White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo: Highlights

Imagine you go to the doctor, who tells you that you have an acoustic
neuroma.  Just as she is about to explain what this is and what your
options are, she gets an emergency call and must rush off, abruptly
ending your visit.  What would you do?  You would very likely go home,
get on the internet, and read everything you could find on the
subject...Bottom line: you would care enough to get informed.  So
consider racism a matter of life and death (as it is for people of
color), and do your homework.

The United States was founded on the principle that all people are
created equal.  Yet the nation began with the attempted genocide of
Indigenous people and the theft of their land.  American wealth was
built on the labor of kidnapped and enslaved Africans and their
descendants.

While implicit bias is always at play because all humans have bias,
inequity can occur simply through homogeneity; if I am not aware of the
barriers you face, then I won't see them, much less be motivated to
remove them.  Nor will I be motivated to remove the barriers if they
provide an advantage to which I feel entitled.

In fact, when we try to talk openly and honestly about race, white
fragility quickly emerges as we are so often met with silence,
defensiveness, argumentation, certitude, and other forms of pushback.
These are not natural responses; they are social forces that prevent us
from attaining the racial knowledge we need to engage more productively,
and they function powerfully to hold the racial hierarchy in place.

Individualism is a story line that creates, communicates, reproduces,
and reinforces the concept that each of us is a unique individual and
that our group memberships, such as race, class, or gender, are
irrelevant to our opportunities.  Individualism claims that there are no
intrinsic barriers to individual success and that failure is not a
consequence of social structures but comes from individual
character...On some level, we know that Bill Gates's son was born into a
set of opportunities that will benefit him throughout his life, whether
he is mediocre or exceptional.  Yet even though Gates's son has clearly
been handed unearned advantage, we cling tightly to the ideology of
individualism when asked to consider our own unearned advantages.

As a sociologist, I am quite comfortable generalizing; social life is
patterned and predictable in measurable ways.  But I understand my
generalizations may cause some defensiveness for the white people about
whom I am generalizing, given how cherished the ideology of
individualism is in our culture.

Rather than use what you see as unique about yourself as an exemption
from further examination, a more fruitful approach would be to ask
yourself, "I am white and I have had X experience.  How did X shape me
as a result of *also being white?*"  Setting aside your uniqueness is
a critical skill that will allow you to see the big picture of the
society in which we live; individualism will not.

The final challenge we need to address is our definition of "racist."
In the post-civil rights era, we have been taught that racists are mean
people who intentionally dislike others because of their race; racists
are immoral.  Therefore, if I am saying that my readers are racist or,
even worse, that all white people are racist, I am saying something
deeply offensive; I am questioning my readers' very moral character.
How can I make this claim when I don't even know my readers?  Many of
you have friends and loved ones of color, so how can you be racist?  In
fact, since it's racist to generalize about people according to race, I
am the one being racist!  So let me be clear: If your definition of a
racist is someone who holds conscious dislike of people because of race,
then I agree that it is offensive for me to suggest that you are racist
when I don't know you.  I also agree that if this is your definition of
racism, and you are against racism, then you are not racist....I am not
using this definition of racism, and I am not saying you are immoral.
If you can remain open as I lay out my argument, it should soon begin to
make sense.

In light of the challenges raised here, I expect that white readers will
have moments of discomfort reading this book.  This feeling may be a
sign that I've managed to unsettle the racial status quo, which is my
goal.  The racial status quo is comfortable for white people, and we
will not move forward in race relations if we remain comfortable.  The
key to moving forward is what we do with our discomfort.  We can use it
as a door out -- blame the messenger and disregard the message.  Or we
can use it as a door in by asking, Why does this unsettle me?  What
would it mean for me if this were true?

[the American ideal is] once new immigrants learn English and adapt to 
American culture and customs, they become Americans.  In reality, only 
European immigrants were allowed to melt, or assimilate into dominant culture in 
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because...these immigrants were
perceived to be white and thus could belong.

The poor and working classes, if united across race, could be a powerful
force.  But racial divisions have served to keep them from organizing
against the owning class who profits from their labor.

Prejudice always manifests itself in action because the way I see the
world drives my actions in the world.  Everyone has prejudice, and
everyone discriminates.  Given this reality, inserting the qualifier
"reverse" is nonsensical.

When a racial group's collective prejudice is backed by the power of
legal authority and institutional control, it is transformed into
racism, **a far-reaching system that functions independently from the
intentions or self-images of individual actors.**

...


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.  Whites hold the social
and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice
into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in a way that
people of color do not.  A person of color may refuse to wait on me if I
enter a shop, but people of color cannot pass legislation that prohibits
me and everyone like me from buying a home in a certain neighborhood.

Racism is a society-wide dynamic that occurs at the group level.  When I
say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States,
only whites have the collective social and institutional power and
privilege over people of color.  People of color do not have this power
and privilege over white people.

Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as
the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from
that norm.  Whiteness is not acknowledged by white people, and the white
reference point is assumed to be universal and is imposed on everyone.

