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
One day, DiAngelo meets with her company’s new web developer, Angela, who is Black. Angela gives DiAngelo a survey to fill out about her intended audience, methods, and goals. DiAngelo finds the questions tedious, and so she tries to explain verbally—the team goes into offices to facilitate antiracism training. She adds that the team isn’t always well-received, commenting that “the white people were scared by Deborah’s hair”—Deborah is a Black woman on DiAngelo’s team who wears her hair in locked braids.
White Fragility’s final chapter looks at an incident in which DiAngelo made an inappropriate comment and caused offense. She does this as a way to model appropriate responses and how other white people can avoid white fragility. Here, joking about her colleague’s hair is inappropriate because hair can be a sensitive issue for many Black women.
Themes
A few days later, one of DiAngelo’s team members lets DiAngelo know that Angela was offended by DiAngelo’s comment. DiAngelo quickly realizes her comment was off and seeks out a white friend who has a solid understanding of cross-racial dynamics. They discuss her feelings of embarrassment, shame, and guilt, and identify the ways her racism was revealed. Afterwards, she asks Angela to meet again, and Angela accepts.
Even though DiAngelo feels guilt and shame at having caused offense, she works through those feelings with another white person first before asking to meet with Angela. That way, at the second meeting with Angela, DiAngelo can put her own feelings aside and focus on Angela instead. And she acknowledges the racism in her comment rather than acting defensively, illustrating how to avoid white fragility.
Themes
DiAngelo admits to Angela that her comment was inappropriate, and Angela agrees that she did not want to be joking about a Black woman’s hair with a white woman she didn’t know in a professional setting. DiAngelo asks if she missed anything else problematic in the meeting. Angela points out that she wrote the survey DiAngelo disregarded, and that she’s spent her life justifying her intelligence to white people. DiAngelo acknowledges the impact of her dismissal and asks if there’s anything else Angela needs. Angela asks if DiAngelo wants feedback publicly or privately next time, and DiAngelo says publicly because she is an educator and she wants to model how to receive feedback openly. Angela appreciates DiAngelo’s willingness to repair her mistakes.
The steps DiAngelo goes through model how to combat white fragility. She takes responsibility for the impact of her comment, regardless of her intention. She does the same thing in the moment when Angela calls her out on her disregard for the survey that Angela wrote. DiAngelo expresses her desire to take feedback in public so that she, too, can work on fighting her own white fragility and also provide an example for the other white people around her. And as such, Angela appreciates her ability to graciously receive the feedback, reflect, and work to change her behavior—like the man at the end of Chapter 9 expresses.
Themes
DiAngelo acknowledges that this interaction would not have been as constructive before she began her work as an educator—back then, she likely would have reacted with defensiveness. But instead, when receiving feedback, it is important to respond with discomfort, but also gratitude, compassion, humility, and motivation. That way white people can reflect, apologize, engage, and seek more understanding. When people’s understanding of racism is transformed, then their responses to it can be transformed as well.
DiAngelo admits that reacting with white fragility is second nature even for herself, because before she began her work, she also would have exhibited it. She hopes that by bringing more awareness to these patterns of reactions that other people can also combat their reactions and move past white fragility.
Themes
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It is important to form new ideas about racism, which DiAngelo lists. For instance, being good or bad is not relevant to racism, white people have blind spots and implicit bias, and feedback is a sign of trust given by people of color because it is difficult to give. She also notes that discomfort is key to growth, and action is the remedy for guilt. Racism hurts (and even kills) people of color, and so interrupting it is more important than white people’s self-image or feelings. These new ideas will minimize defensiveness, allow for growth and action, build authentic relationships and trust, and interrupt internalized superiority and privilege. When white people ask DiAngelo what to do about racism and white fragility, she asks what’s enabled them to be ignorant about racism up to this point. They have to educate themselves, build relationships, and help to change institutions.
This passage returns to the key themes of the book: that it is important for white people to assess themselves as a collective, and how they have benefitted from white supremacy. It is important for white people to understand racism as a system, not only as intentional actions that extreme people carry out. And by admitting these two things, white people can hopefully address some of their own complicity in racism and white supremacy and work to change it. Part of that project includes education on the issues, not just through this book but through other resources on racism. And after combatting white fragility, they can hopefully then move on to helping dismantle racism on an institutional level.
