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

by Robin DiAngelo

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

These bits are pieces of cultural information—images, stories, interpretations, omissions, silences—that are passed along from one person and group to the next, and from one generation to the next.

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;

At the next level of framing, because social institutions (education, medicine, law, government, finance, and the military) are controlled by whites, white dominance is unremarkable and taken for granted.

At the deepest level of the white frame, negative stereotypes and images of racial others as inferior are reinforced and accepted.

It is so internalized, so submerged, that it is never consciously considered or challenged by most whites.

To get a sense of the white racial frame below the surface of your conscious awareness, think back to the earliest time that you were aware that people from racial groups other than your own existed.

Disney movies,

Did your parents tell you that race didn’t matter and that everyone was equal? Did they have many friends of color? If people of color did not live in your neighborhood, why didn’t they? Where did they live? What images, sounds, and smells did you associate with these other neighborhoods? What kind of activities did you think went on there? Were you encouraged to visit these neighborhoods, or were you discouraged from visiting these neighborhoods?

What about schools? What made a school good? Who went to good schools? Who went to bad schools? If the schools in your area were racially segregated (as most schools in the United States are), why didn’t you attend school together? If this is because you lived in different neighborhoods, why did you live in different neighborhoods? Were “their” schools considered equal to, better than, or worse than, yours? If there was busing in your town, in which direction did it go; who was bused into whose schools? Why did the busing go in one direction and not the other?

If you went to school together, did you all sit together in the cafeteria? If not, why not? Were the honors or advanced placement classes and the lower-track classes...

teac...

When was the first time you had a teacher of the same race as yours? Did you often have teachers ...

Why is it important to reflect on our teachers in our effort to uncover our racial socialization and the messages we receive from schools?

If your school was perceived as racially diverse, which races were more represented, and how did the racial distribution affect the sense of value associated with the school?

In the US, race is encoded in geography.

If we were equal, why did we live separately? It must be normal and natural to live apart (certainly no adult in my life was complaining about the separation).

In these ways, the white racial frame is under construction.

Predominately white neighborhoods are not outside of race—they are teeming with race.

Every moment we spend in those environments reinforces powerful aspects of the white racial frame, including a limited worldview, a reliance on deeply problematic depictions of people of color, comfort in segregation with no sense that there might ...

In other words, naming this man’s race would be impolite. But why? What is shameful about being black—so shameful that we should pretend that we don’t notice?

31

The example of a child publicly calling out a black man’s race and embarrassing the mother illustrates several aspects of white children’s racial socialization.

it is taboo to openly talk about race.

they learn that people should pretend not to notice undesirable aspects that define some people as less valuable than others (a large birthmark on som...

as if blackness were shameful or the word itself were impolite.

“I grew up in a small rural community, so I was very sheltered. I didn’t learn anything about racism.”

“I judge people by what they do, not who they are.”

“I don’t see color; I se...

New racism

to capture the 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.

Racism can still exist because it is highly adaptive. Because of this adaptability, we must be able to identify how it changes over time.

For example,

adapted over time to continue to produce racial disparity while it exempts virtually all white people from any involvement in, or benefit from, racism.

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

But systems of oppression are deeply rooted and not overcome with the simple passage of legislation.

Systems of oppression are not completely inflexible.

COLOR-BLIND RACISM

an example of racism’s ability to adapt to cultural changes.3

ideology, if we pretend not to notice race, then there can be no racism. The idea is based on a line from the famous “I Have a Dream” speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

it was much more socially acceptable for white people to admit to their racial prejudices and belief...

But many white people had never witnessed the kind of violence to which blacks were subjected. Because the struggle for civil rights was televised, whites across the nation watched in horror as black men, women, and children were attacked by police dogs and fire hoses d...

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.

But reducing King’s work to this simplistic idea illustrates how movements for social change are co-opted, stripped of their initial challenge, and used against the very cause from which they originated.

In other words, it is racist to acknowledge race.

“Then how will you see racism?”

If she were ever going to understand or challenge racism, she would need to acknowledge this difference.

Pretending that she did not notice that he was black was not helpful to him in any way, as it denied his reality—indeed, it refused his reality—and kept hers insular and unchallenged.