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StarfishSaver

(18,486 posts)
Wed May 27, 2020, 07:33 AM May 2020

Please Read: White Fragility: "Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism"

This is an excellent analysis and explanation. Unfortunately, the people who most need to read it probably won't ...

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
April 9, 2015 by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

I am white. I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources—schools, textbooks, media—don’t provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.

Yes, we will develop strong emotionally laden opinions, but they will not be informed opinions. Our socialization renders us racially illiterate. When you add a lack of humility to that illiteracy (because we don’t know what we don’t know), you get the break-down we so often see when trying to engage white people in meaningful conversations about race.

Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to individual racial prejudice and the intentional actions that result. The people that commit these intentional acts are deemed bad, and those that don’t are good. If we are against racism and unaware of committing racist acts, we can’t be racist; racism and being a good person have become mutually exclusive. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced.

Social scientists understand racism as a multidimensional and highly adaptive system—a system that ensures an unequal distribution of resources between racial groups. Because whites built and dominate all significant institutions, (often at the expense of and on the uncompensated labor of other groups), their interests are embedded in the foundation of U.S. society.

While individual whites may be against racism, they still benefit from the distribution of resources controlled by their group. Yes, an individual person of color can sit at the tables of power, but the overwhelming majority of decision-makers will be white. Yes, white people can have problems and face barriers, but systematic racism won’t be one of them. This distinction—between individual prejudice and a system of unequal institutionalized racial power—is fundamental. One cannot understand how racism functions in the U.S. today if one ignores group power relations.
...
Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority and entitlement that we are either not consciously aware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race. We experience a challenge to our racial worldview as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. It also challenges our sense of rightful place in the hierarchy. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as a very unsettling and unfair moral offense.

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/?fbclid=IwAR1i5P6KnUueleMKgc6GowjsGzH-8xovhR_uRxDfSyLJshPO-zObcvfRSGQ



9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Please Read: White Fragility: "Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism" (Original Post) StarfishSaver May 2020 OP
Read books written by folks who have suffered from racism. McCamy Taylor May 2020 #1
Agreed, there are a lot of great books coming out right now by BIPOC. intheflow May 2020 #8
"While individual whites may be against racism, they still benefit from the distribution of WhiskeyGrinder May 2020 #2
Bought her book after I watched this. Highly recommend. PunkinPi May 2020 #3
Great article. Thanks. n/t MicaelS May 2020 #4
For the same reason, it is hard to talk about unearned privilege to those MineralMan May 2020 #5
Yes! StarfishSaver May 2020 #7
We don't all feel that way. Some of us can take the heat and understand that when smirkymonkey May 2020 #9
K&R ismnotwasm May 2020 #6

McCamy Taylor

(19,240 posts)
1. Read books written by folks who have suffered from racism.
Wed May 27, 2020, 09:21 AM
May 2020

There are plenty of them out there and putting yourself in someone else's shoes and seeing through their eyes for ten or twelve hours at a time can go a long way towards opening eyes and clearing minds.

intheflow

(28,408 posts)
8. Agreed, there are a lot of great books coming out right now by BIPOC.
Thu May 28, 2020, 12:49 AM
May 2020

Ijeoma Oluo's So You Want to Talk About Race and Ibram Kendi's How To Be An Antiracist are both fantastic.

However, there's also something to be said for white people to own their own shit and hold each other accountable. That's the value of D'Angelo's book.

The bigger problem is that SO MANY white people are so immersed in whiteness that they will only listen to other white people, and then congratulate themselves on being liberal enough to read a nonfiction book written by a woman.

WhiskeyGrinder

(22,152 posts)
2. "While individual whites may be against racism, they still benefit from the distribution of
Wed May 27, 2020, 09:23 AM
May 2020
resources controlled by their group."


Which is why it's so easy to be "against racism" and see one's self as "not racist," but so very hard to actually dismantle racist systems that benefit white people. Great article.

PunkinPi

(4,870 posts)
3. Bought her book after I watched this. Highly recommend.
Wed May 27, 2020, 09:27 AM
May 2020

Last edited Wed May 27, 2020, 10:33 AM - Edit history (1)



(runs about 1hr 23mins)

MineralMan

(146,192 posts)
5. For the same reason, it is hard to talk about unearned privilege to those
Wed May 27, 2020, 10:51 AM
May 2020

who have such privilege. It makes such people very uncomfortable.

That's unfortunate, since opening one's own eyes is the first step toward understanding others.

 

StarfishSaver

(18,486 posts)
7. Yes!
Wed May 27, 2020, 12:25 PM
May 2020

Even among very progressive people, the reaction is often a kneejerk defensiveness that turns the conversation into an accusation that they're being victimized.

 

smirkymonkey

(63,221 posts)
9. We don't all feel that way. Some of us can take the heat and understand that when
Thu May 28, 2020, 04:45 AM
May 2020

white people are being criticized it is not personal. I don't take it personally and it upsets me when others do.

I feel the same way with men and sexism. Calling out some men is not calling out all men. If it's not about you, then you should have no reason to feel offended.

I agree with most accusations of racism because I think a person of color knows better than I do when they are being treated as less than by a white person. It is not my call or my decision to make.

It makes me angry when white people accuse people of color of reverse racism simply for calling them out on their own racism. I see this all the time in my local Boston newspaper and it makes me sick. I honestly believe there is no such thing as reverse racism since it is not institutionalized and never hurts white people in any substantial way.

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