Introduction
Chapter 1: Challenges of Talking Race
Chapter 2: Definitions--Racism and White Supremacy
Chapter 3: Racism after the Civil Rights Movement
Chapter 4: How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People?
Chapter 5: The Good/Bad Binary
Chapter 6: Anti-Blackness
Chapter 7: White Triggers
Chapter 8: The Result: White Fragility
Chapter 9: White Fragility in Action
1. There are a number of stories at the beginning of the chapter. And indeed I believe it is from DiAngelo's consulting work that she came up with the term white fragility. She uses it to refer to her pervasive experience of reactions to training on underlying racial bias. White people respond consistently in similar ways.
- not liking the use of the term white
- backlash from bringing up the fact that the faculty of a department is entirely white
- enlisting people of color to console white people exhausted from seeking justice
- wanting training to be "comfortable"
- transferring anger at her as a white speaker to the person of color who invited her
"White people are receptive to my presentation as long as it remains abstract. The moment I name some racially problematic dynamic or action happening in the room in the moment... white fragility erupts." She gives an example of a seminar where she points out to a woman that her response to a black man had invalidated his experience. It goes off the rails. Now it becomes about her, about consoling her. The man's experience is no longer the focus. The focus shifts to managing the emotions of the fragile white person.
A woman from Germany exempts herself from anything to do with racism. DiAngelo asks some probing questions. Did she not form any conceptions about Africans growing up in Germany? Had she ever watched American films? He had been in the States for twenty-three years--had she picked up any conceptions here? She never told the woman she was a racist, but the woman remained angry with DiAngelo even months later when she returned to that organization.
She receives an email out of the blue from her website. "I seriously doubt that there is one single thing you could tell me about race" (120). The email rails on about how much the writer knows about race, that race has nothing to do with her. Out of the blue!
2. The feelings, behaviors, and claims that she repeatedly receives back will be familiar to anyone who has gotten this far in the book.
Feelings in response: feel attacked, insulted, judged, singled out, shamed, guilted, accused, scared, angry, outraged.
Behaviors in response: crying, arguing, denying, avoiding, leaving, withdrawing, focusing on intentions rather than affects and outcomes
Claims:
- I know people of color.
- I already know all this.
- You don't know me.
- That is just your opinion.
- Some people find offense where there isn't any.
- You are elitist.
- I just said one little innocent thing.
- You are judging me.
- You're playing the race card.
- You misunderstood me.
- I can't say anything right.
- The problem is your tone.
- You hurt my feelings.
- You're being racist against me.
3. There is a page full of assumptions that more or less reiterate material we have already encountered in the book. So I end with her final list on how white fragility functions:
- To maintain white solidarity
- To close off self-reflection
- To trivialize the reality of racism
- To stop the discussion
- To make white people the victims
- To hijack the conversation
- To protect a limited worldview
- To take race off the table
- To protect white privilege
- To focus on the messenger rather than the message
1 comment:
That final list is a sad list.
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