Summary: Chapter 7: Racial Triggers for White People

White fragility is triggered when whites are forced out of their racial bubbles and into unprotected racial environments. In the U.S. today, white people are used to seeing people like themselves in the media and around them at school or work. Outside that bubble, white people may feel stress. In part, this is because it is not deemed important for white people to understand how racism or white privilege works. If white people do take a diversity course, the prevailing narrative is about disadvantaged Black people living in crime-ridden inner cities. It does not address the reasons for those circumstances: structural racism. If the class does bring up white privilege and racism, whites tend to respond angrily, or to justify themselves, saying they are already aware of these racist phenomena. 

If someone challenges the ideas of meritocracy, color blindness and individualism, which support the white racial structure, white people can become angry and fearful. In a group setting, such as a diversity seminar or a work meeting, this type of behavior suddenly focuses the attention on the white person, and away from the issues being faced by the Black group members. In this way, equilibrium is restored for the white person, but conversation about racial equity ends.  

An example of this is when a white male teacher (who is given the pseudonym "Mr. Palmer") is accused of making racially discriminatory comments to a Black female student, the teacher becomes defensive. Not only was his authority as a teacher called into question, but also his position as an older, white male. Rather than trying to understand the perspective of the young Black woman, who may experience racism on a daily basis within the school, he blames changes in society that make young people more sensitive to certain ways of speaking. In this way, white fragility acts to increase racial divides by spoiling opportunities for learning about the effects of racism.