May 23, 2024 • 23 mins
Despite being widely criticized, White Fragility has been hugely successful. The best-selling book, which fraught with mistaken assumptions and misguided directives, epitomizes a very flawed approach to antiracism.
This episode is a clear, concise explainer of three major issues — and these are critiques you'll want to hear.
Related episodes:
Everyone’s Wrong About Racial Bias on Apple and Spotify
Should We Embrace Race or Move Past It? on Apple and Spotify
You Need to Change How You Think About Whiteness on Apple & Spotify
To support Marie and get exclusive resources, head to patreon.com/mariebeech. To learn more about Marie's DEI services, head to mariebeecham.com.
This episode is a clear, concise explainer of three major issues — and these are critiques you'll want to hear.
Related episodes:
Everyone’s Wrong About Racial Bias on Apple and Spotify
Should We Embrace Race or Move Past It? on Apple and Spotify
You Need to Change How You Think About Whiteness on Apple & Spotify
To support Marie and get exclusive resources, head to patreon.com/mariebeech. To learn more about Marie's DEI services, head to mariebeecham.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hello, and welcome back. I'myour host, Marie Beacham, and you
are listening to No Better, DoBetter podcast that makes it easy for you
to get informed about race. Ontoday's episode, I am offering up my
final word for the time being onRobin DiAngelo White Fragility principles and practices that
(00:33):
she teaches. We're going to tiea nice little bow on what we've been
exploring in the last couple of episodes. All of this was provoked by me
picking up her latter book titled NiceRacism from the library on a whim.
So in episode one thirty six,I talked about my many issues with that
book and her philosophy overall. Inepisode one thirty seven, I focus on
(00:58):
one big, big, big errorthat's evident in both of her books,
in all of her work. SoI talked about how I read her first
book, White Fragility in twenty twenty, took every word as truth, and
that wreak havoc on my life.It led to a lot of cognitive distortions,
a lot of thought processes that weren'tmanageable or healthy or helpful or accurate.
(01:19):
So then I learned a bunch overthe next few years, and then
to read her second book, readingit years after its release just now in
twenty twenty four, I was muchmore equipped to face these ideas and be
able to dissect them and discern thegood from the bad, because I had
this wealth of knowledge that I sadlydidn't have in my first go around.
(01:41):
And I've come to find that manyof you have engaged with Robin Angelo's work
in a similar way to how Idid in twenty twenty pretty uncritical lens,
very persuasive writing, and so youjust feel like, Okay, I ought
to sign off on all of thisif I am to be a socially aware
anti racist person. But if ifyou're anything like me, that might have
taken a toll on you might havesnagged your conscience a time or two.
(02:06):
And I'm here to be a voicethat says, yes, we should be
one thousand percent committed to anti racismand know Robin DiAngelo and white fragility and
all of that. It's not theflawless messenger, it's pretty flawed. So
really quick, I just want tofocus on three clear issues that are recurring
in Robin Di Angelo's teachings and theteachings of people very similar to Robin Dangelo.
(02:30):
I'm using her as a guide becausemany of you have engaged with her
work, and I believe she's prettymuch untouchable. I'm not trying to really
poke at anyone's livelihood or anything,but I think she's set. I think
she's immune from my poking. SoI will poke on three big errors that
you may have heard that are passedoff as the right way to be anti
(02:50):
racist, that I don't think arethe right way to be anti racist,
and they're epitomized in white fragility.Let's start with number one. Robin Angelo
makes a lot of race based generalizationsand defends making race based generalizations. So
Robin Angelo, she talks about howall of society, every moment of daily
(03:12):
life, every conversation, every situation, it is saturated in racialized power dynamics.
And because of that, she says, we need to really be paying
attention to that. We need tobe looking for patterns, and when we
see those patterns, we can makegeneralizations about people of different races. There's
a lot of good to this,like it's fair to make generalizations, to
make observations of who is in positionsof power, who is without who is
(03:38):
given this privilege who is not.Those kinds of generalizations or observations are good
and fine and helpful, but shetakes it further than that. Even in
her latter book, Nice Racism,there's a whole chapter devoted to why she
thinks it's good that we make generalizationsabout white people. And she's not just
talking about generalizations like white people inherentwealth, not just factual generalizations like that,
(04:02):
but she's talking about character based generalizations. And so she says it's fine
to say that white people are generallyxyz fill in a negative personal attribute,
personal trait, and that if awhite person is defensive of a statement like
that, that it's their white fragilityor their sensitivity, or their inherent sense
(04:23):
of supremacy. And she defends thesegeneralizations. But I don't think that's right
because these generalizations are racial stereotyping ina way, and racial stereotyping moves as
backwards not forward. Now, I'mnot just doing all this stuff to coddle
white people, though that's what mycritics may believe. I'm out for much
(04:43):
more than a pep talk. I'mtalking about racial reconciliation and the ultimate aim
of racial justice and racial equity work. If our ultimate aim is coming together
and being unified without racism causing division, and without race being used as an
indicator that stands in the way ofwho we are as individuals. If that's
the goal, then to hold tightlyto a lot of race based generalizations can
(05:08):
bring us in the wrong direction.And these race based generalizations she makes character
generalizations about white people. She alsomakes other generalizations about white people that seem
like low blows. You know,white people don't just cry tears, they
cry white tears. They don't justfeel guilt, they feel white guilt.
