I’m ashamed that it wasn’t until this week that I finally read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. But now was the moment to plunge ahead. The influx of anti-racism training also roils me. Educator and, more recently, diversity consultant DiAngelo contend that white Americans must confront the racism instilled in them by a racist culture. She argues that the failure to recognize this is an example of “white fragility,” which must be addressed before progress can be made in combating racism in individuals and institutions.

Despite its 2018 publication date, the demonstrations following George Floyd’s death and the subsequent national reflection about racism propelled White Fragility to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. DiAngelo has successfully persuaded university administrations, corporate human resources departments, and a sizeable portion of the reading public that white Americans must undertake a self-critical project of looking inward to examine and work against racist biases that many have barely been aware they have.

I still have my doubts. Instead, I discovered that this popular corporate guidebook is essentially a racist tract. Despite the author’s best efforts, this book degrades Black people even as it attempts to elevate us. Like the prejudice that DiAngelo perceives in all white people, this is inadvertent. Even still, the book is harmful because of the power its author has on the minds of its naive readers.

One could compare reading White Fragility to sitting through a course on diversity. DiAngelo carefully and patiently explains why white readers should do a painful and unpleasant exercise in self-reflection. Each of her chapters is around the length of a 45-minute session. In this quest to educate, DiAngelo uses the following strategies.

She bases her actions on the now-familiar worry about white privilege, fully aware of the unconscious racism ingrained in her at birth by the white supremacy on which the United States was established. To make up for this transgression, she has made it her life’s work to investigate, admit, and work tirelessly to eliminate white people’s “complicity with and investment in” racism. If you don’t perform this “work,” as proponents of this worldview call it, you’re racist, according to DiAngelo. 

Consequently, DiAngelo has a severe problem with the white American, often of lower socioeconomic status, who says things like “I don’t see color” or “How dare you call me racist?” Her conclusion that everyone is prejudiced against minorities is based on solid scientific evidence. It’s not the issue; the issue is what DiAngelo concludes must follow from that.

DiAngelo has spent a great deal of time leading diversity workshops, during which whites who have been exposed to her catechism routinely inform her (sometimes while sobbing, cursing, or rushing toward the exit) that she is insulting them and being reductionist. But it doesn’t appear like any of this has caused her to reflect on herself. Instead, she thinks of herself as the keeper of a high awareness that the naysayers are too prejudiced to see. As a result, DiAngelo acts more as a zealot than a coach.

It’s thrilling to see writers with such conviction back up their claims with solid evidence. But unfortunately, although much of the readers’ attention has been diverted from the book’s many evident problems by white guilt and politeness, this is not one of those occasions. 

To begin with, many of the assertions made by DiAngelo in his book are either wholly false or seem to have no basis in reality at all. For example, who, exactly, is left with the impression that Jackie Robinson was the first Black baseball player of comparable skill to whites? What if, as DiAngelo puts it, the narrative had instead read, “Jackie Robinson, the first black man whites let to play major-league baseball”? As others have pointed out, baseball fans don’t even have to try to see this happening. Later in the book, DiAngelo implies that Black people are reminded of white women sobbing as they lied about being raped by Black men in the distant past when white women cry at being labeled racists. But how could she possibly know that? The assumption here is staggering; please provide some proof.

DiAngelo’s casual criticism of American universities, where she claims racism is seldom discussed, is particularly out of place. It’s possible, she adds, that she’ll make it through grad school without ever having to bring up racism. I don’t have to bring up race again until after law school. There is no way I would have to confront racism in my teacher preparation program. Exactly why DiAngelo believes this ludicrously dated representation is representative of any period beyond about 1985 is beyond me. For instance, a modern-day school curriculum that does not address racism is as rare as a house without electricity.

DiAngelo’s portrayal of white psychology takes many forms depending on the needs of her religion. Firstly, in Chapter 1, she claims white people do not think of themselves in racial terms and thus need to be educated by specialists like herself that they are white. DiAngelo’s white characters are strangely tribalist when it serves her story since they lack any sense of group identity. To defend white supremacy, she argues, “white unity” necessitates “both silence regarding anything that reveals the advantages of the white people” (Chapter 4). What, exactly, are they defending if they have no idea that “whiteness” is a category in the first place?

In addition, Diangelo writes as though certain shibboleths of the Black left—such as the idea that all discrepancies between white and Black people are attributable to racism of some kind—represent the unassailable truth. A reader may overlook DiAngelo’s blatant ideological prejudice, as well as the other weaknesses in her thesis I’ve pointed out if she provided convincing evidence of superior knowledge. One major issue is that White Fragility serves as the bible of a cult.

