I read White Fragility recently as part of a book club at my work. I am grateful I did. I found White Fragility frank, accessible, and at times deeply profound. Dr. DiAngelo provides a vocabulary and framework to understand what I have experienced in life and the broader system in which we all exist. The book articulates concepts and ideas I have encountered but never understood. This framework and vocabulary has enabled me to engage more deeply with complicated issues of race, racism, and privilege. It has also forced me to reckon with the ways in which I perpetuate racism, even though I have spent my life believing that racism was someone else’s responsibility. White Fragility is not perfect and it rightfully has its critics, but for me it was a valuable entry point into a larger conversation.
Dr. DiAngelo discusses the way racism manifests not as explicit acts of racial prejudice but rather as interwoven systems that confer meaningful and tangible benefits to those considered white. White supremacy, Dr. DiAngelo writes, should not conjure up the image of individuals who explicitly believe in the racial superiority of whites (those are white nationalists). Rather, white supremacy is the manifestation of racism (in America and many other parts of the world). It is the interwoven systems that place whites in a superior position, confer benefits due that position, and reinforce that position when challenged. Given this definition, those of us who reinforce the system of white supremacy, whether implicitly or explicitly, are responsible for racism. I am responsible.
To combat racism and white supremacy, it is insufficient to combat explicit acts of racial prejudice and white nationalism, because that leaves the system of white supremacy in place. Instead, Dr. DiAngelo recommends that white people need to recognize their position of privilege within society, understand how the systems we take for granted reinforce the racial status quo, and, armed with this new understanding, we need to challenge those systems.
With these definitions in mind, Dr. DiAngelo continues to explain how the white supremacist system manifests itself and benefits whites at the cost of non-whites, and then explains the many tactics whites, wittingly or unwittingly, use to reinforce this system.
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Everyone has encountered the idea of “whiteness as normal.” As Dr. DiAngelo points out, Tom Hanks is never described as a white actor. Denzel Washington is regularly described as an African-American actor. Thomas Pynchon is not described as a white author. Toni Morrison is regularly described as an African-American author. Whiteness is assumed, while everything else is a deviation. White people internalize this. White people describe our Asian friends or African-American friends by their race. We never feel the need to describe our white friends as white; it is normal and assumed.
Whiteness is more than just normalized. Whiteness is set as the ideal as well. Genius conjures up the image of Albert Einstein or other white people.Santa Claus is white. The people in the Bible are all represented as white. The idealized definition of beauty is almost always blue-eyed, blond haired, white women. African-Americans are sold skin-whitening creams, to look whiter. As a white person, I internalize my normalcy and superiority.
In contrast, African-Americans are equated with danger, criminality and other negative stereotypes. In news coverage and on TV shows, minorities, particularly men, are disproportionately represented as criminals. In sports, minorities are more likely to be praised for innate athletic ability and power whereas whites are more likely to be praised for intelligence or smarts. All of this spills over into classrooms and offices. In a famous study, identical job applications were submitted, with the only difference being the name. Typically African-American names had significantly lower success rates than typically white names. White people just by their name were assumed to be superior and given the benefit of the doubt. Non-white people internalize otherness and inferiority.
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In 2009, I moved to Freetown, Sierra Leone to work as a researcher for MIT’s Poverty Action Lab. The experience changed me significantly, as it would anyone, but White Fragility has given me additional tools to understand the role white supremacy played in my time there.
One of my most vivid memories living in Sierra Leone was a chance encounter I had in the back of a shared taxi. My co-passenger turned to me, and in the local Krio (a combination of English and other regional languages), described how “even though my skin is black, I am white like you.” He pinched his forearm to highlight his skin. He then told me he was honest and good, not like the people around him. After he left the shared taxi, my taxi driver praised him for speaking the truth.
Fast forward 10 years to the present day, I went and looked up my journal entry about the conversation. At the time, I knew it was worth documenting, because it made me deeply uncomfortable. In hindsight, I realize I was uncomfortable because it forced me to confront my racial privilege in a way I’d never had to before. I didn’t know how to respond because what does one say to try and combat that sentiment? I had struggled to understand this conversation in a context of socialized and systemic racism.
Race was a constant factor in my time in Sierra Leone, and it was through the lens of whiteness as good, as normal, as superior. The conversation in the back of the taxi was one of a dozen conversations where people praised me for being white, or lamented some inherent inferiority of themselves as Africans. When people shouted “white person” at me (which is common in many African countries), it was never to highlight a subservient position. If anything, it was welcomed because it drew attention to me in a positive sense.
I share these examples because they are striking evidence that white supremacy is baked into our national and global culture. Even in a country where virtually everyone is black, whites were seen as superior. To be clear, whites were not just seen as richer, but also intrinsically better people. Many of my white peers, who have never had to consider their race and the role it plays, are skeptical about the prevalence of systemic racism and a culture of white supremacy. The examples I have encountered in the United States are not as direct as those in Sierra Leone, perhaps, but they are no less real and no less pernicious.