She uses white as a modifier fora lot of things about white people,
(05:29):
because whatever white people do, she'slike, well, you're doing that because
you're white. And I kind ofget that, but in ways it's not
fully appropriate, not fully eh.I'm not going down this road because what
I'm trying to get to is thegeneralizations that she makes about people of color.
Now, in episode one thirty six, I talk about how in her
telling of things, people of colorare made to be simple minded, and
(05:50):
not just that, not just thatthey're flat. One note side characters in
this mission to unpack whiteness, peopleof color are also made to be very
fragile, breakable, very easily harmed, and so white people must be committed
in a deeply personal, self healthytype of way to deal with the harm
that might be caused to people ofcolor. So there's that her characterization of
(06:14):
people of color, it falls flat. But also there are all of these
traits that she claims are white traits, then, by implication, are traits
that are not inherent to being aperson who is non white. And this
is a common thing you hear fromdifferent anti racist, progressive teachers. They
say that things like being punctual ortimely, that's a white thing. So
(06:36):
to expect punctuality is white supremacy.Is their truth to the idea of different
cultures and how they have different values. Yes, there's absolutely truth to that,
But to read it as a blackAmerican who has always lived in America
not really been a part of anyother culture, and to read that if
I'm punctual, maybe I've internalized whitenessor internalized some sort of anti blackness that
(07:00):
therefore makes me more likely to beon time. I think that's an overreach.
Thankfully, I don't need to ponderthat because I'm not a punctual person.
But that's neither here nor there.The point is that if I were,
if I were to become punctual,that's not me stepping into a white
trait. And so to talk aboutsomething like punctuality as if it falls along
(07:23):
these racial lines, this is hilariousthat I'm admitting my lack of punctuality,
But I've got to be honest.I just don't think that that's a fair
thing. To be racialized and tomake these generalizations about She and other progressive
anti racist voices also talk about thingslike objective truth being a white value,
whereas there being a greater emphasis onsubjectivity and non white cultures and among non
(07:47):
white people. Then there's this pushand this questioning of, well, what
about our school curriculum. We're reallyvaluing objectivity. We're valuing objectivity in math,
we're valuing objectivity in testing, Andmaybe this is white supremacy. Maybe
our students of color don't value objectivityas much and they will be punished for
it, and that's white supremacy,and that's racism. I think that's a
(08:11):
real overreach. I could do awhole different episode on that. But to
racialize something like mathematics and say thatpeople of color, because of their inherent
values and their culture, are thereforeless able to engage in mathematics and engage
in objective reasoning and things like that. That just has these backwards effects where
(08:33):
you end up perpetuating stereotypes and affirmingthe idea that only people of a certain
racial group are really set up tobe able to test well or to be
able to whatever fill in the blank. So all that to say point one
issue one. I have a feelingthis episode will not be as fast as
I expected. But point one isthat there are too many race based generalizations
(08:56):
being made. I totally agree withthe observation about where we have ended up
in society, or the observations aboutculture, or the observations about many things.
We can observe the things that fallacross racial lines. But when you
take it to the point of makinggeneralizations that have to do with personal attributes
or personal abilities or things like that, and you say that race shapes a
(09:20):
person, then you end up beingguilty of the very thing you want to
put an end to. It's justold fashioned racial stereotypes, and that's no
good. Second big issue with whitefragility and Robin DeAngelo's approach is that in
her model of things, in herdescription, white people are really really typecasted
(09:41):
as inept, harmful liabilities. Liabilityis just the word that just screams at
me because I'm reading basically a manual, and the underlying theme throughout this whole
manual of White Fragility is that youwhite person, reader, you are a
liability. You are prone to tocause harm. You're a ticking time bomb.
(10:03):
So you should go to these variouslengths to minimize harm, mitigate harm,
try to be less racist. You'llnever really reach the finish line,
but you know, dig deep andat least try. And I think that
there are issues with that narrative too. Again, I'm not just stepping in
to put a nice little smile onwhite people's faces. I'm saying this as
(10:24):
a person of color who When Iread this book in twenty twenty and I
was drinking the kool aid, Iwas like, oh gosh, got it,
Okay, white people are liabilities,and I became terrified of white people.
