I sent part 1 of this review to the FUUSN list, but I did not send this second part. It appears here for the first time.
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In an earlier post I gave my initial reactions to Dr. Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” focusing on my strong objections to that two-word phrase if the goal is to actually improve the position of people of color in society in large.
This leaves another question. How should people run a racial sensitivity workshop?
DiAngelo puts at the center of her workshops a strong version of how whites are part of a profoundly unfair racist system and have an obligation to change that system. I think this is unwise. There will be a few people who are ready to join the vanguard, and all they need to tip them over the edge is the understanding of their place in an unfair system and how much is at stake. The vanguard might think this is a good strategy, since quite possibly it’s exactly that strategy that made them join the cause. But the vast majority of people will not easily accept that they have unearned advantages. Compare, “It is very hard to get someone to understanding something when their salary depends on their not understanding it.” Roughly half of white people think it is they who are discriminated against today, not minorities. It’s an erroneous belief, but if DiAngelo insists on challenging it directly, they will likely not listen to anything else she has to say – this is what Jonathan Haidt would predict. Even those who don’t think they are discriminated against are likely to resist the idea that they have unearned advantages.
How would I run a racial sensitivity workshop in a work setting? Here’s an initial idea: make a video of a number of workplace interactions, followed by a smiling person of color for each gently explaining why that wasn’t so great from their point of view. Or show whites taking polite feedback gracefully, perhaps describing some minor shame and embarrassment but how they worked through it. Specific problems, specific solutions. No need to dump “You are a racist” on people like a ton of bricks. Don’t goad the elephant (the one Haidt argues is inside each of us). Whites are more likely to be receptive to seeing how a specific sort of behavior is problematic without confronting their beliefs about overall racism in society.
The subtitle of DiAngelo’s book is “Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism”. She never answers that question – I feel like I’ve made a better start than she does just by referring to Haidt’s work. But she does have a vision for how anti-racism work might proceed in general. I might summarize the overall vision as, “I as a white person have the original sin of racism, and only with the help of the wisdom of people of color will I be able to learn of the full extent of my sin and begin, ever so slowly, if my devotion is constant and my heart is pure, to start reducing that sin.” Those religious overtones are not stated explicitly, but the gist is clear. This may work well for the anti-racist vanguard, but it is a very poor fit for average whites.
On pages 139-140, DiAngelo relays her own experience of anti-racism work, with the understanding that she has already worked on this quite a bit and we are seeing an advanced perspective. If we agree that the goal is to try to get ordinary white people to work to reduce racism, I find it alarming. Here is a lengthy verbatim quote:
“The equity team has been invited to a meeting with the company's new web developer. The team consists of two women, both of whom are black, and me. The new web developer, who is also black, wants to interview us so that she can build our page. She starts the meeting by giving us a survey to fill out. Many questions on the survey inquire about our intended audience, methods, goals, and objectives. I find the questions tedious and feel irritated by them. Pushing the survey aside, I try to explain verbally. I tell the web developer that we go out into the satellite offices to facilitate antiracism training. I add that the training is not always well received; in fact, one member of our team was told not to come back. I make a joke: "The white people were scared by Deborah's hair" (Deborah is black and has long locked braids). The meeting ends and we move on.
A few days later, one of my team members lets me know that the web developer -- who I will call Angela -- was offended by my hair comment. While I wasn't paying attention at the time, once I was informed, I quickly realize why that comment was off. I seek out a friend who is white and has a solid understanding of cross-racial dynamics. We discuss my feelings (embarrassment, shame, guilt) and then she helps me identify the various ways my racism was revealed in that interaction. After this processing, I feel ready to repair the relationship. I ask Angela to meet with me, and she accepts.
I open by asking Angela, "Would you be willing to grant me the opportunity to repair the racism I perpetrated towards you in that meeting?" When she agrees, I continue. "I realize that my comment about Deborah's hair was inappropriate."
