The #1 lesson in this book is that it’s so important for white people to stop dodging discussions about race. It’s critical that white people have more conversations about race no matter how uncomfortable it will be. As a white male, I didn’t realize how not talking about race perpetuated the status quo. Robin DiAngelo’s writing is so concise and she succinctly frames the issue for the white audience. She does a fantastic job of explaining the concept of white fragility and why it’s so important for white people to have more conversations about race.
The term White Fragility describes how white people get so defensive when race is brought up. Sometimes that defensiveness is subtle and sometimes it causes someone to come to tears for being called out. Ultimately, that defensiveness is part of the problem. The problem of race relations in the US won’t change if we can’t have a discussion about it. The author provides fantastic advice on how to react to being called out — be grateful. If someone calls you out for something you said that was racially problematic, thank them for doing so. If you don’t, you’ll never learn from the experience and you will perpetuate the status quo.
One of the greatest social fears for a white person is being told that something that we have said or done is racially problematic. Yet when someone lets us know that we have just done such a thing, rather than respond with gratitude and relief (after all, now that we are informed, we won’t do it again), we often respond with anger and denial. Such moments can be experienced as something valuable, even if temporarily painful, only after we accept that racism is unavoidable and that it is impossible to completely escape having developed problematic racial assumptions and behaviors.
White people think that being color blind or having friends of color exempts them from having conversations about race. It doesn’t. It’s another example of how the issue of race persists.
Instead I ask, “How does this claim function in the conversation?” If we apply this question to these two sets of narratives, one color-blind and the other color-celebrate, we see that all of these claims ultimately function in a similar way; they all exempt the person from any responsibility for or participation in the problem. They take race off the table, and they close (rather than open) any further exploration. In so doing, they protect the racial status quo.
Having these conversations is so critical to changing the status quo because, unfortunately, it’s white people who make up a majority of the major organizations and institutions such as Congress and state governors.
People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against white people, but they lack the social and institutional power that transforms their prejudice and discrimination into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual.
I could keep adding quotes and summarizing the book but that would take away from the incredible work that Robin DiAnglo has done. I highly recommend this book.
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