Black Lives Matter
My thoughtless racism has hurt people. Since learning that, I have tried hard to always do the right thing. After Mr. Floyd's death I thought the right thing to do would be spend part of my quarantined summer vacation reading "White Fragility", to systematically respond to a Workbook, and to share my thoughts about this process with close friends and family on FB .
White Fragility Exercises Chapter 1: Issues Surrounding the Subject Matter
What is the real meaning of racism or who is a racist?
The principal idea is that anyone white is very likely a racist because we grew up in a society with strong social forces driving:
Belief the society is a meritocracy (all people get ahead when they are talented and work hard) and acceptance of individualism (narrowly defined as the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology or social outlook of one who participates in society on a personally structured political and moral ground).
Wrong representation of people of color in the media.
Segregation in schools and neighborhoods.
Depiction of whiteness as the human ideal human being .
Truncated history, jokes and warnings, taboos on openly talking about race, and white solidarity.
How do you understand who you are by understanding who you aren’t?
Understanding “who you aren’t” in this book is an example of clearly defined reductionism which, although limiting, is effective under assumptions the target audience does not understand socialization, has uninformed opinions, and has simplistic understanding of racism. It is effective because college educated whites, among persons taught to reflect on individuation from a psychological or developmental perspective and to appreciate the creative value of artistic individualism, are still at risk of being unable to see how black defined as “not white” pollutes American culture. I, personally, understand who I am as what remains after stripping away what I “am not” (ego, inherited pain). The consciousness which remains experiences accepting, amusement, and the joy of productive work.
How do whites react to the racial viewpoint bias?
Whites generally see us as objective and unique. Moreover, in the post-Civil Rights frame of reference it can appear that the statement “you are racist” is akin to calling someone immoral. Paraphrasing what Deangelis says, if your definition of racism is someone who holds conscious dislike of people because of race, then it is offensive to be called a racist by someone who does not know you. The key is that Deangelis is using a different definition of racism and carefully avoids giving this away in the first chapter. Instead, she asks whites to agree to feel vulnerable and uncomfortable and let her lay out a complete argument in subsequent chapters. The goal is to avoid a “Catch 22” which ultimately protects whites’ biases because denying that one has absorbed white bias ensures you won’t push to examine or work to change white bias in personal, professional and political aspects of social life.
When whites do not understand socialization and its impact on how they feel and think it is easier to condone the following:
Unquestioned belief in meritocracy and individualism
Wrong representation of people of color in the media
Segregation in schools and neighborhoods
Depiction of whiteness as the ideal human being
Truncated history, jokes and warnings, taboos on openly talking about race, and white solidarity
How do you intend to study the present forms of racism to help you comprehend racism?
This is one way.
Write down the steps you will take to enable you to let go of the individual narrative of racism and embrace the collective information as a true member of an outstanding shared culture?
Read the rest of the book for starters.
Action Steps:
Purge your mind of all the errors and fallacious opinions you had of racism and know what it means to walk in this light.
Huh? Before I read the book? No, thank you.
Drop off your individualism and objectivity before going to the next phase.
According to Diangelo “tackling group identity also challenges our belief in objectivity.” This is true because if group membership is relevant then we do not see the world from the universal human perspective but from the perspective of a specific kind of human. Diangelo was clear to point out that the type of humans with which she self-identifies (in addition to being white”) are called sociologists. Because it is the job of sociologists to study society she is comfortable making generalizations and if those bother white people then it is OK because they have a choice to make. Option one is the easy way out which I would call “fake #5.1 above”. Option 2 is a lot harder, because you actually have to read the book and because she asks readers us to do so with reflective questions in mind like, “Why does this bother me? How can my unease reveal the unexamined assumptions I have been making? Is it possible, because I am white, that there are some racial dynamics which I cannot see? Am I willing to consider this possibility? If I am not willing to consider it, then why not?”
Chapter 2: Racism and White Supremacy
How is racism a structure and not an event
In Chapter 2 Diangelo looks at the historical, economic, and political origins of white supremacy in the Western European social contract and one of its colonial descendants, the United States. She teaches a few terms related to racism such as structural advantage, white privilege, and whiteness as a standpoint. In addition, she defines racism as a far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors when a racial group’s collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control. In the United States, specifically, racism exists as a network of norms and actions that consistently create advantage for whites and disadvantage for people of color. White fragility is based in failure to acknowledge whites’ general blindness to, or denial of, white privilege.
Which side of the divide are you and why do you think you belong there and not the other?
All ancestors of which I am aware by genealogy or DNA fingerprint were Western European or American white. Moreover, I have felt a stupid discomfort around African Americans and other people of color and done some incredibly painful things over the course of my life because of it.
