White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this "vital, necessary, and beautiful book" (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and "allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people' (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
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Community Reviews
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
I understood the points that DiAngelo was making, but found it quite difficult to relate to. It also started feeling like I was listening to a dissertation or essay about the white experience of racism.
I'll try and finish this another time
I understood the points that DiAngelo was making, but found it quite difficult to relate to. It also started feeling like I was listening to a dissertation or essay about the white experience of racism.
I'll try and finish this another time
"Racism is 'a system of advantage based on race.'" This book is an important one for all white people to read. We have all been acculturated into a racist society, and until we learn ways to talk about the racism that we instinctively [and perhaps unintentionally] express, we will be powerless to change things. So many critical ideas conveyed in this very readable book. DiAngelo has lots of experience in dealing with racism and white fragility...read more
I read a lot about racism (and sexism) and I still think this book provided me with something valuable. It's a different framework from which to view the problems we face and how to best conduct yourself when opposing racism. I'm still trying to process how this works with (or sometimes contradicts?) the type anti-racism espoused by Ibram X. Kendi.
CRANKY'S BOOK CLUB REVIEW OF WHITE FRAGILITY
A few internet searches are enough to see that this book tends to divide opinion very starkly. Our group review is fairly unanimously positive, however, with one of us describing it as being “like an ice bath for your brain” and another remarking, “I do feel so much better for feeling worse for reading it”. We agreed that Robin DiAngelo really knew her subject and hammered her argument home highly c...read more
I went into this book extremely nervous! I'd already heard discussion around this book/author using, for her own gain, issues that society forces onto black people. I've heard that this author is trying to make a quick buck off of the struggles of black people, and people should spend their time and money on reading books on similar issues from black authors. After reading the foreword, I was even more nervous to continue on with the book... it s...read more
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