Angela nods and explains that she did not know me and did not want to be joking about black women's hair (a sensitive issue for many black women) with a white woman whom she did not have a trusting relationship with, much less in a professional work meeting.
I apologize and ask her if I have missed anything else problematic in the meeting.
"Yes," she replies. "That survey? I wrote that survey. And I have spent my life justifying my intelligence to white people."
My chest constricts as I immediately realize the impact of my glib dismissal of the survey. I acknowledge this impact and apologize.
She accepts my apology. I ask Angela if there is anything else that needs to be said or heard so that we may move forward.
She replies that yes, there is. "The next time you do something like this, would you like feedback publicly or privately?" she asks.
I answer that given my role as an educator, I would appreciate receiving the feedback publicly as it is important for white people to see that I am also engaged in a lifelong process of learning and growth. And I could model for other white people how to receive feedback openly and without defensiveness.
She tells me that although these dynamics occur daily between white people and people of color, my willingness to repair doesn't, and that she appreciates this. We move on.”
That ends the long quote from DiAngelo.
One extraordinary aspect of this exposition is that she accepts Angela’s accusation of racism regarding the survey without question – and even with ample time to select her example for her book, she doesn’t question it or see that what she presents as racism is, as best I can tell, not. I’m open to hearing arguments as to why I’m wrong about this.
DiAngelo is presented with a survey that she assumes was written by some white person. She reacts dismissively to it. That is not ideal collegial behavior, but it is not racism. When Angela later tells her that she wrote that survey and has spent her career justifying her intelligence to white people, DiAngelo’s chest constricts -- and her critical thinking stops. It is fine to sympathize with Angela’s past history of people doubting her intelligence – but how does this connect to present-day racism by DiAngelo? What we have is DiAngelo’s race-blind negative reaction to a survey which as it turns out was written by Angela. Angela’s job as a professional is to find out why DiAngelo had a negative reaction to the survey and see if it can be improved. She’s under no obligation to take her suggestions, but Angela doesn’t even want to hear about it -- she wants implicit permission to be a second-rate web developer. She wants explicit permission to publicly criticize DiAngelo for allegedly racist behavior, with the assumption she must naturally be right, and in a spirit of religious contrition, DiAngelo agrees.
I am happy to accept Angela’s original complaint about DiAngelo’s making a joke about some black woman’s hair. But here’s my idea for how the conversation might go, without the religious overtones:
"Hey, Angela, you know I try to do better on racism stuff, and I think maybe I screwed up the other day. You got time to talk about it? Up to you..."
"Oh, yeah... OK, I got time."
"When I talked about Deborah's hair... my team member said you weren't so happy about that, and I can kind of see why. Did I get that right from her?"
"Yeah, I didn't like it because I don't know you, and we didn’t have a relationship of trust."
"OK. You do realize I was most definitely disapproving of that white woman's reaction to Deborah's hair?"
"Yeah... yeah, I do. But even so..."
"OK, I understand that didn’t make it OK... I'll try to do better. I apologize."
That involves checking assumptions that DiAngelo’s version does not. It doesn’t assume Angela is right about everything just because she’s black. While it’s reasonable to assume the person of color is more likely to be right when racism is being discussed, why not approach it as two people of good will finding what works for them? Does it really serve a useful purpose for DiAngelo and her similarly advanced-in-antiracism colleague to decide what is (reverent hush here...) Racism and then set out to “repair” it? Crucially, I doubt very much the average white person is willing to take that approach.
One lesson a white person in DiAngelo’s position might learn from the Deborah’s hair issue is to never make jokes in the presence of people of color. Don’t say anything spontaneous... monitor your every word. That’s not ultimately good either. Maybe people of color differ in how sensitive they are on various issues, and what trade-off they would like to make between a more spontaneous atmosphere with some slights as background noise and a more tense and militant atmosphere where everything is held up to scrutiny. Maybe in different work groups the people of color would converge on different preferences.
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