Tell the much you know about your native history (concisely)?
This question makes no sense and, in my opinion, diverts focus from the main topics of white supremacy, racism in the United States and white fragility.
Do you think racism can ever be eliminated from the world, if no – explain why, and if yes explain how we should go about it.
I think this is an unfair question because it asks one to put on the generalizing hat of a sociologist. Learning from sociological studies and identifying as a sociologist are very different things. I also think the impact of reading White Fragility is going to be on individuals’ hearts and minds and that they, collectively, determine the state of humanity. I do not know if racism can be eliminated from the world, but I do think working to eliminate white fragility will benefit all.
First Goal: In what ways will black history be incorporated in school curriculums and other widely spread journals to let every American know that their history cannot be told without that of people of color.
Some statistics presented on p44 were encouraging, specifically that 18% of teachers and 16% of full-time college professors were people of color (African American, Hispanic, LatinX and Other) in 2012 and 2007, respectively. By 2017 those stats had risen to 19% for K-12 teachers and 24% for college faculty. That said, “encouraging” is far from “equitable” when white represents ~60.4%% of the U.S population according to 2019 Census Bureau estimates.
In my opinion we have already seen and will continue seeing growth in the transparency of how History is taught and learned.
Second Goal: For white supremacy to be abolished and for all to have equal lives, what can be done to end this reign of terror?
Cease to define whiteness as the societal norm
Learn to check one’s privilege while forming opinions
Expand opportunity to those oppressed by racism
Reform policing and the criminal justice system
Continue to expand transparency around the teaching of History, Civics, and all Social Sciences
Support businesses owned by persons of color
Abolish systemic barriers to integration (redlined neighborhoods)
Respect that no given person of color has any responsibility to help any white person overcome white fragility
Deal with your own feelings about historical injustice and personal insensitivity
Trust and support righteous anger in people of color
Keep your eye on the target, a social, political, and economic system without racism
Third Goal: In actuality do you agree the white race is the superior race in the Universe and they deserve better than anyone else?
No. I do not even agree the species Homo sapiens is better than the other animals and plants with whom we inhabit this planet; we just have a different purpose in life.
There is a need for a re-doctrine of black history and how we all can co-exist peaceably
I find this to be an out of place question/assertion. In this chapter Diangelo has very specifically outlined how tension between “the noble ideology of equality and the cruel reality of genocide, enslavement and colonization” impacts people of color and people without color. In my opinion scholars of American History are doing a fine job of capturing a more transparent picture of US History and teaching it.
The knowledge of how to live in peace is something only partly acquired in school and so it is up to parents, particularly white parents to create an attitude of humility and forgiveness in themselves and the society as a collective.
Checklist: Every human is superior; no sect, nation or group is higher or more superior to the other.
Superior to what?
Chapter 3: Racism After the Civil Rights Movement
How is it possible that no one claims to be racist, but racism still exists?
Recall that in Ch. 2 Diangelo defined racism as a far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors when a racial group’s collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control. In the United States, specifically, racism is a network of norms and actions that consistently creates advantage for whites and disadvantage for people of color. White fragility is a consequence of failure to recognize and acknowledge whites’ general blindness to, or denial of, white privilege in the racist system.
In Ch. 3 DeAngelis summarizes 21st Century sociological work around current racism in the United States. This new work has been conducted in a frame of reference which assumes racism, (as defined in Chapter 2) is a blanket term for the oppression experienced, independent of intersectionalities, by all people of color in the United States. Despite a changing US demographic, Diangelo’s implication remains that racism adapted over time to continue racial disparity while exempting white people from involvement in, or benefit from, racism. The three types of adaptation that characterize post-Civil Rights Movement racism are called color-blind racism, aversive racism, and cultural racism.
How does color-blind ideology make it difficult for us to address racist foundational beliefs (paraphrased by lmg)?
Pretending one does not notice the color of a person (“I don’t see you as black”) is not helpful because it refuses the potential to acknowledge that persons of color may and have had experiences uniquely related to their race, while keeping the reality of white experience as the epitome and defining characteristic of human experience.
First Goal: How do we correct the white culture of how they perceive the people of color before it affects our future generation.
Adults wake up; see how you were socialized by aversive racism and do better by your kids. Talk with them about racism, help them see people of color as people who have a different version of the human experience because of the systemic racism of current American society, its historical development, and cultural tradition. Help them learn that self-respect, trust of others, humility, confidence, and lawful behavior all go together to determine the future of American culture.
