White Fragility

Key Concepts

“The Challenges of Talking to White People about Racism”

WE DON’T SEE OURSELVES IN RACIAL TERMS: “Being seen racially is a common trigger of white fragility, and thus, to build our stamina, white people must face the first challenge: naming our race.” (p. 7)

OUR OPINIONS ARE UNINFORMED: “How can I say that if you are white, your opinions on racism are most likely ignorant, when I don’t even know you? I can say so because nothing in mainstream US culture gives us the information we need to have the nuanced understanding of arguably the most complex and enduring social dynamic of the last several hundred years.” (p. 8)

WE DON’T UNDERSTAND SOCIALIZATION: “A significant aspect of the white script derives from our seeing ourselves as both objective and unique. To understand white fragility, we have to begin to understand why we cannot fully be either; we must understand the forces of socialization.” (p. 9)

WE HAVE A SIMPLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM: “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? How does this lens change my understanding of racial dynamics? How can my unease help reveal the unexamined assumptions I have been making? Is it possible that because I am white, there are some racial dynamics that I can’t see? Am I willing to consider that possibility? If I am not willing to do so, then why not?” (p. 14)

Racism, defined

“All humans have prejudice; we cannot avoid it. If I am aware that a social group exists, I will have gained information about that group from the society around me. This information helps me make sense of the group from my cultural framework. People who claim not to be prejudiced are demonstrating a profound lack of self-awareness.” (p. 19)

“Discrimination is action based on prejudice.” (p. 20)

“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.” (p. 20)

“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.” (p. 22)

“Individual whites may be ‘against’ racism, but they still benefit from a system that privileges whites as a group. David Wellman succinctly summarizes racism as ‘a system of advantage based on race.’ These advantages are referred to as white privilege, a sociological concept referring to advantages that are taken for granted by whites and that cannot be similarly enjoyed by people of color in the same context (government, community, workplace, schools, etc.).” (p. 24)

White supremacy, defined

“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.” (p. 30)

“Naming white supremacy changes the conversation in two key ways: It makes the system visible and shifts the locus of change onto white people, where it belongs.” (p. 33)

“How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People”

BELONGING: “It is rare for me to experience a sense of not belonging racially, and these are usually very temporary, easily avoidable situations. Indeed, throughout my life, I have been warned that I should avoid situations in which I might be a racial minority. These situations are often presented as scary, dangerous, or ‘sketchy.’ Yet if the environment or situation is viewed as good, nice, or valuable, I can be confident that as a white person, I will be seen as racially belonging there.” (p. 53)

FREEDOM FROM THE BURDEN OF RACE: “Because I haven’t been socialized to see myself or to be seen by other whites in racial terms, I don’t carry the psychic weight of race; I don’t have to worry about how others feel about my race. Nor do I worry that my race will be held against me.” (p. 54)

JUST PEOPLE: “I enjoy young adult literature but am taken aback by how consistently the race of characters of color is named and how only those characters’ races are named.” (p. 56)

WHITE SOLIDARITY: “White solidarity is the unspoken agreement among whites to protect white advantage and not cause another white person to feel racial discomfort by confronting them when they say or do something racially problematic.” (p. 57)

“The Good/Bad Binary”

“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.” (p. 72)

“When I talk to white people about racism, I hear the same claims—rooted in the good/bad binary—made again and again. I organize these claims into two overall categories, both of which label the person as good and therefore not racist. The first set claims color blindness: ‘I don’t see color [and/or race has no meaning to me]; therefore, I am free of racism.’ The second set claims to value diversity: ‘I know people of color [and/or have been near people of color, and/or have general fond regard for people of color]; therefore, I am free of racism.’ Both categories fundamentally rest on the good/bad binary.” (p. 76)

“And while speaking up against these explicitly racist actions is critical, we must also be careful not to use them to keep ourselves on the ‘good’ side of a false binary. I have found it much more useful to think of myself as on a continuum. Racism is so deeply woven into the fabric of our society that I do not see myself escaping from that continuum in my lifetime. But I can continually seek to move further along it. I am not in a fixed position on the continuum; my position is dictated by what I am actually doing at a given time. Conceptualizing myself on an active continuum changes the question from whether I am or am not racist to a much more constructive question: Am I actively seeking to interrupt racism in this context? And perhaps even more importantly, how do I know?” (p. 87)

“Anti-Blackness”

“Racism is complex and nuanced, and its manifestations are not the same for every group of color.” (p. 89)

“As discussed in previous chapters, we live in a culture that circulates relentless messages of white superiority. These messages exist simultaneously with relentless messages of black inferiority. But anti-blackness goes deeper than the negative stereotypes all of us have absorbed; anti-blackness is foundational to our very identities as white people. Whiteness has always been predicated on blackness.” (p. 90)

White Fragility

“White fragility may be conceptualized as a response or ‘condition’ produced and reproduced by the continual social and material advantages of whiteness. 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. This capital includes self-image, control, and white solidarity. Anger toward the trigger, shutting down and/or tuning out, indulgence in emotional incapacitation such as guilt or ‘hurt feelings,’ exiting, or a combination of these responses results. Again, these strategies are reflexive and seldom conscious, but that does not make them benign.” (p. 105)

“White fragility functions as a form of bullying; I am going to make it so miserable for you to confront me—no matter how diplomatically you try to do so—that you will simply back off, give up, and never raise the issue again.” (p. 112)

