Tuesday, August 18, 2020

White Fragility Chapter 11: White Women's Tears

Second to last chapter of White Fragility: Why It's so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Robin DiAngelo.

Previous Posts
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
Chapter 10: White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement

Chapter 11: White Women's Tears
1. This is an interesting chapter. If I were to write it, I would have to write it very carefully not to be liable to an accusation of sexism. It does raise some thorny questions for me about self-critique. Are people of color allowed to push back on some of her theses in ways I am not? Is she better situated to critique "white" people as a "white" person? Is she allowed to critique women as a woman in a way I am not?

One term sometimes used in these discussions is intersectionality. So she participates in the majority "white" group but the minority (in terms of power) group of women. She thus experiences sexism while participating in the benefits (to her) of a racist society.

She is not of course critiquing women as women. She is only critiquing white women in a general rather than absolute way. Not all white women behave as she describes. She is describing a phenomenon she has repeatedly observed. She clearly believes that crying serves in cross-racial discussion to re-direct the focus of attention on the white woman crying rather than the person of color whom she has possibly just wronged in discussion. "White women's tears have a powerful impact in this setting, effectively reinscribing rather than ameliorating racism" (132).

"When a white woman cries over some aspect of racism, all the attention immediately goes to her" (134). She quotes Reagen Price: "Imagine first responders at the scene of an accident rushing to comfort the person whose car struck a pedestrian, while the pedestrian lies bleeding on the street."

2. She argues that emotions are political in this situation in two ways. First, they play out along lines set by our cultural frameworks. Emotions express themselves in accordance with "the frameworks we are using to make sense of social relations" (132). We are told that it is ok for men to get angry but not women, for example.

In the context of race, she believes the tears come from the assumption that I can be exempt from racism. If the framework was rather, "racist assumptions are inevitable," then I would not feel "hurt, offended, and shamed when an unaware racist assumption is pointed out" (132). She wants to reset the framework of our emotions so that they do not work to reinforce the racial status quo.

The second way in which women's tears are political has to do with the history of white women's tears in the story of race in America. There is a saying in black circles: "When a white woman cries, a black man gets hurt" (133). The best known story here is that of Emmett Till, who was lynched for allegedly flirting with a white woman. (In 2007, she actually recanted her story)

In 1955, Till was visiting family in Alabama and, after this incident in a grocery store, ended up abducted, mutilated, and sunk in a river. His murderers were acquitted by an all white jury. They later acknowledged it. The display of his dead body in Chicago in some ways sparked the civil rights movement. White tears trigger this history for many African-Americans.

Here is a comment on white women's tears by a woman of color: "You are crying because you are uncomfortable with your feelings when we are barely allowed to have any... We are supposed to remain stoic and strong because otherwise we become the angry and scary people of color... We are abused daily, beaten, raped, and killed but you are sad and that's what is important" (135). DiAngelo concludes, "For people of color, our tears demonstrate our racial insulation and privilege." "Tears that are driven by white guilt are self-indulgent" (135).

3. So white fragility tends to manifest itself, she would say following a cultural script, in tears. In white men, it tends to manifest itself in dominance and intimidation. A white man might try to control the situation. He might, "play the devil's advocate" (134). He might say he's the victim of "reverse racism" (135). He might accuse a person of color of playing the "race card." He might intellectualize by recommending books and resources. He might correct the analysis of the person of color or a white woman consultant.

Women's tears, she says, can manipulate men of all races. "Patriarchy is reinforced as they play savior to the damsel in distress" (137). Meanwhile, for black men, "ameliorating a white woman's distress as quickly as possible may be felt as a literal matter of survival." She also notes, as an aside that it is primarily white women who have benefited from affirmative action more than people of color.

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