folks) contribute to these systems and benefit from them.
She encourages the reader to challenge only viewing racism on an individual basis. This sort of discussion is very common—and a cop-out for us leftist leaning folks, i.e. blaming more politically conservative people for individual racism on an issue, without also discussing how we contribute. DiAngelo discusses how the “systemic dimensions of racism” are both “consciously and unconsciously maintained.” There are some excellent Twitter feeds that discuss institutional racism if you are unsure what this means. If we (white folks) are “shocked” at any of this information, we can recognize how educational systems and media are part of this racist system. But we can learn and challenge those systems, because there is so much information available to us. We can also apply our knowledge in our workplaces, homes, and social justice groups—we have the privilege to choose having these conversations in our daily lives. DiAngelo discusses how not talking about racism protects white supremacy.
DiAngelo also talks about this idea of “unity” which can sometimes be code for racism without actually talking about racism. She says it best.
“If we block out other realities by not discussing them, we can pretend that they don’t exist, thereby assuming a shared racial experience.”
I see this a lot in well-meaning, leftist, social-justice groups. I went to a Mom’s Demand Action meeting and I noticed this (lack of acknowledgement of race) during the presentation to introduce the group. The local branch discussed statistics of police killed by gun violence, but made no mention of police violence against POC. It should be noted that I did not speak up about this even though I consciously considered this omission, which means that my silence also contributed to protect white supremacy. In regard to the urgency of that conversation in spaces discussing gun violence— “For every one million Native Americans, 2.9 of them died annually from 1999 to 2015 as a result of legal intervention.” We cannot continue with silence on these matters while people of color literally die.
DiAngelo focuses heavily on anti-Black sentiment as Black people as the “ultimate racial other” in the U.S. and quotes Ta Nehisi Coates,
“The white collective fundamentally hates blackness for what it reminds us of: That we are capable & guilty of perpetuating immeasurable harm & that our gains come through the subjugation of others.”
And this harm is not only historical, but very current and ongoing both personally & systemically, which results in an often challenging conversation that certainly elicits fragile responses from us white folks. DiAngelo goes on to talk about how anti-Blackness is this “confusing stew of resentment & benevolence” and uses the movie The Blind Side to illustrate this point as a white woman adopts a poor, cognitively delayed Black boy. I haven’t seen this movie, but I can only imagine there are moments of pity for the Black boy & celebration of the classic white savior coming to his rescue. This sort of representation & storyline is so prevalent. A common argument when calling-out these types of stories, or certain actions as racist are “I/They had good intentions.” Well, we all know the saying about good intentions and ultimately, your intentions do not matter.
The book discusses that part of white fragility are these conditioned responses and always trying to find some “proof” that a POC is wrong in calling out racism & when white supremacy is again justified. DiAngelo uses the example of a white teacher calling a Black female student “girl” and the teacher arguing that this isn’t racist, he calls every girl “girl” and so on. The irony, DiAngelo discusses, is that white people often say POC are being “oversensitive” but we become very sensitive to any criticism brought up like in this example. This fragility & defensiveness is also related to what DiAngelo calls verbal incoherence when discussing issues of race.
DiAngelo describes this verbal incoherence as,
“…digressions, long pauses, repetition, and self-corrections…This reluctance has further implications, for if whites cannot explore alternate racial perspectives, they can only reinscribe white perspectives as usual.”
This piece of the book struck me, because I am a terrible public speaker in groups & don’t usually talk much in those settings, but I cannot use this as an ongoing excuse for (not) discussing race in general & I think many others can relate. I did not even speak out loud at the book club on White Fragility because, yes, I hate speaking in public groups but I also was afraid that my comment may be offensive, irrelevant, or overall incoherent. Yes, this entire book is very humbling & demands self-reflection. DiAngelo does offer many suggestions and tips, including:
Building the capacity to sustain discomfort.
This isn’t “comfortable” stuff, nor should it be comfortable for us white folks. I don’t have the book with me at the moment, but I wrote in my notes that “the guidelines for building trust on page 126 are funny” and I think this is referring to the seemingly “obligatory” trust building segment that often precedes conversations regarding race (or other “uncomfortable” topics). DiAngelo briefly discusses this topic here.
On page 128, DiAngelo encourages us white folks to focus on the message being given if we are corrected on our racism, and in whatever way that message is being relayed from a POC. She encourages us to engage with any type of feedback from a POC without focusing on the messenger (“They were so aggressive when they told me that was a racist comment!” etc). Try to take this message instead as a learning experience, advice on how to improve.
That being said, it is easier for white “progressive” folks to call out other white folks as “racist” without having a genuine conversation about race. I don’t recall if White Fragility discusses the concept of calling-in instead of calling-out for other white folks when discussing racism, but we know that having actual discussions instead of name-calling is far more productive. Humility is important in this process, as you/I (white folks) will always have so much to continue to learn. In fact, my one criticism of the book is that DiAngelo occasionally comes off as almost cocky which may not be appealing to readers who are trying to grasp these concepts. That being said, I think DiAngelo’s example of her own racist mistake toward the end of the book was very helpful to illustrate how even she will continue to have room for improvement. Most importantly, she demands the reader self-reflect and gives tangible pointers for white people who genuinely want to dismantle white supremacy.
DiAngelo discusses that in her workshops she will ask POC if they have ever given white folks feedback on racism & how that is gone. She states that there is typically a unanimous response from POC agreeing that conversation does not go well for POC. She goes on, ‘I then ask, “What would it be like if you could simply give us feedback, have us graciously receive it, reflect, and work to change the behavior?”
Recently, a man of color sighed and said, “It would be revolutionary.” I ask my fellow whites to consider the profundity of that response. It would be revolutionary if we could receive, reflect, and work to change the behavior.’
*My understanding, definitions have changed/evolved after reading “How to be an Anti-Racist” by Kendi. But I’ll leave this as it is for now. -2022.
an excerpt from the book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
I encourage you to read this book. If anything else, read this article by DiAngelo which is an abbreviated version of some of the concepts in her book.