Second Goal: What roles can family and friends, government, religious organizations, and Non-government Organizations (NGOs) play to end cultural racism?
Learn about front-stage vs back-stage behavior and recognize it as deceit.
Tell the truth and demand transparency in the organizations we support.
Action Step #1: Charity begins at home, start indoctrinating yourself on what is right about race. It is not true that racists are the ones to speak about race. Talk about ways to end this menace with small and large groups without remorse.
Not every aspect of individualism is dysfunctional; cultures can change one person, one family, one country at a time if/when we have the courage to do it.
Make conscious effort to check the level of racial information you take in.
This made me go to YouTube and watch the “Doll Test”. Ouch!
I wonder if it would be worthwhile for anyone to revisit Sigmund Freud’s “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” which an English teacher gave me to read a long time ago. Over the years my memory of much of the detailed argument has faded but I do remember the feeling of understanding that “who I am” is a complicated entity consisting of multiple group contributions and one personal component. I hope similarity to the “intersectionalities” concept is apparent to some of those who do choose to make the visit.
Good people can be racist
Yup. When feeling optimistic, I think we (each person and the biological species) get to choose what to be now, 30sec from now, 20y from now and so forth for as long as the line endures. The history of racism has incontrovertibly shaped all of us and I wonder what Diangelis is going to say in Chapter 4, “How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People”.
Chapter 4: How does race shape the lives of white people?
While reading Chapter 4 it is important to recognize that Diangelo is taking a sociologist’s point of view and intentionally focusing on an abstract average white person experience. If one does this it is easier to separate from emotions which might motivate one to argument if, for example, you grew up poor in a neighborhood where all races suffered equally, or if you had an African-American professor in college whom you deeply respected and who encouraged and supported your development. Everyone has individual experiences but the sociology practiced in this book is trying to make you look at the average experience in one population and how that differs from the average experience in another population when systemic racism is in effect. In Chapter 4 Diangelo explored eight examples (her term is traits) of how a white person is socialized in the United States. All are related to the same concept, that racial whiteness is the United States’ societal norm. Recall that children in the doll test selected white dolls as beautiful and good when the doll’s skin color did not match the child’s own complexion. I assume I am not the first one to wonder what statistics from the study looked like and how white children responded in the same test.
The eight traits of “being white” as defined by Diangelo are: 1) belonging, 2)freedom from a psychic (burden qualifier “psychic” added by lmg) burden of race, 3) freedom of movement, 4) just people (white as the social norm), 5) white solidarity, 6) the good old days, 7) white racial innocence, 8) segregated lives.
How has race shaped your life?
My socialization was white American Catholic and racist. I was born and lived in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn through age 12.
My parents were of Italian immigrant (father) and Irish American descent (mother born and raised in Ohio as 6th or 7th generation American citizen). I have a sad and painful memory of the argument between Mom and Dad over my best friend, whose skin was not white, and who I was not permitted to invite into our backyard pool. What a shameful mess that was. I chose the community where we currently live because it was close to my job, affordable and well managed. When we moved here, nearly 30y ago, it had lower ethnic and racial diversity than some towns with higher tax rate (anecdotal and experiential, not statistical, reporting). Like all of America our town’s diversity has increased.
Do you think the development of an Indigenous child is equal with that of a white child having in mind the concept of white supremacy?
This odd question picks at a sore spot in what Diangelo references on p75 while illustrating the “just people” aspect of being white (and “being not white”). On p75 she asked is the development of an indigenous child “in the context of white supremacy” the same as the development of a white child? It seems clear she wanted to provide another illustration of white as the social norm but that she herself may doubt that, from a sociological perspective, there is a universally applicable theory of human development . I take this as encouraging because it amounts to a sociologist putting tic mark in the “individualism” column for people of all races and other group identifications.
Has speaking out about racism ever threatened your career development, and how did you go about it?
I learned at an early age not to speak out at home about racism. Fortunately, I grew up during the Civil Rights movement and experienced influences in addition to direct family.
What is my take on racism not being a white problem?
I think asserting that racism is not a white problem propagates an arrogant and oversimplified misconception of racism as defined in Chapter 2 (a far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors when a racial group’s collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control). Racism is a white problem, and a black problem, and a yellow problem, and a brown problem and a mixed problem but it is especially a white problem since whites historically and currently reap benefit from the strange fruit carried forward into human behavior by our species’ evolutionary history. Yes, this was an intended allusion to the Abel Meeropol song identified with Billie Holiday. As a citizen of the United States I am prepared to make sacrifices and as a person who aspires to scholarship I would like to see the information communicated in our schools transmit all contributions to our history from a fair perspective.
