White Fragility

White Fragility

Following her experience leading workplace anti-racism trainings, Dr. Robin DiAngelo, a Race and Social Justice professer at the University of Washington, coined the term “White Fragility.” It is characterized by the inability to tolerate racial stress, as a result of White people in North America living in a “social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress.” DiAngelo explains how North Americans can grow up in an environment where they do not have to talk or encounter race, resulting in their emotional disconnect and refusal to accept structural racism. This detachment is “the conclusion of living a life oblivious to the fact that their skin colour is the norm and all others deviate from it.”

Racial Stress

When a racial stress is experienced, a range of defensive behaviour is activated until the white racial equilibrium is regained. This can include displays of intense emotional reactions (anger, fear, or denial), or self-justifying actions (argumentation, ignorance, or silence). Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche recognized that humans prefer to be lied to rather than face the harsh reality, saying “people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” For Caucasians living in a predominantly White society, discussing race can make them feel uncomfortable and defensive because their pleasant environment is disrupted.
Many White people refuse to accept the existence of racism and the idea of white privilege. White culture conditions Caucasians to be oblivious and unaware of their powerful ranking in society. For many, it is a strong belief that “the experiences of their own life – as a result of their skin colour – can and should be universal. ” Sociologist Joe Feagin uses the term “white racial frame” to argue how American history is founded on creating and maintaining a racial hierarchy, where Caucasians are placed at the top and considered the dominant race. This white racial frame is a principal worldview that involves important racial ideas and stereotypes that continues to be the “basic and foundational frame from which a substantial majority of white Americans … view our highly racialized society.” Feagin argues that “American culture has taught whites to believe they represent the intellectual and cultural vanguard … and to view their dominant status as natural and yet invisible.”

Response to Racial Stress

Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter

A topical example of this can be seen with the #BlackLivesMatter movement that started in 2012, and the #AllLivesMatter trend that ensued. The former hashtag sparked a discussion on racial injustice and white privilege within a predominantly White-oriented culture, and confronted the status quo of what society has deemed as acceptable and normal. The #AllLivesMatter trend “denounces and dismisses the value of the Black Lives Matter movement” and it “instructs the movement on what and where one should place focus.”

Oblivious to Racism

Another form of racial stress is when White people believe that racism does not exist in their community. Colour-blindness is “used to silence talk about structural racism while [White people] continue to fool [themselves] with the lie of meritocracy.”
Dr. Derald Wing Sue conducted a series of interviews in San Francisco that uncovered the “invisible Whiteness of being.” Dr. Sue asked the question “what does it mean to be White?” and received answers that displayed forms of denial and confusion. One 26-year-old White, female college student answered, “I’ve never thought about it. I wish people would just forget about race differences.” Dr. Sue explains her answer as exhibiting a desire to “eliminate or dilute the race differences by saying that… everyone should be an American.”

Self-protection: “I’m not racist!”

Unlike people of colour, White people are seen as individuals and rarely othered and labelled “one of them.” Due to their strong support by social institutions and political structures, White people have the privilege of rarely being targeted due to the colour of their skin. However, they are affected and stressed out by verbal attacks on their character.
John Metta, a writer for the Huffington Post, wrote about a conversation that took place between his White aunt and his Black sister. “The only difference between people in The North and people in [South Carolina] is that down here, at least people are honest about being racist,” his sister said. Over a decade later, his aunt still remembers this sentence and is still hurt by the suggestion that she, a liberal northerner with Black family members, is a racist. Metta writes that his aunt was given the ability to move away from the racial segregation and oppression that Metta grew up with. She was able to improve her situation, and so to her racism is not real. To his aunt, Metta’s sister’s assumption that all northern people are racist was an accusation of her individual character. Metta describes his aunt’s response as being one of self-defence: “I didn’t do anything, I’m not racist at all.”

Ending White Fragility

DiAngelo says that one of the ways society can stop White fragility is by working through the feelings of discomfort in order to better understand the racial disharmony. By engaging in thought-provoking and honest discussions of racism with a person of colour, DiAngelo believes it will divorce the Caucasian from their personal feelings and identity and spark real conversations that unpack the complexity of race. Additionally, it is equally as important to listen with an open mind and tolerate the reality, rather than adopting a defensive manner and arguing that they are not racist.