Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm

by Robin DiAngelo

I use the term “white progressive” as a stand-in for a particular strain of whiteness. I am not referring to someone’s political affiliation, such as Democrat or Republican, Labor or Tory. I use the term to refer to white people who see themselves as racially progressive, well-meaning, nice. They might call themselves “woke,” or even claim to be “beyond race.” White progressives are generally on the left side of the political spectrum but can be moderates, centrists, or “soft” conservatives.

In Letter from the Birmingham Jail, written in 1963 while he was imprisoned for protesting racial segregation, King observed that white moderates played a fundamental—albeit implicit—part in the resistance to racial equality:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom. . . . Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.2

The insistence that the oppressed slow down their efforts, be more patient, and give the oppressor time to change only functions to protect the oppressor’s position.