White Fragility

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Summary Introduction

Summary: Introduction: We Can’t Get There from Here

Most white Americans are socialized to believe that everybody, regardless of economic class or race, is equal in the United States of America. If they do not work hard to see beyond their middle- or upper-class neighborhood, they may not experience much to disprove this assumption. Enough people of color pepper workplaces, schools and neighborhoods to allow for the argument that if people work hard enough, they can “make it” in American society. This belief in the power of individual achievement allows white people to continue believing that meritocracy is the underpinning of American society. The same belief prevents them from seeing the bigger framework of structural racism that, according to Robin DiAngelo, is embedded in American society. If white people are confronted with the idea that they may have done or said something racist, many understand it as an accusation of personal failing, rather than as a symptom of structural racism. DiAngelo defines this immediate defensive response and inability to talk about racism as “white fragility.”

With this book, DiAngelo hopes to educate whites about the true white supremacist structure of American society. Racism is more than just violent stand-alone acts committed by terrible individuals. It is the structural framework that affects people’s chances of surviving birth, where they will live, which schools they might attend, who their friends and partners might be, their career opportunities, their incomes, and their long-term life expectancy. To change this framework in American society, white people must become the allies of people of color. White people still hold a voting and economic majority in the United States, and as such have the power to create more equitable institutions. Understanding that racism on a structural level exists, and is to a certain extent unavoidable, can help white people talk about racism, identify their role in it, and seek to build a more equitable society.

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White Fragility

Robin DiAngelo

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Introduction

Summary: Introduction: We Can’t Get There from Here

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