I sent this to the FUUSN list on March 16, 2019
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I was told that “White Fragility” was FUUSN’s book of the season. I read it. These are some of my reactions.
My conclusion is that the program suggested by this book, while well-intentioned, will serve if anything to worsen the situation of people of color in US society at large. Average white people will not take on the original sin of racism as their own and work hard to reduce it. It goes against everything we know about human psychology.
And yet lots of people have thought “White Fragility” was a good book. Why? My best guess is that they are already convinced of the deep injustice of racism and the need for white people to humbly repent, learn, and atone. They can take pleasure in condemning the whites who have not instantly accepted this message and conclusion. “White Fragility” – both the concept and the book – may fuel an exhilarating righteous indignation in those who are already convinced, but progress depends not on how zealous the minority is, but on convincing more people. The fact that so many people accept the book uncritically is due to taking too narrow a view – staying within a liberal/left bubble. But to be clear, my assumption is that everyone at FUUSN approaches this with the very best of intentions.
I know I have some subtle racism, and suspect there is more I am not aware of. I do believe that our society has many ingrained patterns that serve to make the lives of people of color more difficult. Dismantling those patterns would be a good thing. Give me a proposal on reducing police brutality, mandatory minimums, differential sentencing, voter suppression, or affirmative action, and I’m instantly on the anti-racist side. But I don’t choose to put much more effort into it than that.
Many liberal whites, notably UU whites, are deeply concerned about racism. They feel personally complicit in racial injustice, and seek to reduce their own racism as much as possible. This is noble. Perhaps it has inherent value regardless of how it fits into the bigger picture. And the idea makes sense – start with what you can control, set an example for others, and be in the front row of a vanguard against racism. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But in this case it is a misleading analogy. This model does not scale up.
The strategy of the book (and the anti-racism activism movement of which it is a part) is to point out how painful racial injustice is for people of color, to show how very unfair the system is, and to trust that will motivate white people to dig deep and do some rather painful things – after all, it’s nothing compared to the pain of the people of color. It won’t work, because only a minority of any group will readily admit to self-interest and unearned privilege and set out to get less for themselves, and whites are no exception.
Jonathan Haidt, starting with “The Righteous Mind”, observed that the US is full of people of good will who disagree fundamentally on politics but rarely change their beliefs. He began looking at what it actually takes to get people to change. He describes two ways of thinking – the automatic, instant, judgmental kind he calls the elephant, and the slow, halting, tiring kind that tries to use facts and logic the way a scientist would – the rider. But the rider is not actually in charge – the elephant is. The elephant has no inherent use for facts, figures and logical arguments – in fact it will often instruct the rider to select whatever facts support pre-existing beliefs. (Daniel Kahneman’s lifetime of work is the firm scientific foundation for Haidt’s views on the rider and elephant.)
Dr. DiAngelo has a career that includes running anti-racism workshops, often sponsored by corporations that want to hire and retain more people of color. It sounds like she starts these workshops by presenting the facts of racism, arguing that all of us whites are complicit in a racist system, and if we have any moral decency we must do hard and painful work to dismantle that system.
She observes that quite often in her workshops, a few white people will object, arguing that they are not personally racist. She corrects them -- they are part of a racist system. They will sometimes get emotional or storm out of the meeting. DiAngelo derisively refers to their reaction as White Fragility. The term itself is an insult. If you doubt this, imagine comparable titles that someone who disagrees might use for their book.
This participant reaction is an instance of exactly what Haidt and others would predict any time you challenge someone’s central beliefs. Imagine that your boss has his own issue he is passionate about and mandates that you attend a workshop. Global warming? You must never fly, use air conditioning, or eat meat, or else you are an earth-destroyer. Wealth inequality? You must give 3/4 of your (ultimately) ill-gotten assets to those in the Third World who need it so much more, or you are unspeakably selfish. Would anyone be surprised if some employees reacted with tears or hostility? Even advocates on those issues would understand it was unwise to call the reaction “fragility” if they actually want to change minds.
I will make some guesses at the range of reactions of other people in DiAngelo’s workshops. Surely a few people will have the desired reaction, accepting the facts and getting with the program. A great many others will realize they are sitting with their co-workers and will do what they think the boss expects them to do. Perhaps some people in those groups will learn to be more sensitive in their day-to-day interactions with people of color they work with. And yet – DiAngelo has told them they are racists because they are part of a racist system, getting good things they do not deserve, and their elephants will silently resent that. You can guess it might fortify underlying conscious racist tendencies, or erode sympathy for policy issues like reducing sentencing disparities. Those who display visible fragility might well just be the relatively harmless, somewhat naïve tip of the iceberg that DiAngelo’s approach reinforces.