White people were guilty until proven innocent. White people only had the potential
to cause harm. White people neededto kind of prove to me that they
(10:46):
were doing all of these things tominimize their harm in order for me to
feel like I could get close tothem without it being a dangerous thing to
do. I mean, this viewjust really complicates inter racial relationships of all
kinds, even for someone like mewho's a mixed race person. Hello,
product of an interracial relationship. Andyet with this view that white people are
(11:07):
liabilities, now all of a sudden, interracial relationships seem like they kind of
shouldn't happen. And I'm talking aboutplatonic I'm talking about all of the relationships
in your life. Like she talksabout how white people should pay their friends
who are people of color for theiremotional labor if they're going to discuss anything
related to race. To pay friendsfor just having a conversation is no way
(11:30):
to have a harmonious multi racial society. That's a step in the wrong direction.
And she says over and over apretty contradictory message that white people both
need to have a lot of peopleof color in their life to prove that
they aren't racist and to become thekind of person who isn't racist. But
then there's also this other message thatwhite people are too dangerous to be around
(11:50):
people of color, and so thereforethey need to give people of color a
lot of space because they can't reallybe trusted. And I think about I've
gotten messages from multiple people, peoplewho say, I'm a white parent and
one of my children is a personof color, biological children, adoptive children,
foster child, and they say,after reading White Fragility, I became
(12:13):
pretty convinced that I could not bea fitting parent or a fitting spouse because
of my whiteness. And the callto action in White Fragility is be less
white. You must be less whiteto minimize your heart. And then these
people who are doing their best tobe loving, anti racist, non prejudiced,
supportive, emotionally intelligent parents, They'relike, my hands are tied.
(12:35):
I don't know how to be lesswhite. So I guess I'm a liability
to my own child. I don'tknow what to do with that. I
don't know how to be better.And that's why I take such issue with
this lens that white people are liabilities. Not just because that creates a weird,
unfortunate, confusing self image for whitepeople, though that is a problem.
(12:56):
I'm very concerned for the people ofcolor like myself, who are taught
this because it does play out asa self fulfilling prophecy. When you're taught
to fear and be suspicious of,and be on guard for and be bracing
yourself for all of the harm thatthe white people in your life are bound
to cause. That led to awhole lot of racial battle fatigue for me.
That took a real toll. Thatreally wears on a person, a
(13:20):
person of color. And when awhite person believes that, they believe the
most responsible thing they can do is, you know, keep their distance.
And when a person of color seesthings that way as well, then they
also the normal response is, okay, I gotta get a lot of distance
from these people. If they aretruly this ignorant, this bigoted, this
careless, this incapable of being antiracist, then I want nothing to do
(13:46):
with that. And so you endup with in a Robin DiAngelo world,
a world that ends up being veryracially divided and very racially distanced, which
leads to my third point. Mythird big issue with Robin DiAngelo's whole teaching
framework, her whole view of antiracism is that the entire goal of anti
(14:07):
racism is lost. The goal ofanti racism is lost, and forward becomes
backward, and up becomes down,and we're all confused as heck, because
while these handbooks are meant to equipyou to be anti racist and work toward
justice and equity and hopefully someday unity, many people walk away from them,
(14:30):
and the takeaway is the opposite.The takeaway is a lot of distance and
a lot of division, because that'sportrayed is the only way to protect people
of color from racism and microaggressions.And so if white people go to their
workshops with white people and they tryto unlearn and they try to figure out
how to minimize harm, that's good. That minimizes the issue of whiteness within
(14:52):
them. But still they walk outof those workshops or those trainings, or
they put down the book and they'retold that to be real aware is to
trust themselves less and less and less. And I don't think that's the right
teaching for white people. And again, I'm not just aiming this at a
PEP talk. This is not justsaying white people, you guys are doing
great. You're doing it awesome,You're knocking it out of the park.
(15:13):
Don't worry about this anti racism stuffthat Robin Di Angelo keeps bugging you about.
No, just live your life,and I'm sure we're all going to
slide our way in the direction ofa racial utopia. That's all it's gonna
take. No, that is notthat is not what I'm getting at.
I think that anti racism work isimportant, and it is needed, and
(15:37):
it is so crucial that it's crucialwe get it right. So every idea
that we believe that we want toteach to our kids, that we want
to teach to our peers, thatwe want to teach in college classes,
and we want to teach in bookclubs, whatever it is, they need
to be really right because any degreeto which we're off the mark, that's
(15:58):
a real problem. And I'll havemany episodes linked in the show notes related
to DeAngelo's framework and what I thinkis so wrong. But one of the
ideas I think is so wrong ishow she portrays everyone as inherently really super
racist, inherently affected a lot byimplicit racial bias. This overinflated view of
(16:18):
implicit racial bias. It's based onfaulty ideas and research that has been misrepresented
over the past two decades. I'vegot a few episodes devoted to that,
So that's in the show notes.Because, as I'm saying all of this,
white people are just portrayed as liabilities, and we shouldn't believe that.
