Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in White Fragility, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
White Fragility
White Supremacy
Racism and the Good/Bad Binary
Individualism, Objectivity, and Meritocracy
Summary
Analysis
As a white person born and raised in the United States, DiAngelo has a white frame of reference and worldview. However, like most white Americans, DiAngelo was taught to not draw attention to her race or behave as if it mattered. Being seen racially is a trigger of white fragility, and so the first challenge to white fragility means naming and understanding whiteness as a race.
Not naming whiteness as a race is a part of objectivity: the idea that people can be objective. Because white people are considered the norm or default in American society, they are rarely considered as a group that can be affected or advantaged by their race. As a result, calling out whiteness can trigger white fragility because it calls attention to the fact that white people do benefit from being white.
Themes
When people try to talk openly about race, white fragility quickly manifests as a range of reactions, including silence, defensiveness, and argumentation. But these responses prevent white people from engaging productively with issues of race and thus perpetuate the current racial hierarchy. Interrupting racism is crucial, but because white people generally understand racism as discrete acts committed by immoral individuals, many white people believe that they are not part of the problem and their learning is complete.
White fragility is problematic because it allows white people to deflect from racist behavior rather than working to remedy it. In addition, believing that only immoral people exhibit racism enables most people to believe that they are not and cannot be racist—because to do so would deny their positive self-image. However, the book suggests that this is not the case, and that white people need to sit with the discomfort that they, too, can perpetuate racism and need to commit to active anti-racist behavior.
Themes
A common aspect of white responses to discussions of racism come back two ideas: individualism and objectivity. Individualism holds that they are individuals that stand apart from others, even within social groups. Second, objectivity suggests that it is possible to be free from bias. These two ideologies make it difficult for white people to explore what it means to be white.
Individualism and objectivity allow people to consider themselves outside of white supremacy, because they can argue that they are not the same as “most white people” or that they do not hold bias. However, as the book will show, these ideologies are dangerously deceptive.
Themes
Individualism claims that there are no intrinsic barriers to individual success and that failure is not a consequence of social structures but instead comes from individual character. Of course, DiAngelo says, we know that this inherently isn’t true: there’s a difference between being a man or a woman, old or young, and rich or poor. We gain understanding about these different groups—that some are “better” than others—through media, textbooks, religion, jokes, traditions, and other aspects of culture. We acknowledge that Bill Gates’s son was born into opportunity that others don’t have, but white people still cling to the ideology of individualism when it comes to their own advantages and don’t believe their racial group membership matters.
The example of Bill Gates’s son helps readers recognize that certain groups of people—the rich, in this example—have advantages over others simply because of who they are (e.g., where they were born, who their parents are, etc.). And yet, white people largely still try to claim individualism, arguing that they do not have advantages because they are white despite the way in which white supremacy and racism still affect all of the United States’ major institutions.
Themes
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Addressing group identity also challenges objectivity. If group membership is relevant, it means that that group doesn’t see the world from the universal perspective. This is a problem for white people, who are taught that having a racial viewpoint is being biased. But ignoring racial viewpoints only ensures that people won’t examine or change them. This is critical, because what people say they believe isn’t the same as what they believe subconsciously.
The problem with objectivity is that it allows white people to believe that they have a universal, unbiased experience. Yet the messages of white supremacy—the assumed superiority of white people—are ubiquitous in culture and institutions throughout the United States and the world. Thus, white people carry more subconscious bias than they know or admit, and as a result of this ignorance, they cannot work to change it.
Themes
In DiAngelo’s workshops, many white people protest that they aren’t like most white people. One man explains that he is Italian American and Italians were once discriminated against, so white people can experience racism, too. DiAngelo notes that it would have been better to consider how Italian Americans were able to assimilate into the mainstream white experience, and how this assimilation has given the man advantages (the employees of the company he works for are overwhelmingly white). She implores people to let go of their individual narrative and grapple with their collective experiences.
Individualism causes white people to exempt themselves from the dynamics of white supremacy. But the example of the Italian man in DiAngelo’s workshop concedes that white people can still face forms of discrimination like xenophobia or classism. However, she also emphasizes that even when facing other forms of oppression, white people still have inherent advantages over people of color simply as a result of being white—like advantages in hiring.
Themes
White people have a simplistic understanding of race, as they’ve been taught that racists are mean, immoral people who intentionally dislike others because of their race. Because of this, saying that white people are racist would be considered deeply offensive. But DiAngelo explains that this is a misconception of what racism truly is.
This section highlights the problems with the good/bad binary conception of racism. Believing that only bad people can be racist means that pointing out racism calls the person’s character into question, and that person’s reaction is usually to defend their character rather than working to change racist behavior.
Themes
DiAngelo expects white readers to feel some discomfort reading her book—but that this is key to moving forward in race relations. Feeling comfortable only perpetuates the status quo. She asks white people to consider that because they are white, there might be racial dynamics they can’t see. They must be willing to experience discomfort but resist white fragility.
DiAngelo emphasizes that discomfort is a natural response to addressing racism and must be embraced. Rather than reacting with defensiveness or anger, it is crucial for white people to sit with their discomfort and resist white fragility so that they can then understand their problematic behavior and work to change it.
Themes
