White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo is a thought-provoking book aimed to get white people to look at racism as a cultural institution, acknowledge their own racism, and to learn to stop their own racist actions. She says that in our society founded on whiteness, we either knowingly or unwittingly try to maintain white dominance within the racial hierarchy. DiAngelo calls this process “white fragility.”
“. . .though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement. White fragility is not weakness per se. In fact, it is a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage.”
DiAngelo admits that most people feel that white supremacy is a term used to describe radical, hate groups. Even so, she informs us:
“To sociologists and those involved in current racial justice movements, white supremacy is a descriptive and useful term to capture the all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white and the practices based on this assumption. … it is the deeper premise that supports this idea—the definition of whites as the norm or standard for humans, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.”
My opinion is that these people “in the know” should come up with a different phrase than white supremacy to describe the racism they are explaining. Why not call it White Idealism or something else? If you are trying to convince a group of white people to think about racism, calling them White Supremacists is an immediate turn-off. It instantly invokes what the author calls “white fragility” and stops people from wanting to learn more. The expert’s use of such a highly charged term is counter-productive.
I did not agree with all of the author’s points, including calling out the movie The Blindside as racist. I did find many points of her points to be thought-provoking and cause for self-reflection. 4-Stars.
And now for my Recipes for Readers recommendation:
Black and White Cookies
Thank you for reviewing this book. I’ve been curious about it.
Thanks for the interesting review.
Thank you for your review Kerrin, what an excellent choice for these times. I have just finished the book and I found it very interesting and thought changing. She states that although white people of today did not participate in slavery and did not write the Jim Crow laws, etc, we are products of a culture that did , and our culture was built upon those ideas. Thus we are products of racism, and we have had beliefs, customs, traditions of white privilege surround us since birth. She says that we believe that racism is “bad” so that we cannot admit to being racist, and make excuses to deny our individual racism, some of which I have used! (“have a military family”, “Have black friends”, “have an immigrant family”) . I think that her point is that we (white people)are living in a racially protected (culturally favored) place and need to listen to what people of color say about their experience and not be defensive that their experience is different from ours. She says we can’t learn if we run away from or deny their truths. We can’t change our own participation in racism unless we recognize and identify it in ourselves. She says it is a lifelong process and that she is still working on it. (The author is white.) She basically is saying, I think, that we need to take responsibility for becoming aware of this.