So, I finally bit the bullet and read Robin DiAngelo's book White Fragility. I've been contemplating for the last three weeks whether I actually wanted to write a book review. There's almost nothing new to say about it. The praises and the criticisms are all in; and she has a new book out now as well (which I have placed a library hold on, because I don't like to pay to learn about my privilege). White Fragility is, or at least was, an immensely popular book, but its popularity seems to be hitting a bit of a wall, and it almost doesn't seem worth talking about now.
But the book is still very relevant, not because of what it says but because of what it represents. If we stop and look at how this book has been received in the public, how it's been lumped in as a source for Critical Race Theory, how it's been used to frame our national conversation about diversity training--what becomes apparent is that the impact of this book has not been to bring diversity training to the world, but rather to show the world what the current state of corporate diversity training is. DiAngelo isn't teaching anybody about racism. She's teaching everybody how diversity trainers talk about racism. These are not the same thing.
For years, the suspicion in white conservative America was that "diversity" was a code word for anti-white. For the longest time, diversity-minded liberals were able to casually dismiss this criticism. Well, not anymore. Now, Robin DiAngelo, the "new racial sheriff in town" (see Michael Erik Dyson's preface), has confirmed that anti-whiteness is at the heart of diversity training. The last chapter of her book literally says that the way to fight racism is to be less white. She writes, "a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist. . . . I strive to be 'less white.' To be less white is to be less racially oppressive." (pg. 149) So earlier this year when a diversity training on LinkedIn made headlines--after a Coca Cola employee screenshot a slide of their training--for telling the trainee to "be less white," some people might have dismissed this as a mistake or a rogue diversity trainer. But you can't dismiss it. It's not a mistake. It comes directly from the most popular modern book on the topic by America's preeminent diversity trainer.
So, being highly conscious of the book's overall impact, when I read this book there were two simultaneous processes going on in my head. First, I asked if what she was saying was correct. Second, I asked whether I found her book helpful in the modern discourse. The answer to the first question is yes, a lot of what she says is correct, or at least not entirely wrong. There is still plenty of racism in America. There's still a lot of de facto segregation that perpetuates the harm of de jure segregation. And the phenomenon that she calls white fragility is, I believe, in the final analysis, real.
But when I stop and ask whether I think this book is helpful, the answer I keep coming back to is no, it is not. While many of the individual elements of this book are decent (on a charitable reading), the book as a whole displays such a lopsided perspective, legend has it that Picasso called and asked for his tape measure back. This book overinflates the significance of microaggressions while simultaneously deflating the significance of civil rights. It lacks proportion and perspective. Let me show you what I mean.
At a certain point in the book, I had to stop and ask myself whether Robin DiAngelo actually believes in civil rights. According to her, white people should avoid saying they marched for civil rights in the 60's, because supposedly this is done to preclude any further examination of racism. (pg. 82) While I think that this can be a valid point for many people, that's not all she has to say on civil rights. She flat out denies that America is any less racist today than it was under Jim Crow. "I am often asked if I think the younger generation is less racist," She writes on page 50. "No, I don't. In some ways, racism's adaptations over time are more sinister than concrete rules such as Jim Crow. The adaptations produce the same outcome . . ."
There is a grand irony here. DiAngelo says that we shouldn't use concepts such as individualism or meritocracy because they are white constructs (pg. 8), but then she turns around and uses the granddaddy of all white constructs, the construct of a good orderly society based on "rules," i.e. law and order. Please, spare me. Jim Crow was codified black inferiority. The idea that these rules were somehow less sinister than modern racism is pure B.S. It was precisely through the creation of such rules that the institution of racism was perpetuated and entrenched. DiAngelo's lack of perspective is glaring.
Let me give another example where DiAngelo completely walks away with the wrong lesson. She cites some research the shows that white six-year-olds display racial prejudice both when alone and in the presence of an authority figure. But white nine-year-olds only display this racial prejudice when alone, and they hide it in the presence of an authority figure. What is DiAngelo's takeaway? She concludes the society is teaching these children to hide their prejudices more, and the older the children get, the better they hide it. She says that children "did not become less racially biased with age, but they had learned to hide their racism." (pg. 84) But think about what DiAngelo is saying. Sixty or eighty years ago the authority figures in the lives of many white children would have reinforced their racism. That authority figures are seen as disapproving of racism is, in fact, itself a sign of progress. But DiAngelo cannot countenance this idea. She concludes that the change in the attitude of the authority figure does nothing to change the racism of the children. (As if racism is the only bad thing that children learn to hide from their elders.) DiAngelo once again turns progress into a loss. She talks about how society teaches children to be racist, but then when society improves for the better in changing the authoritative attitude towards racism, she just says we're teaching them to hide their racism better. You literally cannot win.
Another example: DiAngelo resurrects the tired trope that Obama's presidency doesn't really represent racial progress. She thinks it just supports the racial status quo. (pg. 27) While in many ways Obama was a business-as-usual president, I'd like to know just what status quo DiAngelo is talking about? If it's the status quo of the majority of Americans voting for a black man whose name was Barack for president, I assure you this status is quite new in our history. It's easy to dismiss something as status quo after it's already happened. The point is that it wasn't the status quo until it happened. DiAngelo once again turns progress into a loss. With every step forward, DiAngelo sees a step back.
This might explain why, at the beginning of her book, DiAngelo says that she does not have any solutions to addressing the problem of racism. (pg. 5) Indeed, her book is written as though racism is inevitable, like Ragnarok, and the most we can hope for is to make Valhalla a little less white before it all comes burning down. Why is there this need to interpret every victory as a defeat? Why is there this need to interpret all racial progress as sinister whiteness?
Ultimately, there is a fear that every advance made towards racial progress will result in a white backlash that sets racial progress even further back. After Obama comes Trump, amiright? (pg. 47) "We've had a black president, so how can you say we are a racist nation?" you might imagine somebody thinking as they vote for Trump, who spent eight years claiming that Obama wasn't a citizen and was ineligible for the office. While this is very well a valid concern, DiAngelo mistakes the consolidation and entrenchment of white supremacy as a sign that we are moving in the wrong direction. Of course, this is not true. If white supremacy is becoming more entrenched, it is not because it is stronger than it has ever been, but because it is more threatened than it has ever been.
But let's take DiAngelo at her word. If society cannot be educated out of racism, the logical conclusion of this observation would be to destroy all diversity training. Indeed, research keeps pouring in that diversity training doesn't work. In fact, it can actually make racial tensions worse by activating racial stereotypes, in exactly the way that DiAngelo's book does. One of the business institutions most critical of diversity training has been Harvard Business Review. Take a moment to google "Harvard Business Review diversity training." You'll find that they do not hold diversity training in high regard. The BBC published an article just last month entitled "Why ineffective diversity training won't go away." The Guardian ran a story in March of this year actually citing DiAngelo's training as precisely what not to do, vis-a-vis using terms like "whiteness," or having the trainers offer themselves as examples of racists (which DiAngelo does all the time). A year ago NY Times Magazine carried a piece questioning the effectiveness of this training.
As DiAngelo writes on page 78, when she talks to white people, she doesn't ask if what they are saying is true. She instead asks, how do their claims function to support a system of racism? Applying that logic to DiAngelo's book, I would ask how White Fragility functions to undermine civil rights. I would ask how it exposes the inanity of modern corporate diversity training. And I most of all would ask how this book supplies the American reactionary right with the talking points they have been long looking for to undermine racial progress.
*Note: I was reading from my Kindle. The page numbers might be a page off from how I cited them.
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