White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Author’s Note-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-4

Chapters 5-7

Chapters 8-11

Chapter 12

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 12 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 12 Summary: “Where Do We Go from Here?”

DiAngelo provides an alternative paradigm for white people—responding to feedback about racism with feelings like “gratitude, excitement, discomfort… humility” (141) and behaviors such as “reflection, apology, [and] listening” (141). When white people hear feedback about racism, they could: own their racism, admit fault, accept feedback, and commit to emotional and behavioral growth. In this paradigm, white people would appreciate feedback, genuinely express apology, and focus on acknowledging their underlying assumptions and developing a more complex understanding of the social nature of white supremacy and individual white people’s participation in it. If white people could reduce their defensiveness, they would disrupt racism and spur authentic growth and relationship.

To provide a template for how a white person should respond when challenged in cross-racial interactions, DiAngelo looks to her own life. She describes an incident that occurred while in the company of a Black web developer. DiAngelo describes the negative reception to a recent diversity training session, joking, “The white people were scared by Deborah’s hair” (139)—a reference to one of her Black colleagues. The developer later tells other members of DiAngelo’s team that the comment offended her. After processing her feelings of embarrassment and shame with a white colleague, DiAngelo asks the developer’s permission to meet toward the goal of repairing the damage caused by her racist comment. The developer agrees, and DiAngelo apologizes and acknowledges that the comment about Deborah’s hair was inappropriate.

DiAngelo goes on to argue that white people can reduce feelings of guilt for perpetrating racism by reminding themselves that they were “socialized as white in a racism-based society” (149). No white person chooses this socialization, though it is each white person’s responsibility to learn about it and undo it. White people could move into not a more positive, but a “less white” (150), white racial identity. DiAngelo encourages white people to continue learning and addressing their own socialization in order to combat racism in the United States.

Chapter 12 Analysis

At the start of Chapter 12, DiAngelo shares a very personal illustration of white fragility. She uses this anecdote to frame her description of what white people can do to combat white fragility. The choice to use this personal example highlights the necessary humility, vulnerability, and openness that combating white fragility requires. DiAngelo returns to her example repeatedly to explore the necessary steps for white people to address their own complicity in white supremacy and to make appropriate repairs. DiAngelo describes owning her racism and how her experience bolsters her arguments about white fragility: Even as an expert, she is not exempt from causing harm. This anecdote is also an opportunity for DiAngelo to argue against white guilt. She writes, “When we are mired in guilt, we are narcissistic and ineffective; guilt functions as an excuse for inaction” (135). Not unlike white women’s tears, guilt centers white emotions in place of Black emotions.

DiAngelo concludes that there is no such thing as a positive white racial identity, only a less white one: “White racial identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy” (149). To DiAngelo, there is no way to make this identity more positive. Instead, white people should work to be “less white… to be less racially oppressive” (150), educating themselves, working on their humility and authenticity, consistently breaking with white solidarity, and acknowledging difficult feelings. DiAngelo emphasizes that this “active” (150) process should be done for white people’s “own liberation and sense of justice, not to save people of color” (150). Moving towards a less white identity would help white people reduce their white fragility and move away from their support of white supremacy.