We need to see that with intentionaleffort, white people actually can be good
(16:40):
and anti racist, and they canbe around people of color and we'll all
be okay. As I was sayingthat, maybe you're thinking, No,
unconscious bias is real, Marie,And it is real, but it's not
real how we think. Because somany of us think it's this real,
hidden evil that hides in the recessesof our minds and will never be able
to find it, will never beable to do anything about it, but
somehow it's controlling everything you think andsay and do. No, that's not
(17:04):
how it works. Implicit bias isreal, but it is so real that
it shows up in our lives.Implicit racial bias expresses itself as explicit racial
bias, which means that we aren'tirreversibly, irredeemably affected by implicit bias.
No, we are affected by it, but we're affected in ways that can
(17:26):
become apparent to us. So anyway, that's one of the big corrections that
need to be made. That's kindof a lynchpin in understanding a big fault
with DiAngelo's view that everybody is reallyreally racist. Again, I fear I
could be misunderstood because I'm trying tomake this fast. Racism is a problem,
Racism is real. There is sucha thing as implicit bias, and
(17:48):
there is such a thing as racismin our systems, and racism in our
minds and racism in our lives.I talk about that in so many episodes
of the podcast. That's why Ido what I do. But when these
ideas are misrepresented, boy, itgrinds my gears. And I think DiAngelo's
framework, which has become so popular, it's become really dominant in culture,
(18:08):
I think it's a real misrepresentation ofwhat racial prejudice even is and how it
actually operates. Her portrayal of implicitracial bias, it borders on something that's
more jargon than argument, And soI want to bring us back to the
facts because I think that really servesus well. Then the other lynchpin for
(18:29):
understanding what's so problematic about d'angelo's approachand white fragility is just her general baseline
assumption, which is that race andracial identity are very, very central to
who a person is. There's alot about that idea that I agree with,
a lot about that idea that's goodand needed in our society. But
under her tutelage and in progressive circles, we have taken that past the point
(18:53):
of it being useful and productive andhelpful, and it gets taken to the
point where it becomes a very racistidea. This too, is something I've
got a multi part series on.It'll be linked in the show notes.
But the real question is whether wemove forward, whether we get closer to
our equitable, unified goals by embracingrace more saying that race matters a heck
(19:18):
of a lot and we should payattention to it a heck of a lot,
or by emphasizing race less in certaincircles, saying that in order to
not treat people differently based on therace, we ought to not see people
differently based on the race. Andin this multi part series I make the
case for both that both of thoseapproaches have a lot of merit to them,
and that neither on its own isthe best standalone solution. So The
(19:42):
issue with DiAngelo's approach is that she'sa fan of the former, and she
just completely dismisses the latter. Shesays, we should absolutely embrace race.
We should see ourselves and others inlight of our racial identities. We should
see everything in life in light ofour racial power dynamics. And there's good
that there's lots of situations where thatapplies, and that's useful and that helps
(20:03):
us to deal with and address racism. But she takes it to a point
where I think, if I weresitting down with the woman, she would
only ever see me as a blackwoman, And no matter how much she
got to know me, I don'tknow if I'd ever be seen as Marie.
And that's a problem because race isan important part of our identity.
She gets that, she does thatwell. She communicates that idea very convincingly.
(20:27):
Race is an important part of ouridentity, but it's not all of
our identity. And when it's madeto be all of our identity, we
let racism in through the back door. Where now, Robin DiAngelo, you,
in this backwards way, end updefining me by my race, seeing
me as nothing more than my race, reducing me down to my race and
(20:48):
making all sorts of generalizations, allsorts of blanket statements about who I am
and what my values are, andwhat my values ought to be, and
what my personal attributes are, andit becomes tech next book Racism. So
AnyWho, I'll step off the soapboxfor now and say that I hope you
enjoyed this little three part series dissectingand unpacking some of Robin d'angelo's teachings the
(21:12):
teachings a parent in her book.This is not an all an endorsement for
her books, but these books doserve to open up a lot of topics,
open up a lot of conversations,get us talking, and get us
thinking about why anti racism matters andwhat it really ought to look like.
And the two topics I touched onat the end here correcting the misconceptions about
(21:33):
implicit racial bias and also trying toplay referee for the whole debate about whether
we should embrace race more or movepast race, and how surprisingly the data
comes back mixed on which one willactually bring us closer to our anti racist
racial utopia. Both of those topicshave entire episodes devoted to them, and
(21:53):
they are linked in the show notes. That's where you should go next.
