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Robin DiAngelo Books

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“Habitus maintains our social comfort and helps us regain it when those around us do not act in familiar and acceptable ways. .... Thus, white fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress in the habitus becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. .... These behaviors, in turn, reinstate white racial equilibrium.”

White FragilityHabitus
Book:White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
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“We would often lead workshops in offices that were 95-100% white, and yet the participants would bitterly complain about Affirmative Action. This would unnerve me as I looked around these rooms and saw only white people. Clearly these white people were employed - we were in their workplace, after all. There were no people of color here, yet white people were making enraged claims that people of color were taking their jobs. This outrage was not based in any racial reality, yet obviously the emotion was real. I began to wonder how we managed to maintain that reality - how could we not see how white the workplace and its leadership was, at the very moment that we were complaining about not being able to get jobs because people of color would be hired over "us"? How were we, as white people, able to enjoy so much racial privilege and dominance in the workplace, yet believe so deeply that racism had changed direction to now victimize us?”

RacismAffirmative ActionWhitenessRacial JusticeWhite PeopleRacial Equality
Author:Robin DiAngelo
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“We see race as what people of color have (or are.) If people of color are not present, race is not present. Further, if people of color are not present, not only is race absent, so is that terrible thing: racism. Ironically, this positions racism as something people of color have and bring to whites, rather than a system which whites control and impose on people of color.”

RacismWhite SupremacyRacism In AmericaWhitenessWhite PrivilegeRacial Justice
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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“People who claim not to be prejudiced are demonstrating a profound lack of self-awareness. Ironically, they are also demonstrating the power of socialization. We have all been taught in schools, through movies, and from family members, teachers, and clergy, that it is important not to be prejudiced. Unfortunately, the prevailing belief that prejudice is bad causes us to deny its unavoidable reality. Prejudice is foundational to understanding white fragility because suggesting that white people have racial prejudice is perceived as saying that we are bad and should be ashamed. We then feel the need to defend our character rather than explore the inevitable racial prejudices we have absorbed so that we might change them. In this way, our misunderstanding about what prejudice is protects it.”

RacismPrejudiceBlack Lives MatterRace And Racism In AmericaRace In America
Book:White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
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“I was co-leading a workshop with an African American man. A white participant said to him, "I don't see race; I don't see you as black." My co-trainer's response was, "Then how will you see racism?" He then explained to her that he was black, he was confident that she could see this, and that his race meant that he had a very different experience in life than she did. If she were ever going to understand or challenge racism, she would need to acknowledge this difference. Pretending that she did not noticed that he was black was not helpful to him in any way, as it denied his reality - indeed, it refused his reality - and kept hers insular and unchallenged. This pretense that she did not notice his race assumed that he was "just like her," and in so doing, she projected her reality onto him. For example, I feel welcome at work so you must too; I have never felt that my race mattered, so you must feel that yours doesn't either. But of course, we do see the race of other people, and race holds deep social meaning for us.”

RacismWhitenessWhite FragilityColorblind RacismDenial Of Racism
Book:White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
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“To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility.”

RacismAnti RacismWhite Fragility
Author:Robin DiAngelo
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“How can I say that if you are white, your opinions on racism are most likely ignorant, when I don't even know you? I can say so because nothing in mainstream US culture gives us the information we need to have the nuanced understanding of arguable the most complex and enduring social dynamic of the last several hundred years.”

White Fragility
Book:White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
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“I try to follow these guidelines: 1. How, where, and when you give me feedback is irrelevant - it is the feedback I want and need. Understanding that it is hard to give, I will take it any way I can get it. From my position of social, cultural, and institutional white power and privilege, I am perfectly safe and I can handle it. If I cannot handle it, it's on me to build my racial stamina. 2. Thank you.”

RacismWhite Fragility
Book:White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
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“Not having a group consciousness, whites often respond defensively when grouped with other whites, resenting what they see as unfair generalizations. Individualism prevents us from seeing ourselves as responsible for or accountable to other whites as members of a shared racial group that collectively benefits from racial inequality.”

IndividualismWhitenessRacial InjusticeRacial IdentityGeneralizations
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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“Because whites are not socialized to see ourselves collectively, we don't see our group's history as relevant. Therefore, we expect people of color to trust us as soon as they meet us. We don't see ourselves as having to earn that trust.”

Race RelationsWhitenessRace Relations In AmericaRacial IdentityHistorical Contexts
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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“Narratives of racial exceptionality obscure the reality of ongoing institutional white control while reinforcing ideologies of individualism and meritocracy. They also do whites a disservice by obscuring the white allies behind the scenes who worked hard and long to open the field. These allies could serve as much-needed role models for other whites.”

RacismAlliesMeritocracyExceptionalismRacial EqualityExceptionalityDesegregation
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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“Racism is a complex and interconnected system that adapts to challenges over time. Colorblind ideology was a very effective adaptation to the challenges of the Civil Rights Era. Colorblind ideology allows society to deny the reality of racism in the face of its persistence, while making it more difficult to challenge than when it was openly espoused.”

RacismRacism In AmericaWhitenessColorblindnessColorblind Racism
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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“Denying that race matters is irrational in the face of segregation and all of the other forms of obvious racial inequity in society. It is even more irrational to believe that it is whites who are at the receiving end of discrimination. Maintaining this denial of reality takes tremendous emotional and psychic energy.”

DiscriminationRacism In AmericaWhitenessDenial Of RacismReverse Discrimination
Book:What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
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