We must consider what it takes to be considered a “strong” white person. If you say something is in a “terrible neighborhood,” that’s code for Black, and if you say something is in a “Black neighborhood,” that’s racist, per DiAngelo’s reasoning, you shouldn’t even think of describing those areas. It is not your place to inquire about the emotions and perspectives of Black people; it is not their job to teach you anything. You’ll need to rely on other resources like books and the internet. Never mind that if you do this, people will accuse you of stereotyping, misreading, or otherwise misinterpreting historical accounts of African Americans. Cry no tears, not even in compassion, in the company of Black people when investigating racism. Otherwise, you risk diverting attention away from them and onto yourself. If you don’t like the “input” DiAngelo gives you about your racism, you’re engaged in bullying “whose goal is to disguise racism, defend white dominance, and reestablish white equilibrium.”

A white person cannot simply declare, “I don’t feel secure,” without being ostracized. It’s a thing only Black folks would say. White people should shut up and listen as DiAngelo paints them with a morally corrupt brush. She tells you to “now breathe” to refrain from freaking out throughout the procedure. She emphasizes that she isn’t dealing with a black-and-white issue and that embracing your inner racist does not make you a horrible person. The topic of gray areas appears beside the point when racism is portrayed as a horrific spiritual filth held by people imprisoned in a culture where they exercise prejudice just by getting out of bed. DiAngelo has white Americans chloroformed, straitjacketed, tied down, and muzzled toward the film’s end, but to what end?

And here is where the real issue with White Fragility lies. DiAngelo does not feel it is essential to explain why introspection of this magnitude is crucial to creating social transformation. One could reasonably wonder how people might be ready for change if they have been indoctrinated that almost everything they believe or say is racist and, thus, harmful. Why go to all the trouble of beating yourself up? DiAngelo is impatient with such inquiries and claims that a “basis of white fragility” is a desire to “leap over the complex, emotional work and get to solutions.  

We also need to know why DiAngelo thinks Black people require special treatment. Any person of proud African descent would be insulted by such an assumption. In my experience, racism has only marginally harmed me in very rare social contexts but has had no impact on my access to societal resources and has likely expanded my access to those resources. And don’t think twice about listening to me when I say that I’m no rara avis. Since the mid-1960s, when I was born, it has been the norm for Black people to be in the middle class, on the rise, and successful. To dispute, this is to claim that affirmative action for Black people was ineffective.

Now, in 2022, I have no use for, and would rather not have, anybody ruminate about how their whiteness gives them an advantage over me. I also don’t need lessons from the world on how to be hyper-empathetic. DiAngelo’s style of reeducation doesn’t seem to have any bearing on effective, robust engagement on real-world issues that matter to the Black community. Even if any Black readers were to be open to DiAngelo’s beliefs, I find it difficult to imagine that any self-respecting, capable adults among them would voluntarily surrender to them. Few works regarding race have so blatantly reduced Black people to the status of helpless infants as this purportedly authoritative tome.

Or they just stopped treating us like human beings. According to DiAngelo, what’s problematic with Black History Month is that it “takes whites out of the equation” or fails to place enough emphasis on racism. Some audiences respond positively to claims like this, but DiAngelo intends for Black History Month to be devoted to somber recitations of white perfidy. This might help ease DiAngelo’s guilt over her role in our troubles, but does she realize what a drag a gloomy, knit-browed Festivus would be for real Black people? The problem with a lot of White Fragility is that it puts rhetorical flourishes ahead of sound reasoning.

In the end, White Fragility is a guide to self-improvement for a specific demographic of highly educated white readers. Within this pleasant dream about how white America ought to think—or, better, stop thinking—viewpoint DiAngelo’s hinges on a picture of Black people as perpetually fragile poster children. In other words, her response to white fragility is to treat Black people with intricate and ruthless degrading disdain. In reality, a well-meaning but fatally mistaken preacher has taught anyone swayed by this blinkered, self-satisfied, punishing act of a primer on how to be racist in a brand new way.

About Jim Woods:

Jim has a passion for accelerating talent across organizations. While this passion has fueled his work in leadership assessment and development, it has crystallized in the area of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. 

Jim's experience spans many industries, including public, finance, consumer, retail, pharma, industrials, and technology. 'Organizational & people agility,' 'design thinking,' and 'digital transformation' are some critical themes Jim works with clients on across the globe.

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