White people assume niceness is the answer to racial inequality. It's not

[MrScorpio]

Robin diAngelo

While most of us see ourselves as ‘not racist’, we continue to reproduce racist outcomes and live segregated lives

I am white. As an academic, consultant and writer on white racial identity and race relations, I speak daily with other white people about the meaning of race in our lives. These conversations are critical because, by virtually every measure, racial inequality persists, and institutions continue to be overwhelmingly controlled by white people. While most of us see ourselves as “not racist”, we continue to reproduce racist outcomes and live segregated lives.

In the racial equity workshops I lead for American companies, I give participants one minute, uninterrupted, to answer the question: “How has your life been shaped by your race?” This is rarely a difficult question for people of color, but most white participants are unable to answer. I watch as they flail, some giving up altogether and waiting out the time, unable to sustain 60 seconds of this kind of reflection. This inability is not benign, and it certainly is not innocent. Suggesting that whiteness has no meaning creates an alienating – even hostile – climate for people of color working and living in predominantly white environments, and it does so in several ways.

If I cannot tell you what it means to be white, I cannot understand what it means not to be white. I will be unable to bear witness to, much less affirm, an alternate racial experience. I will lack the critical thinking and skills to navigate racial tensions in constructive ways. This creates a culture in which white people assume that niceness is the answer to racial inequality and people of color are required to maintain white comfort in order to survive.

An inability to grapple with racial dynamics with any nuance or complexity is ubiquitous in younger white people who have been raised according to an ideology of colorblindness. I have been working with large tech companies whose average employees are under 30 years old. White employees are typically dumbfounded when their colleagues of color testify powerfully in these sessions to the daily slights and indignities they endure and the isolation they feel in overwhelmingly white workplaces. This pain is especially acute for African Americans, who tend to be the least represented.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/16/racial-inequality-niceness-white-people?CMP=share_btn_tw

[klook]

1. Excellent piece and, I confess, causes me to make a fresh reappraisal

of my own attitudes and actions. Recommended.

[TheFarseer]

2. K, I'll start being a dick to black people

Kidding kidding. I’m not sure racism will hardly be a thing in the near future. I see so many mixed-race couples. I’m not sure young people even see race.

[Skittles]

3. lol, "over-smiling"

I hate meeting new people in general, makes me anxious....if I don't smile I am unfriendly, if I do, maybe I am "over-smiling".

[StarfishSaver]

4. Excellent - thanks

[leftstreet]

5. DURec

Thanks for posting this

[NNadir]

6. Actually, no white person is qualified to speak for "white people" in general.

For example, Trump, although actually orange in color, is generally assumed to be White.

Nothing he says about white people or any other class of people represents what I think.

Thanks.

[tulipsandroses]

7. Great article!

Black friends have often told me that they prefer open hostility to niceness. They understand open hostility and can protect themselves as needed. But the deception of niceness adds a confusing layer that makes it difficult for people of color to decipher trustworthy allyship from disingenuous white liberalism.

This resonates with me.

The default of the current system is the reproduction of racial inequality. To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility.

We can begin by acknowledging ourselves as racial beings with a particular and limited perspective on race. We can attempt to understand the racial realities of people of color through authentic interaction rather than through the media or through unequal relationships. We can insist that racism be discussed in our workplaces and a professed commitment to racial equity be demonstrated by actual outcomes. We can get involved in organizations working for racial justice. These efforts require that we continually challenge our own socialization and investments in racism and put what we profess to value into the actual practice of our lives. This takes courage, and niceness without strategic and intentional anti-racist action is not courageous.

[Ms. Toad]

9. Reminds me of how i've always described my time in law school

as an openly lesbian law student in the 90s. In my first year I was in two sections - one which knew me prerry well - and one which didn't. In the former, all of relatively frequent discussions on LGBT matters were cloaked in so much sugar anyone in the room with diabetes should have run away as fast as they could. In the latter, in which I was largely invisible - as someone who does not trigger gaydar with my then butt-length hair. (An entirely different story when I wear my hair short - and then people spot me from across campus . . . but as I said that's an entirely different story.

At any rate - there were a lot of offensive comments and vitriol in the latter section. Neither one was healthy - but at least the vitriol had the benefit that I knew who the folks who had the knives out were.