Dr. DiAngelo is also in a quagmire of her own making by overloading the term “racism”. She concedes that this term can be used to refer to conscious and explicit acts and beliefs of racial superiority -- this is the most obvious and natural interpretation. However, she wants to use the term to refer to the whole set of unconscious relationships and attitudes that serve to make life difficult for people of color. She then looks on with disgust at the poor, fragile whites who resist being called racists. She could use a different term -- on a few moments’ thought I’ll coin “deck-stacking”. But overloading “racist” isn’t an accident. That same emotionally charged word “racism” is used intentionally, to emphasize how unjust it is. She doesn’t want to let whites off the hook by using another term – she wants them to feel an obligation to change. There is to be no wiggle room here. She tells us that whiteness can’t be innocent, that its existence is intricately tied up with opposition to blackness. Race is THE biggest issue. She tells us that if we don’t reach out and seek to have black friends, we are racist. There really is no escaping the conclusion that in her view, once you have been informed about racial oppression, if you do not actively work to combat it, then you are a bad person. You have been given not just facts, but values and priorities as well. It’s a bit as if she wants to climb right into your brain. Most people don’t like that. They like to choose their own values and priorities.
I know I do, and DiAngelo’s formulation angers me. How could she present her case in a way I would receive more calmly? People of color suffer from oppression, and much of what keeps it in place is deck-stacking against them. We whites are all part of this deck-stacking, through no fault of our own. If you have some energy to go beyond your own life to make the world a better place, you might consider looking at some of your assumptions, listening to some people of color, finding out how the world seems to them, maybe finding ways to object when racist assumptions are voiced. That’s better. But Dr. DiAngelo also has to be prepared to react gracefully if I say, “No, thanks.” Maybe other causes move me more. Maybe I’m just struggling to get by in life from one day to the next.
There is a whole spectrum of white attitudes towards people of color. In one survey I read about, white liberals felt race was more of an obstacle to having a successful life than black people did. Some will engage earnestly in personal anti-racism work. They are enthusiastic about DiAngelo’s book. On the same end of the spectrum but somewhat towards the center are people like me who think of it as one cause among many but are in favor of all of the progressive legislative priorities. In the middle are those with a mix of feelings but featuring elephants that do not accept the idea that they live life with undeserved advantages.
But then there is the other end of the spectrum. Along with all the micro-aggressions against people of color are some macro-aggressions, such as police brutality and harsher sentences in the criminal justice system. Somehow when I imagine the policemen, judges, and legislators who are behind those injustices finding out what slight offenses their fellow whites committed to earn the diagnosis “White Fragility”, I don’t imagine them behaving better.
I have no objection to DiAngelo and her co-facilitators meeting alone after a session and letting off steam -- how damned fragile those whites were! People let off steam privately all the time. But to write a book about it – to put it in the title of the book no less, is very different. Maybe it sells books. Maybe it energizes a small band of anti-racist zealots. But it doesn’t help the cause.
To me the more interesting frame of reference is ... What does it take to make progress on this issue? Since I don’t believe the anti-racist zealots hope to seize power and impose their views on the majority through force, I assume they share my assumption that it involves winning the hearts and minds of a lot of people in the center.
So exactly who is DiAngelo taking aim at with “White Fragility”? Not White Supremacists. Not those with more moderate but still consciously held racist views. Not even those who keep their feelings to themselves while they try to figure out what their employer wants them to do. She’s taking aim at those who sincerely believe that they are not personally racists, and some who deny that systemic racism exists. They are engaging seriously with the arguments they have been given – far more than most people. Given time to reflect, some of these people could be won over to at least favor the legislative priorities. DiAngelo slams them.
Haidt’s work suggests it would be quite extraordinary if significant numbers of such people changed their views at all, no matter what facts you present them with. But DiAngelo thinks her facts are so obviously true, the associated value judgments so indisputable, that anything short of immediately accepting those facts is to be scorned and labeled “White Fragility”. The generous view is that she is simply ignorant of the relevant psychological findings of Haidt, Kahneman and others.
DiAngelo is attacking moderates – some of the very first people along the spectrum of opinion she needs to convince. Is there a countervailing advantage here to the use of “White Fragility”? Do we have testimonials of converts that go, “I was struggling to take in the facts on racism I was being presented with, but then when I heard that I had “White Fragility” it all made sense – I was being racist to even question it -- of course the facts were true and I needed to just believe them and accept that race was the most important issue society faces.” It doesn’t seem likely.
Some people further along the continuum of race relations will notice this use of White Fragility. It will harden their beliefs that the anti-racist elite liberals are out of touch and view them as not just opponents but people worthy of contempt. To the elephant, Donald Trump will continue to sound pretty good, whatever his other drawbacks.
It would be great if people responded without ego or narrow self-interest to new facts, evaluated them, and changed their ways based on a commitment to equal justice for all. But very few people do. If you want to actually change people’s beliefs, you have to meet them where they are, establish shared values, and take it one step at a time. It’s a long, slow road. One shared value might be a better deal for working people regardless of race. Cooperate on an improved social safety net, a modest guaranteed income, a greatly expanded earned income credit, infrastructure spending, and tax the wealthy to pay for it. Working side-by-side to improve each other’s economic position in absolute terms would build trust. It might be the start of a lasting coalition modeled on the New Deal consensus that started in the 1930s.
“Unstacking the deck” against people of color is very hard work. I have sympathy for the activists feeling exasperation and lashing out with “White Fragility”, but it is terrible politics.
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