PED3151 Book Study

Erika Turner

Book: White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Author: Robin Diangelo

Chapter 1: The Challenges of Talking to White People About Racism

A) We don’t see ourselves in racial terms
a) White people do not often grow up thinking of themselves in racial terms
b) “Race matters, but to other people” mindset
B) Our opinions are uninformed
a) Without continuous and ongoing study, opinions are bound to be uninformed
(race issues are complete)
b) Process of socialization is not understood
C) We don’t understand socialization
a) The society and its values will determine so much of your behaviour/beliefs too
b) West:
1) Individualism: we are free from all groups
2) Objectivity: to be free of all bias
c) Different groups weighed unequally, but this is not a natural process =
socialization
d) Need to set aside our “uniqueness” to better understand how our experiences
shaped us and shaped us in being white
D) We have a simplistic understanding of racism
a) Generalized thinking that racism is active dislike of another race

Chapter 2: Racism & White Supremacy

● Race is actually socially-constructed, but deeply believed to be biological
● Rooted in history: trying to use science to justify that non-white people are inferior
○ Economic reasons such as slavery
● ex) slavery: using people for their resources, then jjustfying it with pseudo-science after
● Who is determined to be white changes over time
○ ex) Italians

Terms:
● Racism: group’s collective prejudice when backed by the power of legal
authority/institutional control
○ Denying someone’s civil/human rights
● Prejudice: pre-judgment about another person based on social groups they belong to
 ○ People of colour may also hold prejudices, but this is not the same as the racial
barriers posed against them rooted deeply in institutions
● Discrimination: ACTION based on prejudice, takes it a step further
○ ex) being less relaxed around some people, avoiding interacting with certain races
● White Privilege: advantages that are taken for granted by whites and that cannot be
similarly enjoyed by people of colour in the same context
● White Supremacy: all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people
defined and perceived as white and the practices based on this assumption
○ Overarching system of beliefs
○ Reflected in colonialism as well
○ Largely what built the western world and its ideologies today → UNNAMED
(gives it more power)
○ The people in power, those who create music/movies; influence our worldviews
● The White Racial Frame: how whites circulate and reinforce racial messages that
position whites as superior
○ Key mechanism of white supremacy
○ “Who were your teachers?”
○ Example about a child yelling out that a Black man’s skin is black: met with
embarrassment, but what if it is met with openness? Teaching taboo.

● Birdcage Metaphor: limited view of a situation

Chapter 3: Racism after the Civil Rights Movement

Terms:
● New racism: they ways in which racism has adapted over time so that modern norms,
policies, and practices result in similar racial outcomes as those in the past, while not
appearing to be explicitly racist
● Colour-blind racism: if we pretend to not notice race, then there can be no racism
○ Makes it difficult to acknowledge deeper issues
● Aversive Racism: enact racism in ways that allow them to maintain a positive self-image
○ ex) “I have lots of friends of colours”
● Race Talk: the explicit insertion into everyday life of racial signs and symbols that have
no meaning other than positioning Black people into the lowest level of a racial hierarchy

Chapter 4: How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People?

● Belonging: to everything, it feels unremarkable, taken for granted
● Freedom from the burden of race: racism just isn’t an issue, a non-issue
● Freedom movement: can go anywhere: everywhere is safe. Lives not in danger in some
cities/states.
 ● Just people: race goes unnamed; seen as just humans, where people of colour are
“racialized humans”
● White Solidarity: unspoken agreement amongst whites to protect white advantage and not
cause another white person to feel racial discomfort
○ Maintaining silence when racial remarks are made (bystander effect)
● The Good Old Days: romanticized past is just a white construct. Wasn’t that great for
people of colour.
○ Calls to “Make America Great Again” aligns with this thinking
● White Racial Innocence: expected people of colour to speak on race on white people’s
terms
● Segregated Lives: message that the absence of people of colour from our lives is a non-
issue, no real loss
○ Often seen as the preferred option

Chapter 5: The Good/Bad Binary

● Ideology that only bad people are racist
● Removes opportunities for growth
○ Since I am a good person, I am not a racist, there is no work left to be done here
● Colour-blind and colour-celebrate statements (p. 77)
● “I was taught to treat everyone the same”
○ Humans just cannot be 100% objective
○ IMPLICIT BIAS
● “I marched in the sixties”
○ Narrow view of racism as a matter of racial intolerance
○ Microaggressions and segregation still prominent
● “I was a minority at one point”
○ In the US, people are the only ones in positions to oppress POCs
○ May have experienced prejudice or discrimination, but not racism
● “My parents were not racist, they taught me not to be”
○ Racism-free upbringing is impossible since it is woven into our society
○ Were your parents really not racist?
● “Don't say that!” teachers censorship, but not the WHY
● “Children today are so much more open”
○ Not true according to study on p. 84
○ Have just learned to hide it better
○ This was particularly unexpected
● “Race has nothing to do with it”
○ Why would someone make this their opening point if it really wasn’t a race thing?
○ good/bad binary seen here
○ To some extent, race is always at play due to societal influences and histories
● “Focusing on race is what divides us”
 ○ To some white people, it is not the power inequity that is the problem, but
NAMING it
○ How can we fix these inequalities if we don’t talk about them?
● Important to not always keep ourselves in the “GOOD” of the good/bad binary
○ What am I doing to interrupt racism in myself?