Themes
Returning to the example with Angela, DiAngelo followed a series of steps. She processed her reaction with another white person as to not burden people of color. She then identified how she reinforced racism. Afterward, she asked if Angela would be willing to meet and own her racism. DiAngelo didn’t say “if you were offended,” she admitted her behavior was offensive, and she asked Angela what she missed and committed to do better. And now, DiAngelo and Angela have more mutual trust, not less.
Not saying the phrase “if you were offended” is a key part of admitting racism, because it recognizes the impact of racist comments rather than viewing offense through white people’s lenses. And as a result of this and the other steps that DiAngelo took, she was able to repair the relationship and forge a better one with Angela—again showing the positive impact that not reacting with white fragility can have.
Themes
White people must educate themselves and demand that schools and universities educate students about race; they can also get involved in multi-racial organizations and white organizations working for racial justice. White people have to welcome feedback—not being open to it makes relationships with people of color distant and inauthentic. And most importantly, it is necessary for white people to break the silence about race and racism with other white people.
Education and changed behavior don’t simply stop at apologizing for racist behavior or remarks. It extends to breaking with white supremacy in all its forms, both in the company of white people and also in institutions at large. Still, the first step to doing this is overcoming white fragility, because white people need to be able to talk about racial issues in the first place before dismantling them.
Themes
DiAngelo addresses criticism that her work takes advantage of white guilt: she doesn’t see her efforts to acknowledge how race shapes her life as a matter of guilt. She doesn’t feel guilty about racism—she didn’t choose her socialization. But she is responsible for her role in it. Knowing that racism is ingrained in society, she doesn’t feel that she needs to invest energy in denying that she can be racist. Instead, she is glad to be able to identify when she makes mistakes so that she can stop colluding in the system.
White people may feel discomfort in being called out for racist behavior. However, understanding that white people are inevitably complicit in racism generally makes accusations of racism less stressful, and from there people can work more productively to change the behavior that reinforces that racism.
Themes
One approach to antiracist work is to develop a positive white identity by reclaiming cultural heritage that was lost during assimilation. But a positive white identity is an impossible goal, as white identity is inherently racist and in collusion with white supremacy. To claim only to be Italian or Irish is to ignore racism today. Rather, white people can strive to be less racially oppressive instead, to break with white silence and white solidarity.
People claiming that they are only Irish or Italian again ignores the collective advantages that white people have in society, and it ignores the racist systems from which they benefit as a group. This idea returns to the argument of individualism—that individual white people might be exempt from racism because of their unique perspective.
Themes
Many white participants in DiAngelo’s workshops ask her how to tell someone about their racism without triggering white fragility. She asks in turn how she could tell them about their racism without triggering it, to point out that they are part of the problem, too. Still, DiAngelo has a few strategies: first, trying to understand the person’s perspective before sharing hers, and framing her feedback or perspective in a way where she is sharing insight she has gained. She also takes some time and returns to interactions later. But she emphasizes that her goal is not to change the other person—what guides her is her own need for integrity and to break with white solidarity.
While it is important to learn how to hold other white people accountable for racist behavior, it’s not enough to look for this in other people—white people must also keep themselves accountable and be willing to receive feedback. In addition, they must call out racism for themselves to act with integrity and break with white solidarity and white supremacy.
Themes
People of color also ask DiAngelo how to navigate white fragility. She wishes she had a simple answer, but ultimately she suggests that if they don’t want to burden themselves, they can ask a white person they trust to deal with the situation. It is also white people’s responsibility to be less fragile, and people of color should avoid making white people feel more comfortable because it protects white people’s feelings rather than supporting growth. People of color should not avoid sharing their pain and challenging racism simply because white people can’t handle it.
Although people of color are not DiAngelo’s target audience for this book, she also emphasizes that they need to hold white people accountable as well and not to allow white people to fall back on white fragility and defensiveness over race. Instead, white people must manage their discomfort constructively and want to change their behavior.
Themes
In conclusion, society and its institutions currently maintain racial inequality. For this system to continue only needs white people to be really nice and continue to act the same ways that they always have. Interrupting racism takes courage and intentionality. It is a lifelong process, but ultimately one that is necessary to align with professed values.
The current status quo only perpetuates racism and white supremacy. To break with that status quo, it is necessary for white people to challenge their assumptions on race and work to change the behavior based on these assumptions.
Themes