Goal 1: How do you tackle the foundation of white fragility taking a cue from the patterns highlighted above?
The first thing a white person can do is remember and acknowledge your own feelings if/when in a situation where you were conscious of being white and knew that your whiteness might make a difference in how others behaved toward you. If you allow yourself to feel this vulnerability it is easier to see and acknowledge the feeling in others’ experience. Empathy is the foundation of trust.
If being conscious of your race is or was uncomfortable would you describe your feelings in that situation as sad, or irritable, or fearful?
A girl I did not know pushed me off my bike, and took it away, when I was about six years old. This happened the first time I went around the block on what was a new bike. The girl had stepped in front of me and asked if she could ride my bike for a while. I said “No, my grandma is waiting for me to get back.” She pushed me off the bike, took it and rode off laughing at me. I walked home, crying, and got my Mom to walk back with me. My Mom and her Mom talked and the girl, who seemed older, gave back my bike along with an apology for hurting me (I had a skinned elbow), but we did not become friends. I could not bring myself to ride past her house nor did she come around the block to where I lived. Two years later my family moved to a “nicer” part of Bedford Stuyvesant, where our next-door neighbors were black, but we still led a segregated life. It would not surprise me to hear that most white people have had experiences which embody different aspects of white solidarity, belonging, freedom of movement, white solidarity and living segregated lives. Let’s acknowledge those experiences and the associated feelings. An understanding of two aspects of white fragility, the good old days and white racial innocence, requires unemotional and de-romanticized reasoning about the intersection of history, socioeconomic class, and racism. Moreover, I find something hopeful in the extent to which thinkers, scholars, and writers have chosen to learn, and to speak truth to power, and to speak out to all people about racism.
It is telling that the workbook explicitly mentions belonging, segregated lives, freedom from the (psychic) burden of race, white racial innocence, freedom of movement, the good old days and white solidarity, and then throws in “et cetera”. Since the only trait not mentioned explicitly is “just people”, (interpreted as white as the social norm by lmg) the teenager in me would view this as permission not to address that trait.
The adult in me is screaming “Whoa”. I get that Dr. Diangelo and the workbook author use shock value to focus the attention of white people on uncomfortable social and economic truths. Here the workbook seems to demonstrate misunderstanding of human culture, or lack of transparency. If we assume the target audience for the workbook is high school students, it is simply disingenuous to fail to acknowledge that celebrities have a profound influence on American pop culture and therefore on the development of social norms in all American youth. I would have preferred to see Dr. Diangelo speak of sociology’s inability to fully address human development at the collective level and to have the workbook author try to point white students toward the the differences between appreciating diversity, practicing cultural appropriation and behaving like sheep.
Chapter 5: The Good/Bad Binary
One problem with the workbook I am using is its complete lack of the sensitivity, nuance, and sophistication expressed in White Fragility. Dr. Diangelo says a lot of painful things in this book. The advantages of reading it are she gets your attention, nearly everything she says is, on average, true, and sorting out where/if your own behavior differs from the average is, again painful, but revealing and helpful in charting a personal path forward. The workbook is also eye-opening because it illustrates the immense responsibility placed on teachers, parents and individuals choosing materials to use to educate others.
Question 1 on Issues Surrounding Subject Matter of the Chapter’s four Lessons: Why do you think the whites avoid talks on race?
This question is out of place.
First, it ignores the developmental bombshell dropped at the start of the Chapter and all the illustrative examples Diangelo offers throughout the chapter in the attempt to communicate with white readers:
To succeed the Civil Rights movement intentionally capitalized on 20th century marketing tactics to establish an archetype of “racists” so heinous that it became impossible to think of yourself as a good, moral person in popular culture and still be complicit with racism. Unfortunately, the racist=bad/not racist = good dichotomy makes it nearly impossible to talk with/to/among white people about racism: about what it is and about how we are conditioned by it.
If you cannot discuss the dynamic of being conditioned by your culture, or see yourself within those dynamics, then you are not free to choose to participate in changing them.
Diangelo introduces how learning to discuss white people as a group can challenge what she believes to be principal obstacle to demolishing systematic racism. The obstacle is that “in the white mind, black people are the ultimate racial ‘other’”. Moreover, this relationship is a is a foundational aspect of the racial socialization that underlies white fragility. Diangelo’s examples are very good and you can easily identify with one or more of them without having to hate yourself.
The second reason this question is out of place at the end of Chapter 5 is that Diangelo has not yet introduced how talking about race and racism in general terms such as “white people” helps one interrupt blind individualism and become aware of the meaning and impact of a group identity.
