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WHITE FRAGILITY
Robin Diangelo
Beacon Press
June 26, 2018
154 Pages
Just finishing up White Fragility, and yowza. I’ll be honest, I pretty much hated reading this book. It made me feel bad about myself. I realized I’ve been making a lot of excuses, telling myself that I’m aware and woke, that I understand how hard it must be for black people to experience racism, that I sympathize with THEIR problem. But I’ve been focusing my attention outward when I should have been focusing my attention inward. Because racism isn’t a “black problem.” It’s a white problem—we’ve just grown used to putting the burden on black people to define it, describe it, and tell US how to fix it—even though it’s a problem we’ve created, even though it’s a problem that only we, as guardians of almost all power sources in the United States, can change.
I’ll leave you with some stats that really blew my mind. Non-Hispanic white people make up just over 60% of the US population, and yet…
✖️ the ten richest Americans are 100% white
✖️ US Congress is 90% white
✖️ US governors are 96% white
✖️ the top military advisors are 100% white
✖️ people who decide which tv shows we see are 93% white
✖️ people who decide which books we read are 90% white
✖️ US teachers are 82% white
✖️ full-time college professors are 84% white
All I can say is let’s continue to educate ourselves so we can do better.
Good luck finding this book. It’s backordered everywhere. But here are the links: Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble.
I managed to get hold of this via Foyles’ website, I’m going to read Why I’ve Stopped Talking to White People About Race first, though. I went through that list of white privilege from Chicago for my husband last night and really shocked him so I think he’ll be reading some of these, too.
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Those numbers really are shocking. I’ve been learning a lot, too, reading these books. It shames me to realize how much I’ve had my head buried in the sand… I hope you enjoy this one!
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Ugh no doubt this is a tough read, I’m a fragile person!!! haha I do want to read it though, I feel like I should, it’s the least I can do to help this movement 🙂
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It’s so tough taking that hard look at yourself and realizing, despite your good intentions, you’re still screwing up! 😭 I have to keep reminding myself that recognizing my shortcomings is the first and only way to change them. But I’m right there with you. Who wants to realize they are hurting people, ugh….
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at least we’re trying to do the work to change! That’s more than others, and we’re headed in the right direction 🙂
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The first black teacher I had was last fall in my first semester of graduate school, and I was SURPRISED when I walked into the room and saw a black man.
Talk about white privilege right there.
Grad school has really helped me deconstruct a lot of my white privilege, but I know I still have a long way to go.
We definitely need to be turning inward. It’s the only way forward.
I’m looking forward to reading Part II of this review!
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I know exactly what you mean. My only black professor in college was for an African American literature class. That’s shameful! Even more so because having mostly-white professors never struck me as odd. This latest BLM movement has been so eye-opening for me. I’m with you, I still have a long way to go yeesh.
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