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Summary: Chapter 10: White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement

Knowing how most white people react when confronted with feedback about behavior that is considered racist, most people of color will not give feedback. Even other white people agonize over the right time to give feedback to a fellow white person. White fragility works perfectly as a way to shut down any conversation about how to overcome the dominant racist infrastructure at work in society.

DiAngelo recommends that a white person deal with critical feedback by accepting it unconditionally and realizing that individual racist behavior is not a result of personal flaws but instead the result of socialization into a white supremacist culture. White people must learn to allow for hearing accounts of racial injustice that may make them feel uncomfortable and may be delivered by an upset person of color. If white people can learn to separate the message from its mode of delivery, accept the feedback graciously and say thank you, they can move toward a constructive conversation about racism. They should acknowledge that although they are not personally responsible for the current system, they do unfairly benefit from it and are responsible for interrupting it. 

One white person cannot change the system on his or her own, but when many people work together, change can happen. For change to happen, white people must participate in some uncomfortable conversations. They cannot allow these conversations to be derailed by debates about whether acts were intentional or not. The acts must first, simply, be recognized as racist. Then people can move beyond the defensive conversations surrounding white fragility and have real conversations about changing the status quo of white supremacy.

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