Question 2 on Issues Surrounding Subject Matter of the Chapter’s four Lessons: Do whites having friends of color prove them not to be racist.
Having friends of color is not the necessary and sufficient condition required for formal proof.
Question 1 on Goal: Whether you are white or a person of color, have you been challenged to look at your racism and how did you go about it?
I hope with persistence, humility, and wisdom.
Question 2 on Goal: How do you intend to be an agent of change and interrupt racism any time it raises its ugly head?
I learn from the history of my personal and group identities. There has always been practical limitation on what, from the past, can be loved and treasured. Life is change. We have a responsibility to ourselves, and to our descendants, to honor this.
Recommended Action #1: Always ask yourself, how does my claim function in the story I am about to tell in this conversation?
This is a good suggestion and particularly valuable to me, personally, because the ancestral European cultures wherein my family is rooted place high value on good stories and the Religion they shared (Roman Catholicism) is facing a crisis. A famous 20th Century theologian, Paul Tillich, said “religion is the substance of culture, culture is the form of religion”. To a respected friend it means that when one critically examines a culture the central elements in its form will define what that group worships, independent of what they claim to worship. I see something else there. Specifically, I see something written by Claude Levi-Strauss in The Savage Mind, that the form of person’s thinking and beliefs are all “allied to other beliefs and practices, directly or indirectly linked to classificatory schemes which allow the natural and social universe to be grasped as an organized whole”.
Checklist: Consider the (changed from “There is a” to “Consider the” by lmg) problem of misinformation that circulates and causes our differential treatment to be biased.
To read, only, the workbook on White Fragility through which I am working would be a problem and certainly not helpful because I see a number of structural deficits in the workbook’s organization that could be counterproductive enough to be called “misinformation”.
Chapter 6: Anti-Blackness
I think the first sentence Diangelo wrote in this Chapter “Racism is every ounce of complex and it manifests differently for various groups of color.” intended to communicate the idea that racism is multifaceted with respect to the ethnicity of different peoples “of color” but for me it falls flat because of a personal pet peeve. As a techie, I reserve the term “complex” for systems whose analysis involves the square root of (-1) which, as we worked hard to learn, does not exist in the real realm and must be adopted as an exception (i ) following the rules of mathematical analysis. In the real world a problem can be “extremely complicated” or “not well parameterized” but when I hear the claim that something is complex my mind immediately says “either this problem is imagined or the solution to it involves something that is imagined” and this bothers the hell out of me when it is obvious the problem and solution being described are both quite real. Please forgive the rant.
Questions on Issues surrounding the subject matter:
What is your take on anti-blackness?
Diangelo hits the nail on the head in this chapter in several ways:
It is necessary to suspend one’s perception of oneself as “outside of race” to be able to challenge socially ingrained racial ideologies like white supremacy.
Text makes it clear the author is addressing white people at the societal level of white identity, not yet the personal one.
Chapter proposed that the white collective hates blackness because it reminds white people they are “capable and guilty of perpetrating immeasurable harm and that our gains may have come (note Diangelo says came, I changed it to may have come) through the subjugation of others. Although I understand Diangelo is writing about anti-blackness I was unable to ignore the evolutionary/historical fact that enslavement and racism existed long before they enabled systemic socio-political racism in the United States).
Chapter critically reviewed the meaning and practice of affirmative action.
And hits her own argument on the thumb in another one:
It is only when one perceives oneself as an individual, not obligated to conform to the prevailing or historical social norms that you are free to challenge the ideologies that create and support racism.
Do only black lives matter or all lives matter and why?
In the context of this book on white fragility it is only black lives and the lives of other peoples of color that matter.
First Goal: As an individual and in a position to make a change in your society, how can you make known the fact about blacks not being people of rage and violence and that they are humans with drive, ambition, purpose and aspirations and who rightfully demand complete and equal citizenship.
I have several ideas. The first is to acknowledge that blacks do not need whites to acknowledge they are humans with drive, ambition, purpose, and aspirations because this reeks of “The Blind Side”.
The second is to continue to show my support for blacks doing a terrific job of working toward personal goals and objectives.
The third is to continue to condemn all persons, of color or whites, acting out rage in ways that further damage our society.
The fourth is to continue to work to elevate my own and others’ consciousness of humanity to the level at which violence is universally rejected.
Second Goal: In what ways will you end the act of racial generalization that can harm the people of color in ways that deny the particular ways various groups undergo racism
The biggest way is by accepting and talking about the racial generalization “white”.
Action Steps: End “the destructive aspects of” racial generalization (text in quotes added by lmg) and stop stereotypical presentation of blacks in the media.
