Робин Дианджело - White Fragility

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Foreword

Author’s Note

Introduction: We Can’t Get There from Here

1. The Challenges of Talking to White People About Racism

2. Racism and White Supremacy

3. Racism After the Civil Rights Movement

4. How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People?

5. The Good/Bad Binary

6. Anti-Blackness

7. Racial Triggers for White People

8. The Result: White Fragility

9. White Fragility in Action

10. White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement

11. White Women’s Tears

12. Where Do We Go from Here?

Resources for Continuing Education

Acknowledgments

Notes

Copyright

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Guide

Cover

Copyright

Contents

1 The Challenges of Talking to White People About Racism

PRAISE FOR WHITE FRAGILITY

“ White Fragility is a rare and incisive examination of the system of white-body supremacy, which binds us all as Americans. Robin DiAngelo explicates the underlying Western ideologies of individualism and presumed objectivity that tighten those bonds. But she doesn’t just analyze this system. With authenticity and clarity, she provides the antidote to white fragility and a road map for developing white racial stamina and humility. White Fragility loosens the bonds of white supremacy and binds us back together as human beings.”

—RESMAA MENAKEM,

author of My Grandmother’s Hands and Rock the Boat

“What an amazingly powerful book Robin DiAngelo has written! This remarkable book encourages folks to embrace a more deeply nuanced exploration of white culture and dominance and, as such, will be a great contribution in promoting the necessary policy change and healing that this country requires. Dr. DiAngelo’s work in deconstructing whiteness is not only brilliant, it is written in a way that is crystal clear and accessible to each and every reader. While this is a powerful scholarly analysis of white fragility, it is also an invitation to engage in deep personal inquiry and collective change. As a woman of color, I find hope in this book because of its potential to disrupt the patterns and relationships that have emerged out of long-standing colonial principles and beliefs. White Fragility is an essential tool toward authentic dialogue and action. May it be so!”

—SHAKTI BUTLER,

president of World Trust and director of Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible

“As powerful forces of white racism again swell, DiAngelo invites white progressives to have a courageous conversation about their culture of complicity. To eradicate racism, she encourages white people to relinquish ingrained hyper-attachment to individualism and embrace predictable patterns of their own racial group. White Fragility provides important antiracist understanding and essential strategies for well-intentioned white people who truly endeavor to be a part of the solution.”

—GLENN E. SINGLETON,

author of Courageous Conversations About Race

“White fragility is the secret ingredient that makes racial conversations so difficult and achieving racial equity even harder. But by exposing it and showing us all—including white folks—how it operates and how it hurts us, individually and collectively, Robin DiAngelo has performed an invaluable service. An indispensable volume for understanding one of the most important (and yet rarely appreciated) barriers to achieving racial justice.”

—TIM WISE,

author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son

“In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo demonstrates an all-too-rare ability to enter the racial conversation with complexity, nuance, and deep respect. Her writing establishes her mastery in accessing the imaginal, metaphoric mind, where the possibility for transformation resides. With an unwavering conviction that change is possible, her message is clear: the incentive for white engagement in racial justice work is ultimately self-liberation.”

—LETICIA NIETO,

coauthor of Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone

These ceremonials in honor of white supremacy,

performed from babyhood, slip from the

conscious mind down deep into muscles . . .

and become difficult to tear out.

—LILLIAN SMITH, Killers of the Dream (1949)

CONTENTS

Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson

Author’s Note

Introduction: We Can’t Get There from Here

1 The Challenges of Talking to White People About Racism

2 Racism and White Supremacy

3 Racism After the Civil Rights Movement

4 How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People?

5 The Good/Bad Binary

6 Anti-Blackness

7 Racial Triggers for White People

8 The Result: White Fragility

9 White Fragility in Action

10 White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement

11 White Women’s Tears

12 Where Do We Go from Here?

Resources for Continuing Education

Acknowledgments

Notes

FOREWORD

Keyser Söze, Beyoncé,

and the Witness Protection Program

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON

One metaphor for race, and racism, won’t do. They are, after all, exceedingly complicated forces. No, we need many metaphors, working in concert, even if in different areas of the culture through a clever division of linguistic labor. Race is a condition. A disease. A card. A plague. Original sin. For much of American history, race has been black culture’s issue; racism, a black person’s burden. Or substitute any person of color for black and you’ve got the same problem. Whiteness, however, has remained constant. In the equation of race, another metaphor for race beckons; whiteness is the unchanging variable. Or, to shift metaphors, whiteness has been, to pinch Amiri Baraka’s resonant phrase, the “changing same,” a highly adaptable and fluid force that stays on top no matter where it lands. In a sense, whiteness is at once the means of dominance, the end to which dominance points, and the point of dominance, too, which, in its purest form, in its greatest fantasy, never ends.