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

by Robin DiAngelo

“the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.”

Everyone has prejudice, and everyone discriminates. Given this reality, inserting the qualifier “reverse” is nonsensical.

Thus, our need to qualify that we are speaking about black history or women’s history suggests that these contributions lie outside the norm.

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. The failure to acknowledge white supremacy protects it from examination and holds it in place.

Confusing disagreement with not understanding

Am I actively seeking to interrupt racism in this context? And perhaps even more importantly, how do I know?

There are three key aspects of Bourdieu’s theory that are relevant to white fragility: field, habitus, and capital.

Three key factors to white fragility