“White people are receptive to my presentation as long as it remains abstract. The moment I name some racially problematic dynamic or action happening in the room in the moment—for example, ‘Sharon, may I give you some feedback? While I understand it wasn’t intentional, your response to Jason’s story invalidates his experience as a black man’—white fragility erupts.” (p. 117)

Countering the fragile reaction

“To let go of the messenger and focus on the message is an advanced skill and it's especially difficult to practice if someone comes at us with a self-righteous tone. if kind of gets us there faster, I am all for it. But I do not require anything from someone giving me feedback before I can engage with that feedback. Part of my processing of that feedback will be to separate it from its delivery and ascertain the central point and its contribution to my growth. Many of us are not there yet, but this is what we need to work toward.” (p. 128)

“When white people ask me what to do about racism and white fragility, the first thing I ask is, ‘What has enabled you to be a full, educated, professional adult and not know what to do about racism?’ It is a sincere question. How have we managed not to know, when the information is all around us? When people of color have been telling us for years? If we take that question seriously and map out all the ways we have come to not know what to do, we will have our guide before us. For example, if my answer is that I was not educated about racism, I know that I will have to get educated. If my answer is that I don't know people of color, I will need to build relationships. If it is because there are no people of color in my environment, I will need to get out of my comfort zone and change my environment; addressing racism is not without effort.” (p. 144)

“Next, I say, ‘Do whatever it takes for you to internalize the above assumptions.’” (p. 144)

“The final advice I offer is this: ‘Take the initiative and find out on your own.’” (p. 144)

Quotables

“I came to see that the way we are taught to define racism makes it virtually impossible for white people to understand it. Given our racial insulation, coupled with misinformation, any suggestion that we are complicit in racism is a kind of unwelcome and insulting shock to the system.” (p. 4)

“As Ta-Nehisi Coates states, ‘But race is the child of racism, not the father.’ He means that first we exploited people for their resources, not according to how they looked. Exploitation came first, and then the ideology of unequal races to justify this exploitation followed.” (p. 16)

“For example, in 1946, a French reporter asked expatriate writer Richard Wright his thoughts on the ‘Negro problem’ in the United States. Wright replied, ‘There isn’t any Negro problem; there is only a white problem.’” (p. 25)

“The story of Jackie Robinson is a classic example of how whiteness obscures racism by rendering whites, white privilege, and racist institutions invisible. Robinson is often celebrated as the first African American to break the color line and play in major-league baseball. While Robinson was certainly an amazing baseball player, this story line depicts him as racially special, a black man who broke the color line himself. The subtext is that Robinson finally had what it took to play with whites, as if no black athlete before him was strong enough to compete at that level. Imagine if instead, the story went something like this: ‘Jackie Robinson, the first black man whites allowed to play major-league baseball.’” (p. 26)

“On a television talk show in 1965, James Baldwin responded passionately to a Yale professor’s argument that Baldwin always concentrated on color: ‘I don’t know if white Christians hate Negros or not, but I know that we have a Christian church that is white and a Christian church which is black. I know that the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. . . . I don’t know whether the labor unions and their bosses really hate me . . . but I know I am not in their unions. I don’t know if the real estate lobby is against black people but I know that the real estate lobbyists keep me in the ghetto. I don’t know if the Board of Education hates Black people, but I know the textbooks they give my children to read and the schools that we have to go to. Now this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith risking . . . my life . . . on some idealism which you assure me exists in America which I have never seen.’” (p. 65)

“The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss. Not one person who loved me, guided me, or taught me ever conveyed that segregation deprived me of anything of value. I could live my entire life without a friend or loved one of color and not see that as a diminishment of my life. In fact, my life trajectory would almost certainly ensure that I had few, if any, people of color in my life.” (p. 67)

“White racial socialization engenders many conflicting feelings toward African Americans: benevolence, resentment, superiority, hatred, and guilt roil barely below the surface and erupt at the slightest breach, yet can never be explicitly acknowledged. Our need to deny the bewildering manifestations of anti-blackness that reside so close to the surface makes us irrational, and that irrationality is at the heart of white fragility and the pain it causes people of color.” (p. 98)

“In my workshops, I often ask people of color, ‘How often have you given white people feedback on our unaware yet inevitable racism? How often has that gone well for you?’ Eye-rolling, head-shaking, and outright laughter follow, along with the consensus of rarely, if ever. I then ask, ‘What would it be like if you could simply give us feedback, have us graciously receive it, reflect, and work to change the behavior?’ Recently a man of color sighed and said, ‘It would be revolutionary.’” (p. 113)

“The murder of Emmett Till is just one example of the history that informed an oft-repeated warning from my African American colleagues; ‘When a white woman criest, a black man gets hurt.’ Not knowing or being sensitive to this history is another example of white centrality, individualism, and lack of racial humility.” (p. 133)

“Antiracism strategist and facilitator Reagan Price paraphrases an analogy based on the work of critical race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. Price says, ‘Imagine first responders at the scene of an accident rushing to comfort the person whose car struck a pedestrian, while the pedestrian lies bleeding on the street.’” (p. 134)  

“Unlike heavy feelings such as guilt, the continuous work of identifying my internalized superiority and how it may be manifesting itself is incredibly liberating. When I start from the premise that of course I have been thoroughly socialized into the racist culture in which I was born, I no longer need to expend energy denying that fact.” (p. 149)

“Interrupting racism takes courage and intentionality; the interruption is by definition not passive or complacent.” (p. 153)