Rebecca's Reviews > White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Half a century after the Civil Rights movement, vast disparities exist between blacks and whites in America. First and foremost, these group inequalities are caused by deep, historical trauma created by white racism and racist policies aimed against black persons and black culture. If slavery and Jim Crow caused a gaping wound, Civil Rights stitched it up; but underneath the wound still festers. How does this wound – the entrenched inequities between blacks and whites in America – continue to exist?

Does the answer to that question exist? I have read and heard a variety of black thinkers try to answer it as they look through different windows upon the situation. They have examined welfare, affirmative action, the black cultural prohibition against “acting white” and being studious, the victim mentality, the war on drugs, the “prison industrial complex,” school inequality, voter suppression, police brutality, and gun violence. All of these current realities take place in a nation in which blacks overall have much less wealth than whites because of the historical legacies of racist policies that forced blacks off any road to financial success.

Any one of these situations is dizzyingly complex. Functioning together, they (and no doubt other factors) produce this vast reality that we call racial inequity. There is no way that any one person can understand it all. It is a mountain of pain, tragedy, and injustice. Overwhelmed, one seeks a way to go forth in one’s thinking, one or two foundational principles that will allow one to help ameliorate the situation, or at least not make it worse.

Enter Robin DiAngelo. White Fragility is an explanation of Robin DiAngelo’s invention of the same name, an idea that seeks to explain why it is “so difficult to have conversations about race with white people,” in hopes that examining this will get whites to the point where they can do their part to dismantle systemic racism.

Her book stinks.

Never mind that White Fragility is based entirely on anecdotal evidence (DiAngelo’s own experiences and that of her African-American acquaintances), vast & false assumptions, stunningly faulty reasoning, zero-sum/us-and-them thinking, purely ideological (almost religious) zealotry, and laughably contradictory strictures.* Never mind that DiAngelo seems to believe that guilt-ridden navel-gazing is an effective tool for change. Never mind that she speaks for all people of color, saying that racism is a personal scourge “24/7” (they don’t all believe that). Never mind that she is the white savior extraordinaire, who views all black people as victims always, and only whites as powerful agents. Never mind that she encourages whites to patronize blacks in daily interaction, humoring them with mea culpas, and never arguing as equals, never challenging. Never mind that she hopes to combat racism using racist tools – racial stereotyping and racial prejudice. Never mind that she decries bad/good dualism (racist – bad, nonracist – good) even as she all-unwittingly pushes her own bad/good dualism (fragility – bad, stamina – good). And just don’t even bother being annoyed, frustrated, or aghast at the way she scorns the human emotions of white people – she and all her white friends will only call you “fragile” and laugh that their circular reasoning was proven right.

Never mind all that. The main reason this book stinks is that it focuses the attention on the wrong problem, one that has very little evidence to support its effects. The problem that DiAngelo sees as the fount of all modern black misery is modern white racism. Careful, though – she does not use the dictionary definition of racism, which is a belief in one’s own racial superiority and hostility towards people of other colors and races – what we can also call racial animus. Racism, according to DiAngelo and her ilk, is this mysterious essence, this inner miasma, that inhabits every white person (and no one else). The everyday interactions between whites and blacks, soaked with this inherent bias, is what produces the inequities we see. Racism and whiteness are identical in her book.

So – the fatherless African American family? If we are to believe Robin DiAngelo, it’s caused by your shadow thoughts, white people. The much poorer health outcomes for blacks on average? That’s on you, O guilty one. The fact that homicide is the #1 killer of young black men? You guessed it: it’s all to do with your secret “knowledge” that your life is better the way things are. The fact that those homicide victims are being killed by other young black men? You are a racist for even bringing up that fact. Don’t worry, though: all white people are racist. Just admit it, and all problems will be solved.

I don’t know what to think about the fact that White Fragility is a bestseller with so many glowing reviews. I guess unfettered ideology is attractive. I’m very, very sorry that anyone believes what Robin DiAngelo says. People, please, I beg you: If you want to make the world a better place, study policy. Understand that it is very complex and full of unintended consequences. Examine data, question assumptions. Don’t take this stuff on faith; it’s too important. Challenge both liberal and conservative racial orthodoxy. Think past the labels – treat yourself and others as human beings and individuals. Regard yourself and all others as agents – agents of personal and political change, agents of compassion and empathy.

Please don’t waste your time on the racial prejudices and double standards of identity-zealots like Robin DiAngelo.



* Examples of contradictory strictures: White people must be vulnerable. White people must not show their feelings. White people must not become silent. White people should be silent. White people must not leave the room when they’re upset. White people must leave the room when they’re upset.