That continues now that I'm teaching in the same law school - at least the saccarine-sweetness. I often have to give them permission to make the legal arguments that do exist in opposition to gay rights, by suggesting the offensive arguments about family and strongly held community values that - until very recently - were the law of the land.

[Marcuse]

8. European Americans are 70% of the population. Half (35%) are hard core trump supporters.

Our metaphorical “Good Germans” will determine the way in which the arc of future history bends.

[mountain grammy]

10. Excellent! thank you.

How has your life been shaped by your race? The fact that white people can't answer is, in fact, the answer.

This is a question that should be asked and discussed often in this country. We badly need this introspection. We need to understand how being white shapes our lives as much as not being white shapes others' lives. Then maybe we can take a stab at equal rights.

[TygrBright]

11. I'll never forget getting schooled on this in my first professional job...

I made the mistake of suggesting to a new (black) colleague who'd come to the Twin Cities from Atlanta that he must be relieved to be out that racist southern hell...

He was kinder to me than I merited, but I never forgot.

sheepishly,
Bright

[ProudLib72]

12. I can tell you exactly how my life has been shaped by being white

I can tell you that remained largely unaware of systemic racism in this country until I began teaching at a predominantly minority college.

I can tell you how I feel when my friend and prior student describes the racism she and her mother encountered on their walk around their neighborhood.

I can tell you how ashamed I am and at the same time grateful that I never had to endure racism.

Oh I know perfectly well how being white has shaped my life.

[58Sunliner]

13. The author misses a big point.

No, whites are not necessarily taught to think in terms of skin color for their identity as many whites focus on their heritage as Irish, English, Norwegian, etc... Most "whites" I know identify this way. According to the author, blacks mainly self-identify as color, hence culture. If the author doesn't get this, then how hard is she thinking? I notice she does not have any solutions. Sorry. Not interested in a hostile work place. I'll continue to be nice, courteous, etc.. with an open mind and an open dialogue because contrary to what the author wrote-"white people assume that niceness is the answer to racial inequality", most of us don't assume such a simplistic, myopic, view. People who are hostile have unresolved issues.

[lunatica]

14. A lot of people don't understand what being nice means.

They think it’s a weakness, a safe thing that enables you to keep your distance from the scary ‘others’. That’s not nice. Thats pure fear hiding behind a false exterior.

Being nice, for people who understand it is to be open, welcoming, fun, humorous, gentle, understanding, inclusive, interested, normal, caring, ready with sympathy and a kind word, embracing those who are in pain over the loss of someone they love or a beloved pet. It’s about rejoicing when others triumph, about sharing people’s interests, their creativity, about laughing at their jokes and thanking them for being nice back at you.

Who the hell is going to find that kind of nice offensive or weak or condescending or somehow worse than aggression? Only fools don’t get what nice really is.

[58Sunliner]

15. It's also a sign a strength. We have all had trauma and could easily not make the effort.

I'm grateful for those that do. I have really benefited.

[lunatica]

18. Yes. It's hard to do sometimes, but it's a life choice

It’s the willingness to accept others and to care when sometimes you don’t want to. It breaks through the barriers people put up because they've been hurt. A person who chooses to be nice when there are other choices out there is a person who is strong. Nice people have made all the difference in my life and that’s the kind of person I prefer to be.

People truly need nice people in their lives.

[58Sunliner]

21. +1,000

[smirkymonkey]

16. Thank YOU!

I appreciate your post. So many people think that genuine niceness is phony, but for some of us it is our natural default. It is not an effort.

I do not have to try to be nice to people. I always am and maybe it's because I am someone who is content with who I am. It is in my nature to be kind. I don't see it as weakness, on the contrary, I see it as a strength. It is easy to be cruel and hateful. It is the coward's way of being in the world.

[lunatica]

19. Nice people are needed desperately by so many others

Nice people are the ones you trust, even when you don’t consciously think about it.

[Raine]

17. Yes, EXACTLY

I treat people nice and I'll continue, being anything other then nice goes against my nature and who I am.

[lunatica]

20. Genuinely nice people are rare

Being true to who you are is the most important thing you can do. Just be you. That’s your strength.