This is outside the bounds of what I can control. That said quite a few blacks I know are already doing a terrific job on this.
Checklist: “The separation and segregation of the black race created the supposed superior white race so you see they both wouldn’t exist without the other”
I would rewrite this checklist as:
The separation of blacks, whites and other differently colored ethnic groups is an anthropological fact of human evolution. The return to contact of various ethnicities is a fact of human history.
Slavery, and particularly the enslavement and subsequent socio-political oppression of blacks in America created this window on the “supposed superior white race”.
Neither white supremacy nor the oppression of peoples of color could exist without the other. Nevertheless, the existence of different ethnicities and skin colors is not necessary and sufficient condition for the continued existence of systematic and oppressive racism.
Chapter 7: Racial Triggers for White People
I was tempted to criticize Dr. Diangelo over the title of this chapter but decided to let a “rational self” prevail. That said, I think most people are asking “Trigger for what?”. Although Chapter 7 is going to answer the question, the next chapter, entitled “The Result: White Fragility”, is going to do it better. To my mind the principal value of Chapter 7 is that it gives a glimpse into the inner workings of Sociology as an academic discipline because she presents a plausible analysis of the mechanism by which white fragility, “a response or condition produced and reproduced by the continual social and material advantages of whiteness”, was created and continues to operate. Diangelo introduces an anthropological framework for understanding white fragility by introducing three terms. Those terms are habitus, field, and capital. Habitus is the familiar set of ways in which a person perceives, interprets, and responds to the social cues around them. Habitus is the product of and the thing that reproduces the thoughts, perceptions, expressions, and actions based on social status in and of the group into which one has been born and raised. Field is a particular social context. It can be your natal social group, or a different type of social context found at work, in school, at a party, or elsewhere. Capital is how the person perceives their self, and is perceived by others, in terms of their power and status.
Diangelo asks us to imagine the differences in capital between a principal and teacher, between a school custodian and a school receptionist and between a popular girl and an unpopular one. She also points out that capital can change with field by considering the following example. When a school custodian, in work clothes, comes upstairs to talk with the receptionist, who wears business attire, it is the receptionist who has more capital. However, when the receptionist (still in business attire) goes downstairs to get supplies from the custodian-controlled supply room it is the custodian who has greater capital because in the downstairs field power has shifted to the custodian, who can fulfill the request quickly or make the transaction difficult.
Diangelo asserts that in every field people are vying for power (sometimes this is unconscious competition). Because habitus includes a person’s internalized awareness of their status and response to the status of others, and depends on the power position which the person occupies in a particular social structure or field it is possible to find oneself in a field where your habitus is out of balance with to the field around you. Consequently, if social cues are unfamiliar and/or they challenge one’s social capital, then we unconsciously adopt strategies to regain habitus balance and social comfort For white people racial stress results from an interruption to the racially familiar. Using the framework sketched out above Diangelo postulates white fragility is the state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress on the habitus balance is so intolerable that it triggers a range of defensive moves including outward display of emotions such like anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors like argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.
Such defensive moves and behaviors evolved and were selected because they reinstated white racial equilibrium. Here are some racial stresses Diangelo identifies able to trigger a “white fragility” response.
Suggesting that a white person’s viewpoint comes from a racialized frame of reference (challenges the white’s perceived objectivity)
People of color talking directly about their own racial perspectives (challenge to the whites’ taboo against talking openly about race)
People of color choosing not to protect whites’ feelings about race (challenges the whites’ expectations and the need for or entitlement to racial comfort)
People of color being unwilling to tell their stories or answer questions about their racial experiences (challenges the expectation that people of color will serve whites)
A fellow white disagreeing with our racial beliefs (challenges white solidarity)
Receiving feedback that our behavior had a racist impact (challenges white racial innocence)
Suggesting that group membership is significant (challenges individualism)
An acknowledgment that access in unequal between racial groups (challenges meritocracy)
Being presented with a person of color in a position of leadership (challenges white authority)
Being presented by information about other racial groups through, for example movies in which people of color drive the action but are not in stereotypical roles, or multicultural education (challenges white centrality)
Suggesting that white people do not represent or speak for all of humanity (challenges universalism)
For this chapter the workbook has ceased to be of value, in my opinion, because it took learners away from the actual text and in a counterproductive direction.
Chapter 8, The Result: White Fragility
Reminder to self (from Chapter 4) of the characteristics of white socialization are: 1). belonging, 2). freedom from a psychic (burden qualifier “psychic” added by lmg) burden of race, 3). freedom of movement, 4) just people (white as the social norm), 5) white solidarity, 6) the good old days, 7) white racial innocence, 8) segregated lives
Issues surrounding the Chapter 8 subject matter
Issue #1: As White fragility’s mode of protection is self-defense; are they the ones blamed, victimized, and attacked when confronted with racial discussion?
