Robin DiAngelo on white fragility

Here is the powerful article Robin DiAngelo has written that is having such a profound impact in discussions of anti-racism work — particularly in predominately white communities. Identifying “white fragility” as a key dynamic to interrupt and engage, she elucidates the challenges white people need to meet to do this work in both transformative and sustainable ways:

For instance:

The disavowal of race as an organizing factor, both of individual white consciousness and the institutions of society at large, is necessary to support current structures of capitalism and domination, for without it, the correlation between the distribution of social resources and unearned white privilege would be evident (Flax, 1998). The existence of structural inequality undermines the claim that privilege is simply a reflection of hard work and virtue. Therefore, inequality must be hidden or justified as resulting from lack of effort (Mills, 1997; Ryan, 2001).