Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm

by Robin DiAngelo

While virtually any white progressive you ask will claim to not be racist, consider the following questions for reflection: • Did you grow up in an integrated neighborhood? If so, do you still live in one? If not and you do now, is it due to gentrification? • If you did not grow up in an integrated neighborhood, why didn’t you? • If everyone is equal, how did you make sense of living separately? • Did your parents encourage you to visit the places where Black people lived in order to get to know them and build the relationships that were missing in your environment? • Did your parents have a significant number of Black friends themselves? • Did you attend integrated schools? If so, was your school considered to be “good”? • Did you study systemic racism in your K–12 education? If you graduated from college, did you study systemic racism there? • Was it integrated throughout your education by your professors, including your Black professors? Or were your professors overwhelmingly white? Did those white professors have to demonstrate that they were able to engage with issues of racism in the curriculum and classroom dynamics before they were considered qualified to teach? • Did you have to demonstrate that you had a foundational understanding of racism before you could graduate, or teach, manage people, or practice medicine or law? • If you were not educated about racism, have you sought every— or even any—opportunity to gain that education yourself? • Do you work in an orga...