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

by Robin DiAngelo

Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.

Yet the idea that racism in the United States can operate outside white people is reinforced through celebrations such as Black History Month, in which we study the Civil War and civil rights eras as if they occurred separately from all US history.

I am not against Black History Month. But it should be celebrated in a way that doesn’t reinforce whiteness.

White supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and social system of domination.

Again, racism is a structure, not an event.

Mills makes two points that are critical to our understanding of white fragility.

First, white supremacy is never acknowledged. Second, we cannot study any sociopolitical system without addressing how that system is mediated by race.

If, for example, we look at the racial breakdown of the people who control our institutions, we see telling numbers in 2016–2017:

They represent power and control by a racial group that is in the position to disseminate and protect its own self-image, worldview, and interests across the entire society.

One of the most potent ways white supremacy is disseminated is through media representations, which have a profound impact on how we see the world.

white supremacy is something much more pervasive and subtle than the actions of explicit white nationalists. White

supremacy describes the culture we live in, a culture that positions white people and all that is associated with them (whiteness) as ideal.

the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.

“white racial frame”

how whites circulate and reinforce racial messages that position whites as superior.

At the most general level, the racial frame views whites as superior in culture and achievement and views people of color as generally of less social, economic, and political consequence; people of color are seen as inferior to whites in the making and keeping of the nation.

Every moment we spend in those environments reinforces powerful aspects of the white racial frame, including a limited worldview,

In turn, our capacity to engage constructively across racial lines becomes profoundly limited.

The example of a child publicly calling out a black man’s race

First, children learn that it is taboo to openly talk about race.

Second, they learn that people should pretend not to notice undesirable aspects that define some people as less valuable than others (a large birthmark on someone’s face, a person using a wheelchair).

These lessons manifest themselves later in life, when white adults drop their voices before naming the race of someone who isn’t white (and especially so if the race being named is black), as if blackness were shameful or the word itself were impolite. If we add all the comments we make about people of color privately, when we are ...

All systems of oppression are adaptive; they can withstand and adjust to challenges and still maintain inequality.

One line of King’s speech in particular—that one day he might be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin—was seized upon by the white public because the words were seen to provide a simple and immediate solution to racial tensions: pretend that we don’t see race, and racism will end.

Color blindness was now promoted as the remedy for racism, with white people insisting that they didn’t see race or, if they did, that it had no meaning to them.

Color-blind ideology makes it difficult for us to address these unconscious beliefs.

we can’t change what we refuse to see.

Our lack of understanding about implicit bias leads to aversive racism.

Aversive racism is a manifestation of racism that well-intentioned people who see themselves as educated and progressive are more likely to exhibit.

“I judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin”).

when I tell her that I am interested in how whites talk about race without talking about race, she switches the narrative.

This is a classic example of aversive racism: holding deep racial disdain that surfaces in daily discourse but not being able to admit it because the disdain conflicts with our self-image and professed beliefs.

If we grow up in environments with few if any people of color, are we not in fact less sheltered from racist conditioning because we have to rely on narrow and repetitive media representations, jokes, omissions, and warnings for our understanding of people of color?

The adaptations produce the same outcome (people of color are blocked from moving forward) but have been put in place by a dominant white society that won’t or can’t admit to its beliefs.

To understand how white people become so difficult in conversations about race, we need to understand the underlying foundation of white fragility: how being white shapes our perspectives, experiences, and responses.

whiteness has psychological advantages that translate into material returns.

As I move through my day, racism just isn’t my problem.

White solidarity is the unspoken agreement among whites to protect white advantage and not cause another white person to feel racial discomfort by confronting them when they say or do something racially problematic.

my silence is not benign because it protects and maintains the racial hierarchy and my place within it. Each uninterrupted joke furthers the circulation of racism through the culture, and the ability for the joke to circulate depends on my complicity.

People of color certainly experience white solidarity as a form of racism, wherein we fail to hold each other accountable, to challenge racism when we see it, or to support people of color in the struggle for racial justice.

For most whites, the percentage of young men of color in a neighborhood is directly correlated with perceptions of the neighborhood crime level.16

It has been well documented that blacks and Latinos are stopped by police more often than whites are for the same activities and that they receive harsher sentences than whites do for the same crimes.

Whites continually receive the benefit of the doubt not granted to people of color—our race alone helps establish our innocence.

For those of us who work to raise the racial consciousness of whites, simply getting whites to acknowledge that our race gives us advantages is a major effort.

To ask people of color to tell us how they experience racism without first building a trusting relationship and being willing to meet them halfway by also being vulnerable shows that we are not racially aware and that this exchange will probably be invalidating for them.

In summary, our socialization engenders a common set of racial patterns. These patterns are the foundation of white fragility:

Although individual racist acts do occur, these acts are part of a larger system of interlocking dynamics. The focus on individual incidences masks the personal, interpersonal, cultural, historical, and structural analysis that is necessary to challenge this larger system.

The good/bad binary certainly obscures the structural nature of racism and makes it difficult for us to see or understand. Equally problematic is the impact of such a worldview on our actions. If, as a white person, I conceptualize racism as a binary and I place myself on the “not racist” side, what further action is required of me? No action is required, because I am not a racist. Therefore, racism is not my problem;

This worldview guarantees that I will not build my skills in thinking critically about racism or use my position to challenge racial inequality.

If you believe that you are being told you are a bad person, all your energy is likely to go toward denying this possibility and invalidating the messenger rather than trying to understand why what you’ve said or done is hurtful. You will probably respond with white fragility. But unfortunately, white fragility can only protect the problematic behavior you feel so defensive about; it does not demonstrate that you are an open person who has no problematic racial behavior.