Chapter 6: Anti-Blackness
● Importance of grouping white people as “white people” strips the individuality and
uniqueness, to “disrupt non racialized identities”
● History: there was no whiteness before, until there was a need for blackness as inferior,
creating whites as superior
● Affirmative Action: a toll to ensure that qualified minority applicants are given the same
employment opportunities as white people
○ Flexible, no quotas, requirements
○ However, not enforced in the private sector
○ More or less dismantled in 2018
○ White people often outraged by this attempt to rectify social inequities
● Many instances of Black disdain:
○ School to prison pipeline
○ Mass incarcerations
○ White flight in housing (unwilling to live in neighbourhoods with “too many
Black people”
● Instances of police brutality and images of violence towards Black children = our first
instinct is “it must’ve been deserved”
● Anti-Blackness is rooted in:
○ Misinformation
○ Fables
○ Perversions
○ Projections
○ Lies
○ Lack of historical knowledge
○ inability/unwillingness to trace the effects in history into present
○ DEEP GUILT about what we’ve done and continue to do
● White body supremacy: form of trauma stored in our collective bodies
○ Allows us to bury our traumas by victim-blaming
○ “White collective fundamentally hates blackness for what is reminds us of: that
we are capable and guilty of perpetuating immeasurable harm and that our gains
come through the subjugation of others” (95)
● “Trigger for white rage is Blak advancement” (96)
● Issues with “the Blind Side” and stereotyping
○ White saviour complex
 ○ Good/Bad Binary enforced AGAIN

Chapter 7: Racial Triggers for White People

● Within an insulated environment of racial privilege: expect racial comfort and are less
tolerant of racial stress
● WHY are white people defensive when confronted with complicity:
○ Social taboos against talking about race
○ good/bad binary
○ fear/resentment towards POC
○ Objectivity delusion
○ Guilty knowledge there is more going on than we will do
○ Investment in a system that benefits us; conditioned to think it’s fair
○ Internalized superiority complex
○ Deep cultural legacy of anti-black sentiment
● Racially coded language: “urban”, “inner city”, “disadvantaged”
● Habitus: (Pierre Bourdieu) person’s familiar ways of perceiving, interpreting,
responding to social cues from socialization → explanation for the angry response
1) Field: specific social context a person is in (ex: party, workplace, school)
2) Capital: social value people hold in a particular field, how they are perceived (can shift
with the field)
3) Habitus: person’s internalized awareness of status, responses to the status of others(when
racial stress is applied, reaction of discomfort)
● P. 105-106: list of triggers
● Twisting situations, stating the others as “oversensitive”
○ Inability to separate intentions from impact
● When there is a disruption in what is familiar and taken for granted, white fragility
restores equilibrium and returns the capital “lost”

Chapter 8: White Fragility

● Large occurrences of white people thinking they also experience racial prejudice
ex) calling out the Oscars for lacking diversity in 2016: calls to boycott were deemed
“racist towards white people”
● Discourse of self-defense: whites victimizing themselves
● White fragility distorting reality
○ Claims of feeling unsafe when talking about race issues due to POC: putting them
as the antagonists yet again
● Whites DO engage in racial discourse under specific conditions: coded language, indirect
● White Fragility as a form of bullying: “I am going to make it so miserable for you to
confront me - no matter how diplomatically - that you will simply back off, give up,
never try again”
 ● White fragility is the sociology of dominance

Chapter 9: White Fragility in Action

● Comfort in abstract talks about racism, but once it gets specific, white fragility appears
● p . 119: behaviours

Chapter 10: White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement

● CARDINAL RULES on giving feedback (according to white people)
1) Do not give me feedback on my racism under any circumstances
2) Proper tone is crucial - must be calm. If you’re emotional, the feedback is invalid
3) There must be established trust. You must trust that I am not racist first!
4) Our relationship must be issue-free
5) Feedback must be given immediately. Waiting makes it invalid.
6) If you are too direct you are being insensitive
7) Feedback must be private, otherwise I am embarrassed
8) I must feel completely safe
9) Talking about my racial privilege invalidates the oppression I feel
10) You must understand that my intentions are good, so I cannot do wrong
11) To think that my actions are racist means you misunderstood me
● These rules are nonsensical
● Punishes the one giving feedback
● Built to coddle, to protect white fragility
● Kindness must be COUPLED with clarity and courage to name + challenge racism

Chapter 11: White Women’s Tears

● “White tears”: all the ways (literally and metaphorically) that white fragility manifests
itself through white people’s laments over how hard racism is on us
○ White women in cross-racial settings
● Emotions can be very political: emotions are shaped by our biases and beliefs
○ Also often externalized: drive behaviours that impact other people
● History of white women’s tears killing Black men
● Crying to make self the victim when given feedback
○ Draws attention to the tears, not the issue
○ Occurs less frequently in white men, but in other ways (p. 134-135)
● “Tears driven by white guilt are self-indulgent” (p.135)
● Men come and approve of white women readily, but what about women of colour?
● Intersectionality

Chapter 12: Where do we go from here?

● P. 141-143: thoughts to keep in mind when having conversations about race
● Take the initiative and find our yourself!
 ○ Stop expecting POC to explain everything to you
● “Sorry if you were offended by what I said”: this is a weak apology
● Resources exist, they have existed for centuries, we just lacked interest to check them out
1) Breathe
2) Listen
3) Reflect
4) Check underlying assumptions
5) Seek elsewhere if you are confused
6) Take time to process, but also return to the person after
● Don’t feel guilt, but accept responsibility for your role

Never consider yourself finished with learning, it is a messy, but transformative process that we
must engage in throughout our day-to-day life experiences.