As always, I appreciate your thoughtlistening and your open hearts and your open
minds. We have grown a beautifullittle community here of people who think,
really, really critically about how tocreate a better world, how to practice
anti racism, and how to engagewith all of these important topics. Thank
(22:18):
you so much for listening. Ifyou enjoy these episodes, send them to
your group chats, share them onlineon social media, leave a rating or
review for the podcast, whatever suitsyour fancy. It all serves to help
this podcast and its mission reach morepeople and then hopefully impact more people.
(22:38):
Thank you so much for your support. Hosting this podcast is truly an honor
and a privilege and a joy,and I am so grateful for every single
one of you. And if youonly take away one thing from this episode,
I hope it's that change starts withyou.
Hello, and welcome back. I'myour host, Marie Beacham, and you
are listening to No Better, DoBetter podcast that makes it easy for you
to get informed about race. Ontoday's episode, I am offering up my
final word for the time being onRobin DiAngelo White Fragility principles and practices that
(00:33):
she teaches. We're going to tiea nice little bow on what we've been
exploring in the last couple of episodes. All of this was provoked by me
picking up her latter book titled NiceRacism from the library on a whim.
So in episode one thirty six,I talked about my many issues with that
book and her philosophy overall. Inepisode one thirty seven, I focus on
(00:58):
one big, big, big errorthat's evident in both of her books,
in all of her work. SoI talked about how I read her first
book, White Fragility in twenty twenty, took every word as truth, and
that wreak havoc on my life.It led to a lot of cognitive distortions,
a lot of thought processes that weren'tmanageable or healthy or helpful or accurate.
(01:19):
So then I learned a bunch overthe next few years, and then
to read her second book, readingit years after its release just now in
twenty twenty four, I was muchmore equipped to face these ideas and be
able to dissect them and discern thegood from the bad, because I had
this wealth of knowledge that I sadlydidn't have in my first go around.
(01:41):
And I've come to find that manyof you have engaged with Robin Angelo's work
in a similar way to how Idid in twenty twenty pretty uncritical lens,
very persuasive writing, and so youjust feel like, Okay, I ought
to sign off on all of thisif I am to be a socially aware
anti racist person. But if ifyou're anything like me, that might have
taken a toll on you might havesnagged your conscience a time or two.
(02:06):
And I'm here to be a voicethat says, yes, we should be
one thousand percent committed to anti racismand know Robin DiAngelo and white fragility and
all of that. It's not theflawless messenger, it's pretty flawed. So
really quick, I just want tofocus on three clear issues that are recurring
in Robin Di Angelo's teachings and theteachings of people very similar to Robin Dangelo.
(02:30):
I'm using her as a guide becausemany of you have engaged with her
work, and I believe she's prettymuch untouchable. I'm not trying to really
poke at anyone's livelihood or anything,but I think she's set. I think
she's immune from my poking. SoI will poke on three big errors that
you may have heard that are passedoff as the right way to be anti
(02:50):
racist, that I don't think arethe right way to be anti racist,
and they're epitomized in white fragility.Let's start with number one. Robin Angelo
makes a lot of race based generalizationsand defends making race based generalizations. So
Robin Angelo, she talks about howall of society, every moment of daily
(03:12):
life, every conversation, every situation, it is saturated in racialized power dynamics.
And because of that, she says, we need to really be paying
attention to that. We need tobe looking for patterns, and when we
see those patterns, we can makegeneralizations about people of different races. There's
a lot of good to this,like it's fair to make generalizations, to
make observations of who is in positionsof power, who is without who is
(03:38):
given this privilege who is not.Those kinds of generalizations or observations are good
and fine and helpful, but shetakes it further than that. Even in
her latter book, Nice Racism,there's a whole chapter devoted to why she
thinks it's good that we make generalizationsabout white people. And she's not just
talking about generalizations like white people inherentwealth, not just factual generalizations like that,
(04:02):
but she's talking about character based generalizations. And so she says it's fine
to say that white people are generallyxyz fill in a negative personal attribute,
personal trait, and that if awhite person is defensive of a statement like
that, that it's their white fragilityor their sensitivity, or their inherent sense
(04:23):
of supremacy. And she defends thesegeneralizations. But I don't think that's right
because these generalizations are racial stereotyping ina way, and racial stereotyping moves as
backwards not forward. Now, I'mnot just doing all this stuff to coddle
white people, though that's what mycritics may believe. I'm out for much
(04:43):
more than a pep talk. I'mtalking about racial reconciliation and the ultimate aim
of racial justice and racial equity work. If our ultimate aim is coming together
and being unified without racism causing division, and without race being used as an
indicator that stands in the way ofwho we are as individuals. If that's
the goal, then to hold tightlyto a lot of race based generalizations can
(05:08):
bring us in the wrong direction.And these race based generalizations she makes character
generalizations about white people. She alsomakes other generalizations about white people that seem
like low blows. You know,white people don't just cry tears, they
cry white tears. They don't justfeel guilt, they feel white guilt.