The other reason I share these examples is to highlight Dr. DiAngelo’s point that racial prejudice and racism are two different concepts. In Sierra Leone, I may have experienced racial prejudice, but I was not the victim of racism. People confronting my whiteness singled me out as the “other” but they also elevated me. They highlighted my role which society had deemed as superior. As a white person, I was assumed to be rich, educated, capable, honest, and kind. Because of the white supremacist system, it was impossible for locals to be racist against me. Here is Dr. DiAngelo on the subject:
“While everyone of every race holds prejudice and can discriminate against someone of another race, in the US and other white/settler nations, only white people are in the position to oppress people of color collectively and throughout the whole of society. This claim defines racism as a fluid dynamic that changes direction according to each group’s ratio in a given space. While a white person may have been picked on—even mercilessly—by being in the numerical minority in a specific context, the individual was experiencing race prejudice and discrimination, not racism.”
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Dr. DiAngelo has made me rethink how I actively reinforce the current racial hierarchy, and how every day actions play a part in the system of white supremacy. One simple example is that I am much more conscious of the typical whiteness (and masculinity) of the gifs I share to our team. The racism in emojis has become a topic of debate lately at my company, as part of our conversation on how to combat the idea of “whiteness as normal.” Our team recently got rid of the terms “whitelist” and “blacklist,” which are common in computer science to associate “white-hat” actors as good and “black-hat” actors as bad. We now have “allow-lists” and “deny-lists.”
Our corporate culture rewards the most vocal people on Zoom meetings, but to be vocal on Zoom meetings you need to be psychologically safe and secure in your role, assuming you’ve been invited to the meeting in the first place. It is much harder to feel psychologically safe in a room when you are the “other” and when the dominant group practices in-group signaling. We’re trying to be more intentional about who is invited to meetings and make sure once invited, everyone is set up for success.
I’m also trying to be much more vocal on the issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Ignoring these issues or minimally addressing them is complicit in the system of white supremacy. I’m reminded of the Elie Wiesel quote, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” The oppressor here is a complex system, and blindly abiding by that system will perpetuate the oppression.
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While White Fragility has received a lot of acclaim in recent months, it has also received significant amounts of criticism. The criticism I’ve read has focused around a few key issues: the irrefutability of her arguments, the insufficiency of her proposed response, and the disempowerment of black voices.
Dr. DiAngelo does give a definition of White Fragility that is very broad and perhaps irrefutable. Her definition, simply put, is that defensive or angry responses to the idea that you are complicit in the racist system is itself an example of how you are reinforcing the racist system. When you react in this way, you shut down the necessary conversations to understand and address racism, which helps keep the status quo in place. Nearly all responses by whites to the topics of racism and white supremacy are, by Dr. DiAngelo’s definitions, signs of White Fragility. This reality might be frustrating to readers, but it doesn’t necessarily make the argument wrong. More importantly, it doesn’t invalidate the lessons of the book.
The conclusion at the end of this article and other similar articles, which is that DiAngelo’s proposed solution won’t actually help, seems like legitimate criticism. Certainly, more than just reflection is needed. More evidence that inward reflection works would be helpful and more focus on steps to dismantle systemic racism would be helpful.
Finally, there is a rich literature highlighting a lot of the points Dr. DiAngelo makes. Dr. DiAngelo does not draw on or reference those works and builds her argument largely in an intellectual vacuum. That’s unfortunate. There are brilliant works, largely by African-American authors, that would have helped DiAngelo make her case.
In my opinion, these criticisms are important, but they don’t undermine what I saw as the immense value in the book. It was the best introduction to the key vocabulary and illustration of the system: racism is a system of racial prejudice rather than explicit acts of racial prejudice; racists are people who reinforce the system, whether implicitly or explicitly; whites may be subject to acts of racial prejudice but not acts of racism as a result of this definition; whiteness is the norm; and so on. These definitions and the articulation of them have enabled me to think about systemic racism and power dynamics in new ways.
For those who are already familiar with most of the definitions, I can imagine this book being unsatisfying. For me, I have already seen the benefits. I have been able to articulate to friends why certain behaviors are problematic; I have changed some of my own behaviors. Additional articles and viewpoints, like the most recent book club book Black Dignity, are more understandable.
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I write this knowing that I am new and late to the conversation on race. I am sure that I have made mistakes, both in this blog and in general. I apologize in advance, and I welcome your feedback. To end on a quote from White Fragility on how to receive feedback that resonates both in the context of race and many other positions of privilege that I exist in,
“Racism is the norm rather than an aberration. Feedback is key to our ability to recognize and repair our inevitable and often unaware collusion. In recognition of this, I try to follow these guidelines:
1. How, where, and when you give me feedback is irrelevant—it is the feedback I want and need. Understanding that it is hard to give, I will take it any way I can get it. From my position of social, cultural, and institutional white power and privilege, I am perfectly safe and I can handle it. If I cannot handle it, it’s on me to build my racial stamina.
2. Thank you.”
