Power structures are important and not abusing power is ethically important. The central problem with approaches like the of DiAngelo is that they try to impose a general idea about which power structures exist and how power should be redistributed to every particular interaction instead of looking at the power structures of the particular interaction.
People who are socially powerless generally have little power to appeal to general ideas about how power should be redistributed. Those who do have a degree of social power can appeal to general ideas to get more power for themselves and use it to obscure their power in the interaction.
Consultants like DiAngelo can use those ideas to have power to blackmail companies into paying them a lot to do corporate trainings. It allows upper-class black people to demand that lower class white people with less actual power bend towards their will.
One of the things DiAngelo recommends is that white people shouldn’t cry in front of black people because the act of crying has inherent power. The problem with such advice is that it prevents interracial relationships of vulnerability and encourages people to only share vulnerability within the same race. Sharing vulnerability is key for building up shared trust and loyality and this is going to generally make it harder for black people.
The strong abstract ideas about how power should be distributed also make it a lot harder to have open conversations about how power should be distributed in particular social interactions. It makes people defensive and makes it easier for the people with the actual power to shut down those conversations whether those are white or black people. It forces people to think through the interpolitical consequences of everything they say instead of openly experessing themselves and becoming vulnerable.
While you might argue that vulnerability doesn’t have a direct place in the workplace, it matters for building relationships. Men who drink beer together after work and are vulnerable with each other build bonds and then support each other in the workplace.
One interesting aspect of your summary is you saying:
It felt useful to me to try on DiAngelo’s perspective about race and to interpret my outlook, experience, and actions through its framework.
On the other hand you don’t say that it changed anything about how you actually interact with other people. This might mean that after reading the book you don’t feel like those changes are worth mentioning. It might be that it feels vulnerable to talk about those changes and there too much pressure for you to be vulnerable about them. It might also mean that the book didn’t get you to do any meaningful changes.
To me you saying that it felt useful to you without pointing to any actual use is a huge warning sign here. It’s also quite ironic that you read a book like that and the way you judge it is about whether it’s useful to you to have read it and not useful to those black people with whom you interact that you have read it. The book got you to focus on yourself and not on other people when dealing with the subject matter.
Power structures are important and not abusing power is ethically important. The central problem with approaches like the of DiAngelo is that they try to impose a general idea about which power structures exist and how power should be redistributed to every particular interaction instead of looking at the power structures of the particular interaction.
People who are socially powerless generally have little power to appeal to general ideas about how power should be redistributed. Those who do have a degree of social power can appeal to general ideas to get more power for themselves and use it to obscure their power in the interaction.
Consultants like DiAngelo can use those ideas to have power to blackmail companies into paying them a lot to do corporate trainings. It allows upper-class black people to demand that lower class white people with less actual power bend towards their will.
One of the things DiAngelo recommends is that white people shouldn’t cry in front of black people because the act of crying has inherent power. The problem with such advice is that it prevents interracial relationships of vulnerability and encourages people to only share vulnerability within the same race. Sharing vulnerability is key for building up shared trust and loyality and this is going to generally make it harder for black people.
The strong abstract ideas about how power should be distributed also make it a lot harder to have open conversations about how power should be distributed in particular social interactions. It makes people defensive and makes it easier for the people with the actual power to shut down those conversations whether those are white or black people. It forces people to think through the interpolitical consequences of everything they say instead of openly experessing themselves and becoming vulnerable.
While you might argue that vulnerability doesn’t have a direct place in the workplace, it matters for building relationships. Men who drink beer together after work and are vulnerable with each other build bonds and then support each other in the workplace.
One interesting aspect of your summary is you saying:
On the other hand you don’t say that it changed anything about how you actually interact with other people. This might mean that after reading the book you don’t feel like those changes are worth mentioning. It might be that it feels vulnerable to talk about those changes and there too much pressure for you to be vulnerable about them. It might also mean that the book didn’t get you to do any meaningful changes.
To me you saying that it felt useful to you without pointing to any actual use is a huge warning sign here. It’s also quite ironic that you read a book like that and the way you judge it is about whether it’s useful to you to have read it and not useful to those black people with whom you interact that you have read it. The book got you to focus on yourself and not on other people when dealing with the subject matter.