She uses white as a modifier fora lot of things about white people,
(05:29):
because whatever white people do, she'slike, well, you're doing that because
you're white. And I kind ofget that, but in ways it's not
fully appropriate, not fully eh.I'm not going down this road because what
I'm trying to get to is thegeneralizations that she makes about people of color.
Now, in episode one thirty six, I talk about how in her
telling of things, people of colorare made to be simple minded, and
(05:50):
not just that, not just thatthey're flat. One note side characters in
this mission to unpack whiteness, peopleof color are also made to be very
fragile, breakable, very easily harmed, and so white people must be committed
in a deeply personal, self healthytype of way to deal with the harm
that might be caused to people ofcolor. So there's that her characterization of
(06:14):
people of color, it falls flat. But also there are all of these
traits that she claims are white traits, then, by implication, are traits
that are not inherent to being aperson who is non white. And this
is a common thing you hear fromdifferent anti racist, progressive teachers. They
say that things like being punctual ortimely, that's a white thing. So
(06:36):
to expect punctuality is white supremacy.Is their truth to the idea of different
cultures and how they have different values. Yes, there's absolutely truth to that,
But to read it as a blackAmerican who has always lived in America
not really been a part of anyother culture, and to read that if
I'm punctual, maybe I've internalized whitenessor internalized some sort of anti blackness that
(07:00):
therefore makes me more likely to beon time. I think that's an overreach.
Thankfully, I don't need to ponderthat because I'm not a punctual person.
But that's neither here nor there.The point is that if I were,
if I were to become punctual,that's not me stepping into a white
trait. And so to talk aboutsomething like punctuality as if it falls along
(07:23):
these racial lines, this is hilariousthat I'm admitting my lack of punctuality,
But I've got to be honest.I just don't think that that's a fair
thing. To be racialized and tomake these generalizations about She and other progressive
anti racist voices also talk about thingslike objective truth being a white value,
whereas there being a greater emphasis onsubjectivity and non white cultures and among non
(07:47):
white people. Then there's this pushand this questioning of, well, what
about our school curriculum. We're reallyvaluing objectivity. We're valuing objectivity in math,
we're valuing objectivity in testing, Andmaybe this is white supremacy. Maybe
our students of color don't value objectivityas much and they will be punished for
it, and that's white supremacy,and that's racism. I think that's a
(08:11):
real overreach. I could do awhole different episode on that. But to
racialize something like mathematics and say thatpeople of color, because of their inherent
values and their culture, are thereforeless able to engage in mathematics and engage
in objective reasoning and things like that. That just has these backwards effects where
(08:33):
you end up perpetuating stereotypes and affirmingthe idea that only people of a certain
racial group are really set up tobe able to test well or to be
able to whatever fill in the blank. So all that to say point one
issue one. I have a feelingthis episode will not be as fast as
I expected. But point one isthat there are too many race based generalizations
(08:56):
being made. I totally agree withthe observation about where we have ended up
in society, or the observations aboutculture, or the observations about many things.
We can observe the things that fallacross racial lines. But when you
take it to the point of makinggeneralizations that have to do with personal attributes
or personal abilities or things like that, and you say that race shapes a
(09:20):
person, then you end up beingguilty of the very thing you want to
put an end to. It's justold fashioned racial stereotypes, and that's no
good. Second big issue with whitefragility and Robin DeAngelo's approach is that in
her model of things, in herdescription, white people are really really typecasted
(09:41):
as inept, harmful liabilities. Liabilityis just the word that just screams at
me because I'm reading basically a manual, and the underlying theme throughout this whole
manual of White Fragility is that youwhite person, reader, you are a
liability. You are prone to tocause harm. You're a ticking time bomb.
(10:03):
So you should go to these variouslengths to minimize harm, mitigate harm,
try to be less racist. You'llnever really reach the finish line,
but you know, dig deep andat least try. And I think that
there are issues with that narrative too. Again, I'm not just stepping in
to put a nice little smile onwhite people's faces. I'm saying this as
(10:24):
a person of color who When Iread this book in twenty twenty and I
was drinking the kool aid, Iwas like, oh gosh, got it,
Okay, white people are liabilities,and I became terrified of white people.
White people were guilty until proven innocent. White people only had the potential
to cause harm. White people neededto kind of prove to me that they
(10:46):
were doing all of these things tominimize their harm in order for me to
feel like I could get close tothem without it being a dangerous thing to
do. I mean, this viewjust really complicates inter racial relationships of all
kinds, even for someone like mewho's a mixed race person. Hello,
product of an interracial relationship. Andyet with this view that white people are
(11:07):
liabilities, now all of a sudden, interracial relationships seem like they kind of
shouldn't happen. And I'm talking aboutplatonic I'm talking about all of the relationships
in your life. Like she talksabout how white people should pay their friends
who are people of color for theiremotional labor if they're going to discuss anything
related to race. To pay friendsfor just having a conversation is no way
(11:30):
to have a harmonious multi racial society. That's a step in the wrong direction.
