I am very reluctant to give a negative review, especially when the author is trying to be helpful. In places the author has correctly diagnosed a number of genuine problems.
Merely being non-racist isn’t good enough, because you end up as a bystander when a bully is beating up on a victim; both covering your eyes and ears and refusing to acknowledge what the victim (of racism) is telling you is happening to them.
If you haven’t been a victim you cannot fully understand being a victim. If you haven’t experienced the pervasiveness and constancy of negative bias both coming from other groups and even influencing your own view of yourself – then you will never completely comprehend. So in one respect a white person cannot truly say, “I get it.”
Neither can you ever do enough to win a gold star and say you’ve done “enough” as long as racism exists.
It’s like the Talmudic maxim: “you will never finish perfecting the world, but you are never free to stop trying.”
If the book stopped there, it would be fine. Perhaps even excellent.
But I give this book one star because it makes the problem worse.
This book is like a bad date where the other person is accusing you of all of your failures, and when you try to make up, to do better, to understand more, to be fully engaged as an ally, you are continually pushed away.
And then you are told to “breathe” and calm down. Surely you are getting upset and proving the thesis!
Except that’s not what’s happening.
Yes, whites don’t see racism because they aren’t a target of it. If you aren’t a racist, then you don’t hang around racists. And if you aren’t black then you don’t have it hurled in your face. 99% of the problem is created by 1% of whites who other whites don’t see.
The same would be true for misogyny. 99% of rapes are caused by 1% of perps, and the 99% of innocent men don’t see it because the perps aren’t harassing them.
So men need to listen without being defensive. Whites need to listen without being defensive. It’s wrong to say, “But I’m not doing it” as if that will make it go away.
But it’s also wrong to say that the non-harassing men or the non-harassing whites are guilty BECAUSE of their innocence.
No, they aren’t being bad. They are being clueless. And instead of being accused they need to be engaged.
Especially when they WANT to listen and be helpful.
In short, if someone wants to be your friend – let them.
This book doesn’t invite engagement and doesn’t let the non-involved to become involved in affirmatively fighting racism. It turns a lot of would be allies away.
Ultimately, it’s self defeating.
We need more people aware of racism. We need more people fighting racism. We need the majority engaged in helping the minority, rather than being turned away.
I’d give this book five stars if it were half as long. But it’s the flawed existentialism that makes this book a hindrance to people who should be friends, and would be friends, if they were allowed to be.
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![White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by [Robin J. DiAngelo, Michael Eric Dyson]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51aDh-YMFAL._SY346_.jpg)
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Popular Highlights in this book
When a racial group’s collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control, it is transformed into racism, a far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors.Highlighted by 34,814 Kindle readers- People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against white people, but they lack the social and institutional power that transforms their prejudice and discrimination into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual.Highlighted by 33,295 Kindle readers
- When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people.Highlighted by 31,608 Kindle readers
- Discrimination is action based on prejudice. These actions include ignoring, exclusion, threats, ridicule, slander, and violence.Highlighted by 25,475 Kindle readers
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Customer reviews
Fails to Address Systemic Racism and Dangerously Mischaracterizes Social Interactions
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2020
Erving Goffman spoke a great deal about the masks that we put on each day - and how each day is a performance on stage - what identity do we choose to select during different parts of our day, our workplace, our lives, etc. But even more than that he spoke about the challenges of navigating identity and our place in the world as human beings, our necessity to be present in relationships with others, and in 'Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity,' the challenge of maintaining our selves in the face of the judgments of others.Robin here is plying her own misconceptions in a way to promulgate conspicuous consumption of ignorance. The systemic injustices created by racial division and the identities, the masks-if you will-that those with more melanin than a 'white person' as she describes them-have to wear on a daily basis to navigate this world are not in any way dependent upon 'white fragility,' or the 'moral condition of white people's soul.' This isn't about 'white supremacy,' 'white fragility,' 'whiteness studies,' or 'white rage,' and its never been about that. It's about the lived African-American experience and how they navigate this world and their identities in spite of being discriminated against in the past and currently.The 'other' in majority societies, whether black or brown in majority white or a korean in majority Japanese, or an African-American in rural China, has to navigate the world and change their performance based upon the majority culture of experience they live in. Gaijin, foreigner, immigrant, 'those people,' poor people, gang members - these are all terms used by majority societies to describe the 'other.'By jumping on the neologism 'White Fragility' to sell a book and continuing to misuse this term as a blanket application all across America, the author dangerously mischaracterizes the lived experiences of whites and blacks in America and promulgates a chilling expression of ignorance and hatred during a time when we must come together and bridge divides. The performances we each undertake during our daily lives to navigate the complexities of majority societies are not dependent upon monolithic, unchanging fiats of social interactions that are subsumed under the term 'White Fragility' as the author claims.Goffman, Malcolm X, and other authors are more appropriate to read here and will give you a better picture of how to characterize these interactions-they are not predicated on this denial of the self of white individuals and the blanket assumption of original sin for all white people. By promoting the culture of 'J'Accuse!' of the French Revolution and sending all white people off to the guillotine before there is a chance to object, to actively work to address racism and stand together with their fellow Americans who may be African-American or other minorities, the author is being intellectually dishonest and terribly insults the intelligence of her readers.This is neither the time, nor the place to promote these juvenile neologisms to sell books. Thorstein Veblen highlighted this impulse and Ms. Diangelo is happy to jump on the bandwagon.
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2020
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Absolutely Astonishing.
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White, interested in racism, open & wondering of you really get everything on merit?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 20, 2018FT
should be legal requirement to read
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