Science is clear that we are all prejudiced; that we all have biases deeply ingrained within us. Responding productively to them – in ways that help eliminate racial inequalities – requires us to acknowledge our biases and transform them. Yet, the cultural context for racism has become so binary that revealing even the slightest bit of bias can be untenable. Herein lies the Catch-22 of white fragility: we can’t create a better world without naming the biases we all have, but naming them creates an extraordinary fear among well-intentioned people of marginalization.
In White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo carefully examines the roots of the modern American racial structure and the reasons it is so difficult to acknowledge the pervasiveness of racial bias. She offers a path forward for white people to dismantle the grossly inequitable structure within which we all live.
At the heart of DiAngelo’s analysis is an understanding of the distinction between prejudice (prejudgment of another person based on their social group), discrimination (action based on prejudice), and racism (collective prejudice backed by legal authority and institutional control). Racism is a deeply ingrained system with its own self-perpetuating processes around differentials in education, employment, and access to other social services. Our biases are just the tip of the racist iceberg.
We can be biased without intending to be racist. Confusing the two results in our denying that there is any harm in our actions. This leads to an illogical conclusion that we know can’t be correct: None of us is racist, but yet the inequitable system persists. DiAngelo is clear that we all must take responsibility for our broken system, and clearly exposes the logical flaws of many of our claims to not be racist: “I marched in the sixties,” “I was taught to treat everyone the same,” or “Race has nothing to do with it.”
DiAngelo argues persuasively that whites, from a position of privilege, assume that anyone can have the same privileged experience as they do, which ignores the painful hurdles faced by people of color on a daily basis. This assumption leads to a feeling of superiority around negative behaviors (e.g. family structure in the ghetto), placing the blame on the non-white, and implicitly rationalizing racist treatment. This superiority misses the point that it is the differential racial treatment which is the root cause of the negative behaviors. To break the cycle, the racial disparities in treatment must be eliminated.
DiAngelo shares from her experience in training around the topic of racism that her message is very well received as long as it remains abstract. Once it gets close to real life, people recoil, often in anger. If, in reading the book, you are upset, this is your chance. Do you want to reveal racism so that it can be eliminated? If so, start at the places where White Fragility creates the greatest discomfort, or even anger, for you.