And she says over and over apretty contradictory message that white people both
need to have a lot of peopleof color in their life to prove that
they aren't racist and to become thekind of person who isn't racist. But
then there's also this other message thatwhite people are too dangerous to be around
(11:50):
people of color, and so thereforethey need to give people of color a
lot of space because they can't reallybe trusted. And I think about I've
gotten messages from multiple people, peoplewho say, I'm a white parent and
one of my children is a personof color, biological children, adoptive children,
foster child, and they say,after reading White Fragility, I became
(12:13):
pretty convinced that I could not bea fitting parent or a fitting spouse because
of my whiteness. And the callto action in White Fragility is be less
white. You must be less whiteto minimize your heart. And then these
people who are doing their best tobe loving, anti racist, non prejudiced,
supportive, emotionally intelligent parents, They'relike, my hands are tied.
(12:35):
I don't know how to be lesswhite. So I guess I'm a liability
to my own child. I don'tknow what to do with that. I
don't know how to be better.And that's why I take such issue with
this lens that white people are liabilities. Not just because that creates a weird,
unfortunate, confusing self image for whitepeople, though that is a problem.
(12:56):
I'm very concerned for the people ofcolor like myself, who are taught
this because it does play out asa self fulfilling prophecy. When you're taught
to fear and be suspicious of,and be on guard for and be bracing
yourself for all of the harm thatthe white people in your life are bound
to cause. That led to awhole lot of racial battle fatigue for me.
That took a real toll. Thatreally wears on a person, a
(13:20):
person of color. And when awhite person believes that, they believe the
most responsible thing they can do is, you know, keep their distance.
And when a person of color seesthings that way as well, then they
also the normal response is, okay, I gotta get a lot of distance
from these people. If they aretruly this ignorant, this bigoted, this
careless, this incapable of being antiracist, then I want nothing to do
(13:46):
with that. And so you endup with in a Robin DiAngelo world,
a world that ends up being veryracially divided and very racially distanced, which
leads to my third point. Mythird big issue with Robin DiAngelo's whole teaching
framework, her whole view of antiracism is that the entire goal of anti
(14:07):
racism is lost. The goal ofanti racism is lost, and forward becomes
backward, and up becomes down,and we're all confused as heck, because
while these handbooks are meant to equipyou to be anti racist and work toward
justice and equity and hopefully someday unity, many people walk away from them,
(14:30):
and the takeaway is the opposite.The takeaway is a lot of distance and
a lot of division, because that'sportrayed is the only way to protect people
of color from racism and microaggressions.And so if white people go to their
workshops with white people and they tryto unlearn and they try to figure out
how to minimize harm, that's good. That minimizes the issue of whiteness within
(14:52):
them. But still they walk outof those workshops or those trainings, or
they put down the book and they'retold that to be real aware is to
trust themselves less and less and less. And I don't think that's the right
teaching for white people. And again, I'm not just aiming this at a
PEP talk. This is not justsaying white people, you guys are doing
great. You're doing it awesome,You're knocking it out of the park.
(15:13):
Don't worry about this anti racism stuffthat Robin Di Angelo keeps bugging you about.
No, just live your life,and I'm sure we're all going to
slide our way in the direction ofa racial utopia. That's all it's gonna
take. No, that is notthat is not what I'm getting at.
I think that anti racism work isimportant, and it is needed, and
(15:37):
it is so crucial that it's crucialwe get it right. So every idea
that we believe that we want toteach to our kids, that we want
to teach to our peers, thatwe want to teach in college classes,
and we want to teach in bookclubs, whatever it is, they need
to be really right because any degreeto which we're off the mark, that's
(15:58):
a real problem. And I'll havemany episodes linked in the show notes related
to DeAngelo's framework and what I thinkis so wrong. But one of the
ideas I think is so wrong ishow she portrays everyone as inherently really super
racist, inherently affected a lot byimplicit racial bias. This overinflated view of
(16:18):
implicit racial bias. It's based onfaulty ideas and research that has been misrepresented
over the past two decades. I'vegot a few episodes devoted to that,
So that's in the show notes.Because, as I'm saying all of this,
white people are just portrayed as liabilities, and we shouldn't believe that.
We need to see that with intentionaleffort, white people actually can be good
(16:40):
and anti racist, and they canbe around people of color and we'll all
be okay. As I was sayingthat, maybe you're thinking, No,
unconscious bias is real, Marie,And it is real, but it's not
real how we think. Because somany of us think it's this real,
hidden evil that hides in the recessesof our minds and will never be able
to find it, will never beable to do anything about it, but
somehow it's controlling everything you think andsay and do. No, that's not
(17:04):
how it works. Implicit bias isreal, but it is so real that
it shows up in our lives.Implicit racial bias expresses itself as explicit racial
bias, which means that we aren'tirreversibly, irredeemably affected by implicit bias.