Race scholars use the term *white supremacy* to describe a
sociopolitical economic system of domination based on racial categories
that benefits those defined and perceived as white.  This system of
structural power privileges, centralizes, and elevates white people as a
group.  If, for example, we look at the racial breakdown of the people
who control our institutions, we see telling numbers in 2016-2017:

In a 1981 interview, Lee Atwater, Republican political strategist and
adviser to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, explained
what came to be known as "the Southern strategy" -- how to appeal to the
racism of white Southern voters without pronouncing it openly:

This chapter explores what is perhaps the most effective adaptation of
racism in recent history: the good/bad binary.  Prior to the civil
rights movement, it was socially acceptable for white people to openly
proclaim their belief in their racial superiority.  But when white
Northerners saw the violence black people--including women and
children--endured during the civil rights protests, they were appalled.

...In other words, racists were mean, ignorant, old, uneducated, Southern
whites.  Nice people, well-intended, open-minded, middle-class people,
people raised in the "enlightened North," could not be racist.

...The good/bad binary made it effectively impossible for the average
white person to understand--much lest interrupt--racism.

...The good/bad frame is a false dichotomy.  All people hold prejudices,
especially across racial lines in a society deeply divided by race.  I
can be told that everyone is equal by my parents, I can have friends of
color, and I may not tell racist jokes.  Yet I am still affected by the
forces of racism as a member of a society in which racism is the
bedrock.  I will still be seen as white, treated as white, and
experience life as a white person.

...if, as a white person, I conceptualize racism as a binary and I place
myself on the "not racist" side, what further action is required of me?
No action is required because I am not a racist.  Therefore racism is
not my problem; it doesn't concern me and there is nothing further I
need to do.  This worldview guarantees that I will not build my skills
in thinking critically about racism or use my position to challenge
racial inequality.

Color-blind statements insist that people do not see race, or if they see
it, it has no meaning to them.  Color-blind claims include the following:

The second I term *color-celebrate*.  This set claims that the person
sees and embraces racial differences.  Color-celebrate claims include
statements such as these:

The question is *not* is "Is this claim true, or is it false?"; we will
never come to an agreement on a question that sets up an either/or
dichotomy on something as sensitive as racism.  Instead I ask, "How does
this claim function in the conversation?"...[color-blind and color-celebrate claims]
all exempt the person
from any responsibility for or participation in the problem.  They take
race off the table, and close (rather than open) any further
exploration.

There is a great amount of misinformation about affirmative action, as
evidenced in the idea of special rights.  For example, people commonly
believe that if a person of color applies for a position, he or she must
be hired over a white person; that black people are given preferential
treatment in hiring; and that a specific number of people must be hired
to fill a quota.  All these beliefs are patently untrue.  Affirmative
action is a tool to ensure that *qualified* minority applicants are
given the same employment opportunities as while people.  It is a
flexible program --there are no quotas or requirements as commonly
understood...No employer is required to hire an unqualified person of
color, but companies are required to be able to articulate why they
didn't hire a qualified person of color...

Still, this program has been systematically chipped away at, and several
states have eliminated affirmative action programs altogether.

When ideologies such as color blindness, meritocracy, and individualism
are challenged, intense emotional reactions are common.  I have
discussed several reasons why whites are so defensive about the
suggestion that we benefit from, and are complicit in, a racist system:

These interruptions can take a variety of forms and come from a range of
sources, including:

When disequilibrium occurs--when there is an interruption to that which
is familiar and taken for granted--white fragility restores equilibrium
and returns the capital "lost" via the challenge...Again these
strategies are reflexive and seldom conscious, but that does not make
them benign

If we become adults who explicitly oppose racism, as do many, we often
organize our identity around a denial of our racially based privileges
that reinforce racist disadvantage for others.  What is particularly
problematic about this contradiction is that white people's moral
objection to racism increases their resistance to acknowledging their
complicity with it.

...

Let me be clear: while the capacity for white people to sustain
challenges to our racial positions is limited--and, in this way,
fragile--the effects of our responses are not fragile at all; they are
quite powerful and because they take advantage of historical and
institutional power and control.

However, from a transformed paradigm, when we are given feedback on our
inevitable but unaware racist patterns, we might have very different
feelings:

When we have these feelings, we might want to engage in the following
behaviors:

What claims might we make when we have these feelings and engage in
these behaviors?  Notice that none of the following claims characterize
us as falsely accused or as beyond the discussion; these claims suggest
openness and humility.

...When our fundamental understanding of racism is transformed, so are
our assumptions and resultant behaviors.  Imagine the difference in our
environment, interactions, norms, and policies if the following list
described our assumptions.

These assumptions might interrupt racism in various ways, such as the
following:

Imagine you go to the doctor, who tells you that you have an acoustic
neuroma.  Just as she is about to explain what this is and what your
options are, she gets an emergency call and must rush off, abruptly
ending your visit.  What would you do?  You would very likely go home,
get on the internet, and read everything you could find on the
subject...Bottom line: you would care enough to get informed.  So
consider racism a matter of life and death (as it is for people of
color), and do your homework.