White Fragility: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

The term “white tears” refers to the way that white people (particularly white women) lament how hard racism is on them. When DiAngelo’s workplace called for an informal gathering following another police shooting of an unarmed Black man, a colleague of color told DiAngelo she was in no mood for white women’s tears. At the gathering, DiAngelo asked if any white participants felt moved to tears, they should leave the room. After the discussion, she spent the next hour explaining to an outraged white woman why she was asked not to cry.

While DiAngelo understands that emotions are naturally occurring, emotions can also be political. There is a long history of Black men being tortured and murdered because of white women’s distress. One example is Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who reportedly flirted with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in a grocery store in Mississippi in 1955. She reported this alleged flirtation to her husband, and a few days later he and his half-brother beat Till to death, mutilated his body, and sank him in the Tallahatchie River. In 2007, Bryant admitted that she lied about Till flirting with her.

Sometimes, white women cry because of feedback on their racism. In one of DiAngelo’s workshops, a white woman tries to explain her Black colleague’s feelings. When DiAngelo’s Black co-facilitator points out that speaking for the colleague is problematic—as it assumes that she, as a white woman, can speak best for a Black man—the woman begins to cry. As a result, all of the attention goes to her, while her Black colleague’s point is entirely lost in the discussion and he watches her receive comfort.

In another example, a white woman new to a racial justice organization is promoted as the supervisor of the women of color who worked there for years and trained her. When the promotion is announced, the white woman tearfully requests support from the women of color, who have to deal with both the injustice of the promotion and having to comfort the woman they trained.

White fragility in men is also clear, but it usually shows up as varying forms of dominance, intimidation, and anger—pushing race off the table and helping them maintain control over the conversation. But to interrupt systemic racism, white people have to get racially uncomfortable and not indulge in anger, defensiveness, self-pity, or guilt—all of which push people to inaction rather than action. DiAngelo says that while she herself has been moved to tears in certain discussions, she tries to cry quietly and not accept comfort so that the focus can remain where it belongs.

White women’s tears also affect white men in distinct ways. White women have benefitted from increased resources through their relationships with white men. And so when white women cry and white men come to their rescue in cross-racial settings, they are legitimizing white women as the targets of harm, while people of color are abandoned. White people do need to feel grief about the brutality of white supremacy, DiAngelo writes, but it must lead to sustained and transformative actions.