No, we are affected by it, but we're affected in ways that can
(17:26):
become apparent to us. So anyway, that's one of the big corrections that
need to be made. That's kindof a lynchpin in understanding a big fault
with DiAngelo's view that everybody is reallyreally racist. Again, I fear I
could be misunderstood because I'm trying tomake this fast. Racism is a problem,
Racism is real. There is sucha thing as implicit bias, and
(17:48):
there is such a thing as racismin our systems, and racism in our
minds and racism in our lives.I talk about that in so many episodes
of the podcast. That's why Ido what I do. But when these
ideas are misrepresented, boy, itgrinds my gears. And I think DiAngelo's
framework, which has become so popular, it's become really dominant in culture,
(18:08):
I think it's a real misrepresentation ofwhat racial prejudice even is and how it
actually operates. Her portrayal of implicitracial bias, it borders on something that's
more jargon than argument, And soI want to bring us back to the
facts because I think that really servesus well. Then the other lynchpin for
(18:29):
understanding what's so problematic about d'angelo's approachand white fragility is just her general baseline
assumption, which is that race andracial identity are very, very central to
who a person is. There's alot about that idea that I agree with,
a lot about that idea that's goodand needed in our society. But
under her tutelage and in progressive circles, we have taken that past the point
(18:53):
of it being useful and productive andhelpful, and it gets taken to the
point where it becomes a very racistidea. This too, is something I've
got a multi part series on.It'll be linked in the show notes.
But the real question is whether wemove forward, whether we get closer to
our equitable, unified goals by embracingrace more saying that race matters a heck
(19:18):
of a lot and we should payattention to it a heck of a lot,
or by emphasizing race less in certaincircles, saying that in order to
not treat people differently based on therace, we ought to not see people
differently based on the race. Andin this multi part series I make the
case for both that both of thoseapproaches have a lot of merit to them,
and that neither on its own isthe best standalone solution. So The
(19:42):
issue with DiAngelo's approach is that she'sa fan of the former, and she
just completely dismisses the latter. Shesays, we should absolutely embrace race.
We should see ourselves and others inlight of our racial identities. We should
see everything in life in light ofour racial power dynamics. And there's good
that there's lots of situations where thatapplies, and that's useful and that helps
(20:03):
us to deal with and address racism. But she takes it to a point
where I think, if I weresitting down with the woman, she would
only ever see me as a blackwoman, And no matter how much she
got to know me, I don'tknow if I'd ever be seen as Marie.
And that's a problem because race isan important part of our identity.
She gets that, she does thatwell. She communicates that idea very convincingly.
(20:27):
Race is an important part of ouridentity, but it's not all of
our identity. And when it's madeto be all of our identity, we
let racism in through the back door. Where now, Robin DiAngelo, you,
in this backwards way, end updefining me by my race, seeing
me as nothing more than my race, reducing me down to my race and
(20:48):
making all sorts of generalizations, allsorts of blanket statements about who I am
and what my values are, andwhat my values ought to be, and
what my personal attributes are, andit becomes tech next book Racism. So
AnyWho, I'll step off the soapboxfor now and say that I hope you
enjoyed this little three part series dissectingand unpacking some of Robin d'angelo's teachings the
(21:12):
teachings a parent in her book.This is not an all an endorsement for
her books, but these books doserve to open up a lot of topics,
open up a lot of conversations,get us talking, and get us
thinking about why anti racism matters andwhat it really ought to look like.
And the two topics I touched onat the end here correcting the misconceptions about
(21:33):
implicit racial bias and also trying toplay referee for the whole debate about whether
we should embrace race more or movepast race, and how surprisingly the data
comes back mixed on which one willactually bring us closer to our anti racist
racial utopia. Both of those topicshave entire episodes devoted to them, and
(21:53):
they are linked in the show notes. That's where you should go next.
As always, I appreciate your thoughtlistening and your open hearts and your open
minds. We have grown a beautifullittle community here of people who think,
really, really critically about how tocreate a better world, how to practice
anti racism, and how to engagewith all of these important topics. Thank
(22:18):
you so much for listening. Ifyou enjoy these episodes, send them to
your group chats, share them onlineon social media, leave a rating or
review for the podcast, whatever suitsyour fancy. It all serves to help
this podcast and its mission reach morepeople and then hopefully impact more people.
(22:38):
Thank you so much for your support. Hosting this podcast is truly an honor
and a privilege and a joy,and I am so grateful for every single
one of you. And if youonly take away one thing from this episode,
I hope it's that change starts withyou.
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