Diangelo’s text and the workbook summary both correctly emphasize that children in the US and other Western Nations inherit the moral predicament of living in white supremacist society. This means they experience or learn about racial tension without understanding Euro-Americans’ historical responsibility for it and knowing virtually nothing about how contemporary social characteristics perpetuate white supremacy.
Diangelo says at one point in this chapter that she has been consistently warned by companies recruiting her to conduct diversity training that “past efforts to address the lack of diversity have resulted in trauma for white employees” and correctly (in my opinion) says the language of violence which many whites use to describe antiracist endeavors is an example of how white fragility distorts reality. She also notes that whites do notice racial positions of others and discuss them freely among themselves in coded ways but when the probing of racial issues turns to whites the result is incoherent talk because white people (having been socialized into white supremacy and equipped with white fragility) are unprepared to discuss their own racial perspectives and hence to change them.
Moreover, the refusal to directly acknowledge race talk can and does result in a king of split consciousness that promotes irrationality, further incoherence and ultimately the propagation of white fragility as a form of bullying. The triggers described in the previous chapter are challenges to white power and white fragility is a means to end the challenge and maintain power and control. White fragility is more than than defensiveness or whining; it is the sociology of dominance born out of socialization into white supremacy and the means to protect, maintain and reproduce that supremacy. So no, on the scale of truth, whites are not blamed or victimized by racial discussion except through the filter of white fragility.
Issue #2: What level of reluctance have you recorded as regards racial discussion.
I am guardedly optimistic that more and more whites catch on every day.
Issue #3: Have you ever given thought to the white's reactions on racism display and how did it turn out
Sorry but this question makes absolutely no sense as written. I suspect there is a misplaced apostrophe and that a different preposition was intended (i.e. the intended sentence should read “given thought to the whites’ reactions to racism display”. Assuming it is a second white person’s response to one white person demonstrating white fragility then I find myself, frequently, in trouble with old friends and family for pointing out what I used to simply call racist behavior and can now call “white fragility”. As noted elsewhere I am guardedly optimistic that more whites are seeing truth through the smoke and mirrors that propagate racism.
What measures will you implore to make the whites more aware of their racist display in a less violent manner?
Again, huh? Maybe the intended verb was implement? I am not going to answer another question where I have to invent a plausible meaning for the query.
Action steps: Make intentional moves to end white fragility and its traits.
I continue to work on my own thoughts and emotions around race.
I am writing these posts (and will be quite happy to complete the book in four more chapters which I think I will do in pairs (9+10) and (10+ 11) over the next two weeks.
Chapter 9, White Fragility in Action and
Chapter 10, White Fragility, and the Rules of Engagement
These are my favorite chapters in Dr. Diangelo’s book and that is not because of shared horror stories from her career experience. It is because she shared a structure and lists that suggest how her mind worked in conceiving the concept of white fragility. I drew this schematic illustrating how I understand what she shared.
The “appropriate behavior” in response to racial challenge comes directly from Chapter 11 and is how Dr. Diangelo herself tries to respond when made aware she has colluded with racism. She says the guideline for appropriate behavior assumes there is no face to be saved and basically, that “the game is up”. It may not be easy, but one can be grateful when others help you see personal blind spots. I hope the rough schematic provided below illustrates that choices at decision points associated with white fragility lead to the following results:
1. They close off self-reflection
2. They trivialize the reality of racism
3. They silence the discussion
4. They make white people victims
5. They maintain white solidarity
6. They protect a limited world view
7. They hijack the conversation
8. They protect white privilege
9. They focus on the messenger, not the message
10. They take race off the table
11. They rally more resources to white people
I am particularly fond of the part of Chapter 11 in which she lists commonly-cited guidelines for building trust: don’t judge, don’t make assumptions, assume good intentions, speak your truth and be respectful; and then discusses problems associated with them. She points out the unspoken assumption that these guidelines can be universally applied is false in the face of unequal power relations. In other words, they do not function the same way across race. A specific example is how the guideline “assume good intentions” privileges an aggressor over their target by telling the victim that as long as there was no intention to cause harm they need to let go of the hurt and move on. Another example is “speak your truth”. If the goal of antiracist work is to identify and challenge racism and the misinformation that supports it, then all perspectives are not equally valid because some are rooted in racist ideology and need to be uncovered and challenged. Speak your truth fails to differentiate between sharing one’s beliefs so they can be critically examined to see how they might be upholding racism and stating one’s beliefs as truths that cannot be challenged. There are more.
