Journal of College and Character

ISSN: 2194-587X (Print) 1940-1639 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujcc20

White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People

to Talk about Racism

Reviewed by Kent Andersen

To cite this article: Reviewed by Kent Andersen (2019) White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for
White People to Talk about Racism, Journal of College and Character, 20:2, 187-189, DOI:
10.1080/2194587X.2019.1591288

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587X.2019.1591288

Published online: 21 May 2019.

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What They’re Reading 187

Journal of College & Character VOLUME 20, No. 2, May 2019

White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about
Racism

Reviewed by Kent Andersen, Birmingham-Southern College

By Robin DiAngelo, 2018. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 169 pp. ISBN 978-0-8070-4741-5.

Abstract

In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo deploys social reproduction theory to identify and account for
the phenomenon she calls white fragility: the patterns of perceptions and behaviors exhibited by
white people when confronted with evidence that they have perpetrated racism or perpetuated
systems of racial inequality. These patterns and perceptions function to maintain and reinforce the
racial status quo and insulate white people from self-examination. While not directly addressed to
higher education professionals, DiAngelo’s argument offers educators and administrators an
opportunity for reflection and enhanced developmental practice in their work.

While not directly addressed to higher education professionals, all educators and administrators should
familiarize themselves with Robin DiAngelo’s argument in White Fragility. She contends that the
uneasiness and subsequent defensiveness that white people commonly feel in response to matters of
race prevents them from examining their role in perpetrating and reproducing racism. She addresses
primarily white liberals, by which she means those who imagine they are not complicit in racism. As
a white educator, I find that White Fragility helps me make new sense of the uneasy discussions among
white students and colleagues around matters of race and racism. DiAngelo’s explanations and recom-
mendations should be of use to any reader interested in understanding the dynamics of racism and in
helping students develop greater awareness of those dynamics, regardless of their racial identity.
Higher education scholars and practitioners will likely find DiAngelo’s theoretical framework
familiar, even if her argument is not. In essence, she deploys social reproduction theory to identify and
account for the phenomenon of white fragility. White fragility refers to the stress white people feel when
confronted by problems related to race, as well as their efforts to maintain their sense of racial
equilibrium. Put differently, white fragility refers to the patterns of perceptions and behaviors exhibited
by white people that function to maintain and reinforce systemic racism. “The default of the current

Kent Andersen (kanderse@bsc.edu) is director of leadership programs in the Krulak Institute for Leadership, Experiential
Learning, and Civic Engagement at Birmingham-Southern College.

JCC © NASPA 2019 http://journals.naspa.org/jcc doi:10.1080/2194587X.2019.1591288

188 Journal of College and Character VOLUME 20, No. 2, May 2019

system,” DiAngelo argues, “is the reproduction of racial inequality; our institutions were designed to
reproduce racial inequality and they do so with efficiency” (DiAngelo, 2018, p. 153). As she points out,
this system ensures that white people maintain dominance in political and cultural institutions, including
elected offices, the film and television industries, as well as schools, thus controlling the ideas and images
that shape society.
DiAngelo provides numerous examples, all of which demonstrate the ubiquity of white fragility.
For instance, when confronted with information that they are unintentionally manifesting racism,
white people in DiAngelo’s racial equity workshops often indicated that they felt singled out,
accused, or judged. The behavioral response to such emotions included crying, physically leaving
the workshop, silently withdrawing, or arguing. Because the information in the workshop countered
participants’ self-perception as “someone exempt from racism” (p. 118), participants offered argu-
ments meant to demonstrate that they are not racist. For example, they indicated that they know and
work with people of color, that they previously learned the information in college, that people are
being overly sensitive, or that their intentions were misunderstood. All of these claims rest on faulty
assumptions about the nature of racism and serve to exempt the individual from further self-
examination. Most important, DiAngelo argues, such patterns hinder the possibility of repairing the
damage of racism (p. 132).
An example of this dynamic from my own experience: A few years ago, I participated in a diversity
and inclusion workshop. The director of the sponsoring agency had solicited funding and hired an
individual to train faculty and staff in diversity and inclusion best practices. There were about 40 people
present. The facilitator was black and female; the agency director was white and male. During the
workshop, the director was visibly uncomfortable, fidgeting in his seat and refusing to engage the
questions, at one point standing to lecture the group on his research related to higher education access
for low income students and students of color. This behavior puzzled me at the time—why highjack the
workshop in this way? In retrospect, however, such behavior makes sense as a manifestation of white
fragility: Confronted with information that, despite his best intentions, he may have unwittingly perpe-
trated racism, the agency head felt compelled to provide evidence that he was not racist.
Such defensiveness, DiAngelo demonstrates, rests on false assumptions. Throughout her book,
DiAngelo identifies and explains how these assumptions operate as an ideological screen for white
people. For example, she argues that white people are socialized to adopt a simplistic and binary
understanding of racism: Racist people are bad; people who are not racists are good. Racism, in this
view, is reduced to extreme acts of prejudice or hate: “Racists were those white people in the South,
smiling and picnicking at the base of lynching trees” (p. 71). According to DiAngelo, this false dichotomy
obscures the dynamics of racism. Racism is not individual, but systemic. A system functions indepen-
dently from an individual actor’s intentions or self-image, becoming the default paradigm that gets
reproduced automatically (p. 21). Thus, adherence to the “good/bad binary obscures the structural nature
of racism and makes it difficult for us to see or understand” (p. 73). More perniciously, the good/bad
binary insulates the individual from responsibility: Once I have demonstrated that I am not racist, no
further action is required of me because racism is not my problem (p. 73). DiAngelo identifies other
assumptions that operate to obscure systems of white supremacy, including the belief that one can be non-
biased or the insistence on individual rather than collective identity (p. 124). Such assumptions, she
argues, cut off self-reflection and limit the worldview of white people, thus hindering their ability to alter
the racial status quo or challenge white solidarity.

doi:10.1080/2194587X.2019.1591288 http://journals.naspa.org/jcc © NASPA 2019 JCC

 What They’re Reading 189

The antidote to fragility, suggests DiAngelo, is stamina: Interrupting the reproduction of racism
requires that white people develop new skills for reflection and action, new patterns of perception and
behavior. Black comedian and social activist, Kamau Bell (2018), arrives at a similar conclusion. He says,
The biggest thing that white people can do is really get comfortable having conversations about race and
racism in this country. And the way to get comfortable is that first you get awkward by putting yourself in
the middle of it (p. 262).

To get “in the middle of it,” Higher education professionals can read up on the topic of race and racism,
review what we know about student racial identity development, and examine practices and behaviors for
manifestations of racism. There are numerous resources available; many are referenced in DiAngelo’s
book; as educators committed to character and moral development, we are obliged to take advantage of
them. One might start with White Fragility.

References
Bell, W. K. (2018). The awkward thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6ʹ 4”, African American, heterosexual,
cisgender, left-Leaning, asthmatic, Black and proud blerd, mama’s boy, dad, and stand-up comedian. Boston,
MA: Dutton.
Diangelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press.

JCC © NASPA 2019 http://journals.naspa.org/jcc doi:10.1080/2194587X.2019.1591288