This was quite painful to read, and I see the dynamic of these ideas as problematic.
First, possibly the most painful idea for any human to entertain: “A large part of your core identity is inherently very bad in ways you can’t see”
and then second: “The pain and fear you feel in response to this news is a sign of inherent weakness (fragility) and further proves your guilt”
and lastly: “I’m not *trying* to make you feel bad, suppress that pain and take off your silly sack cloth and ashes”
“You are inherently bad” → “Your pain on hearing that is weakness and proof of guilt” → “This dynamic is not problematic you’re being weird for over-reacting”
That’s very harsh thing to say to someone and then act like they are weird for having an adverse reaction.
I share your frustration at the book because I’m really sympathetic to the ideas that:
systemic racism is an issue
confusing racismF for racismS is a problem worth exploring
the inherent pain majority groups face in grappling with these complex issues is a blocker to progress.
But I feel such sorrow at the idea that the solution to this dynamic is to position that pain itself as an insidious and problematic weakness. And to try and crop dust a generation of young people with that memeplex? That will lead to trouble.
If you want people to hold a painful and nuanced set of complex ideas and grapple with them they need to be held, seen, and supported.
I think you may be reading more (and more sinister things) into this than were originally there. I don’t think DiAngelo starts with “a large part of your core identity is inherently very bad” at all. The progression she has in mind is more like this:
You were raised in a culture that has a lot of baggage from its explicitly white supremacist origins, and as part of learning to adopt to that culture you learned ways of getting along with it that have the effect of reinforcing its racism. In part this is because as a white person those things were designed with your benefit in mind and so you didn’t have much reason to look the gift horse in the mouth. You did this even if you didn’t have any bigoted intentions or desire to be awful to non-white people.
If you would rather work to repair the racist system rather than coast along continuing to take advantage of it, you’ll have to work on that. But if you respond defensively whenever such opportunities are pointed out to you, you probably won’t succeed.
So try to drop your defensiveness and don’t take it so personally when someone points out ways in which you have picked up patterns of behavior that help to reinforce a racist system you aren’t even very sympathetic with.
I’m very open to the idea that I’ve seen something that wasn’t there and or wasn’t intended 😄, let me see if I can spesifically find what made me feel that way.
Okay, so I have that reaction to paragraphs like this:
White fragility is a sort of defensiveness that takes the form of a variety of strategies that white people deploy when we are confronted with how we participate in and perpetuate racismS. Whites use these strategies to deflect or avoid such a confrontation and to defend a comfortable, privileged vantage point from which race is “not an issue” (at least to us who benefit from it).
and
So if a white person should not pretend to be racially blank, and yet as DiAngelo reminds us “white identity is inherently racist,” what is a white person to do? DiAngelo’s way to thread the needle is this: “I strive to be ‘less white.’ ”
What I hear when I read this is “you are inherentlywhite, and to be white is inheriently bad” thought it’s possible I’m pattern matching this to ideas of being and judgement that I grew up with in Church i.e “you are inherently a sinner”. Do you think this reading is totally unmerited?
And those first two points I’m on board with, but it’s the flavour of the third point that I react to because if I gave someone a bundle of ideas that I reasonably expected to be painful to process I’d try to deliver that message with as much overt kindness and recognition of their pain as I could.
And I’d expect flat statements like “try to drop your defensiveness” or “don’t take it so personally” to just make it harder to process and cause pain I guess 😅. Expecially when the receipients are disposed to think you already don’t like them.
(edited to tone down a little)
This was quite painful to read, and I see the dynamic of these ideas as problematic.
First, possibly the most painful idea for any human to entertain: “A large part of your core identity is inherently very bad in ways you can’t see”
and then second: “The pain and fear you feel in response to this news is a sign of inherent weakness (fragility) and further proves your guilt”
and lastly: “I’m not *trying* to make you feel bad, suppress that pain and take off your silly sack cloth and ashes”
“You are inherently bad” → “Your pain on hearing that is weakness and proof of guilt” → “This dynamic is not problematic you’re being weird for over-reacting”
That’s very harsh thing to say to someone and then act like they are weird for having an adverse reaction.
I share your frustration at the book because I’m really sympathetic to the ideas that:
systemic racism is an issue
confusing racismF for racismS is a problem worth exploring
it’s encumbant upon me to look for unjust ways society has been set up that benifit me
the inherent pain majority groups face in grappling with these complex issues is a blocker to progress.
But I feel such sorrow at the idea that the solution to this dynamic is to position that pain itself as an insidious and problematic weakness. And to try and crop dust a generation of young people with that memeplex? That will lead to trouble.
If you want people to hold a painful and nuanced set of complex ideas and grapple with them they need to be held, seen, and supported.
I think you may be reading more (and more sinister things) into this than were originally there. I don’t think DiAngelo starts with “a large part of your core identity is inherently very bad” at all. The progression she has in mind is more like this:
You were raised in a culture that has a lot of baggage from its explicitly white supremacist origins, and as part of learning to adopt to that culture you learned ways of getting along with it that have the effect of reinforcing its racism. In part this is because as a white person those things were designed with your benefit in mind and so you didn’t have much reason to look the gift horse in the mouth. You did this even if you didn’t have any bigoted intentions or desire to be awful to non-white people.
If you would rather work to repair the racist system rather than coast along continuing to take advantage of it, you’ll have to work on that. But if you respond defensively whenever such opportunities are pointed out to you, you probably won’t succeed.
So try to drop your defensiveness and don’t take it so personally when someone points out ways in which you have picked up patterns of behavior that help to reinforce a racist system you aren’t even very sympathetic with.
I’m very open to the idea that I’ve seen something that wasn’t there and or wasn’t intended 😄, let me see if I can spesifically find what made me feel that way.
Okay, so I have that reaction to paragraphs like this:
and
What I hear when I read this is “you are inherently white, and to be white is inheriently bad” thought it’s possible I’m pattern matching this to ideas of being and judgement that I grew up with in Church i.e “you are inherently a sinner”. Do you think this reading is totally unmerited?
And those first two points I’m on board with, but it’s the flavour of the third point that I react to because if I gave someone a bundle of ideas that I reasonably expected to be painful to process I’d try to deliver that message with as much overt kindness and recognition of their pain as I could.
And I’d expect flat statements like “try to drop your defensiveness” or “don’t take it so personally” to just make it harder to process and cause pain I guess 😅. Expecially when the receipients are disposed to think you already don’t like them.