I agree with Dr. Diangelo; stopping racist patterns must be more important than working to convince others that we do not have them. A white supremacist world view is part of the bedrock of our society and its institutions. Many people know this but the honest accounting of these patterns by people of color is no small task, given the power of white fragility and white solidarity. I propose to listen and hear.
Chapter 11, White Women’s Tears and
Chapter 12, Where Do We Go from Here?
Chapter 11 in White Fragility could equally well have been called the sexual dimorphism of white fragility. Moreover, Chapter 11 another case where, in my opinion, the workbook fell flat.
First Workbook Question: What is your take on the popular saying “When a White lady cries, a black man gets hurt” and what scenarios have you experienced this first-hand (sic) or heard about?
The chapter very clearly references the documented case of Emmet Till, a fourteen-year old African American native of Chicago whose mother insisted upon an open coffin after her son was murdered, in Mississippi, in 1955. A white woman from the town where Emmet was visiting relatives for the summer misled her husband about Emmet’s behavior toward her, an act that incited the husband and his brother to lynch this young man and mutilate his body. This was enough horror for everyone; there is no need to ask “trainees” to try to top it with real or imagined scenarios of black men suffering in the aftermath of a cross-racial interaction.
Dr. Diangelo says contemporary white women cry for a variety of reasons related to white fragility in cross-racial interactions. One example is when they receive feedback on racism. perceive it as moral judgment. and experienced hurt feelings. Another interesting case discussed by Diangelo can best be described as cluelessness. The clueless example she gives is a white woman tearfully addressing black women (many of whom trained her) with a request that they support her “new learning curve “. She is doing this after having been promoted ahead of them. What the white woman may have felt to be an expression of humility about her racial knowledge could very easily put her black associates on the spot. If they do not make a comforting gesture then they risk being viewed as angry and insensitive. Only in a white supremacist society could it be expected that all attention should goes to a white woman just because she is crying when energy in the room is crying out to discuss racism. If the white woman really is the most qualified person there she should have the integrity and courage to stand up and take on new responsibility, while being gracious to those who trained her. If she truly believes that she is not more qualified than one or more of the black women who trained her then she should use that same integrity and courage to be their ally, turn down the promotion, make her reasoning clear to senior management and challenge the racist action. The thing no effective manager should ever do is be insensitive to the disappointment and potential anger of associates who have been passed over.
Second Workbook Question: In your own opinion, what do you think makes white women cry about racism?
I will not allow myself to become entrapped by the inane stupidity of this question apart from saying that it directs trainees to look away from the text and completely absolves them of looking at the section Diangelo entitled “The Men Who Love Us”. The summary of Diangelo’s white male fragility pattern is that it commonly shows up as varying forms of dominance and intimidation including but not limited to:
Controlling the conversation by speaking first, last, and most often
Invalidation of racial equity by arrogantly and disingenuously “playing the devil’s advocate”
Making simplistic proclamations (“People just need to…..”)
Playing the outraged victim of “reverse racism
Accusing others of “playing the race card”
Silent withdrawal
Hostile body language
Channel switching: “The true oppression is class!”
Intellectualizing and dismissal
“Correcting” a racial analysis put forward by people of color and/or a white woman
Pomposity
For a white to interrupt systemic racism they must be willing to be racially uncomfortable and critically examine their own racial engagement without indulging in anger, defensiveness, self-pity, and guilt. Tears that flow because one is uncomfortable with your own feelings can make matters worse for others, not address the problem root cause, and reinforce racism. We start to become less fragile when we ask how racism is manifesting itself in unconscious behavior, not if we are racist.
In Chapter 12 I was touched by a personal anecdote from Dr. Diangelo about the relationship with a coworker on whom she had perpetrated racism. It illustrates community and an individual paradigm that is different from white fragility. In addition to the anecdote Chapter 12 contains provides one of Diangelo’s long and helpful lists subdivided into feelings, behaviors, claims, assumptions, and racism-interrupting actions.
At the start of writing about Chapter 12 I visited the Amazon website where, on June 15, 2020, I had submitted the first installment in this series of fb posts as a review of the workbook. Although I did see my (admittedly lengthy) review online in June it has since been replaced by many others reporting the poor quality of this workbook. Quite a few of them assert Robin Diangelo did not authorize the workbook from Roger Press that I have been slamming. I did not independently verify the assertions and assume other reviewers to have been reliable reporters. My purpose for writing these posts has been to develop additional neural pathways in an old brain. I shared them because I have understanding and loving friends and relatives.