White supremacy refers to white people’s centrality and assumed superiority in society, and how this positioning has led to overarching political, economic, and social systems dominated by white people. But white supremacy isn’t only the foundation of historical systems like slavery or segregation—it still has a large impact on society today. In showing how white supremacy has evolved over time, White Fragility illustrates how white people continue to benefit from and perpetuate the dynamics of white supremacy. The difference between the past and the present, however, is that white supremacy goes largely unnamed today.
Originally, white supremacy was used to justify non-white people’s oppression in the United States and subsequently led to further oppression and inequality. Race itself is a function of white supremacy: as the United States was being founded, the Founding Fathers had to reconcile the conflicting ideologies that all people are created equal alongside African enslavement and Indigenous people’s genocide and displacement. Thus, the Founding Fathers—and particularly Thomas Jefferson—suggested the idea that people of other races were inferior and used that reasoning to substantiate their exploitation. DiAngelo highlights a long list of examples of political and economic policies that followed from white supremacy: “246 years of brutal enslavement; the rape of black women for the pleasure of white men and to produce more enslaved workers; the selling off of black children; the attempted genocide of Indigenous people, Indian removal acts, and reservations; indentured servitude, lynching, and mob violence; […] employment discrimination; educational discrimination; inferior schools; biased laws and policing practices; redlining and subprime mortgages; mass incarceration; racist media representations,” and the list goes on. These are just a few examples of different policies based on the belief that white people were superior that then put people of color at an even greater political and economic disadvantage. In this way, white supremacy creates self-fulfilling narratives and policies.
Even when the inequitable government-sanctioned institutions of slavery and segregation ended, white supremacy adapted and still plays a major role in politics, economics, and media today. In the present, DiAngelo cites these statistics for 2016–2017: the 10 richest Americans were 100 percent white; members of Congress, 90 percent white; governors, 96 percent white; the Cabinet, 91 percent white; and teachers, 82 percent white. News producers were 85 percent white; book publishers, 90 percent white; TV producers, 93 percent white; and music producers, 95 percent white. All of these statistics illustrate that white people still dominate in terms of wealth, power, and the narratives that society consumes, though society is only just beginning to reckon with trying to remedy this inequality. White people’s power continues reinforces the success that certain people or institutions can have. Media representations are particularly important: for example, in 2016, 95 of the top 100 films worldwide were directed by white men. Their representations of other groups of people are “extremely narrow and problematic, and yet they are reinforced over and over.” Thus, the existing power structure, dominated by white men, also influences how the world perceives people of color while consumers are largely unaware of this fact. DiAngelo points out that “race will influence whether we will survive our birth, where we are most likely to live, which schools we will attend, who our friends and partners will be, what careers we will have, how much money we will earn, how healthy we will be, and even how long we can expect to live.” Thus, white supremacy continues to have a massive effect on people’s lives, even though it largely goes unnamed as a political force.
One of the most pernicious aspects of white supremacy in its current form is that it is often inconspicuous—allowing people to perpetuate racism through coded language and actions. Neighborhoods with a non-white majority, in which white people might be a racial minority, are often presented as “scary, dangerous, or ‘sketchy.’” By contrast, white neighborhoods are often described “good, safe, sheltered, clean, desirable.” This language is coded in such a way that people know it’s really about race. Yet none of these descriptors inherently calls out race, allowing people to maintain plausible deniability about the subject of their discussion. They can maintain a positive self-image (because they don’t have to admit to racial prejudice) while still holding inherently racist beliefs. DiAngelo also explores how police stop Black and Latinx youth more often than white youth for the same activities, and judges give them harsher sentences for the same crime. Judges often claim that white juveniles are often acting because of external factors like being bullied, or coming from a single-parent home, or having a difficult time. Meanwhile, a Black or Latinx youth is “more prone to crime, more animalistic, and has less capacity for remorse.” This difference is based in stereotypical narratives and helps perpetuate white supremacy by further disadvantaging people of color.
DiAngelo cites an idea from historian Ibram X. Kendi: “if we truly believe that all humans are equal, then disparity in condition can only be the result of systemic discrimination.” The inequity between white people and people of color in society is proof that systemic inequality still persists. Even though explicitly racist systems like slavery and segregation have formally ended, the political and economic disadvantages white supremacy created for people of color continue today, and that inequality has yet to be fully addressed.
Related Themes from Other Texts
White Supremacy ThemeTracker
White Supremacy Quotes in White Fragility
Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we either are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race. We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as an unsettling and unfair moral offense. The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable—the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. I conceptualize this process as white fragility.
In fact, when we try to talk openly and honestly about race, white fragility quickly emerges as we are so often met with silence, defensiveness, argumentation, certitude, and other forms of pushback. These are not natural responses; they are social forces that prevent us from attaining the racial knowledge we need to engage more productively, and they function powerfully to hold the racial hierarchy in place. These forces include the ideologies of individualism and meritocracy, narrow and repetitive media representations of people of color, segregation in schools and neighborhoods, depictions of whiteness as the human ideal, truncated history, jokes and warnings, taboos on openly talking about race, and white solidarity.
The first in line was a white man who explained that he was Italian American and that Italians were once considered black and discriminated against, so didn’t I think that white people experience racism too? That he could be in that overwhelmingly white room of coworkers and exempt himself from an examination of his whiteness because Italians were once discriminated against is an all-too-common example of individualism. A more fruitful form of engagement (because it expands rather than protects his current worldview) would have been to consider how Italian Americans were able to become white and how that assimilation has shaped his experiences in the present as a white man. His claims did not illustrate that he was different from other white people when it comes to race. I can predict that many readers will make similar claims of exception precisely because we are products of our culture, not separate from it.
Because race is a product of social forces, it has also manifested itself along class lines; poor and working-class people were not always perceived as fully white. In a society that grants fewer opportunities to those not seen as white, economic and racial forces are inseparable. However, poor and working-class whites were eventually granted full entry into whiteness as a way to exploit labor. If poor whites were focused on feeling superior to those below them in status, they were less focused on those above. The poor and working classes, if united across race, could be a powerful force. But racial divisions have served to keep them from organizing against the owning class who profits from their labor. Still, although working-class whites experience classism, they aren’t also experiencing racism. I grew up in poverty and felt a deep sense of shame about being poor. But I also always knew that I was white, and that it was better to be white.
If you stand close to a birdcage and press your face against the wires, your perception of the bars will disappear and you will have an almost unobstructed view of the bird. If you turn your head to examine one wire of the cage closely, you will not be able to see the other wires. If your understanding of the cage is based on this myopic view, you may not understand why the bird doesn’t just go around the single wire and fly away. You might even assume that the bird liked or chose its place in the cage.
But if you stepped back and took a wider view, you would begin to see that the wires come together in an interlocking pattern-a pattern that works to hold the bird firmly in place.
The story of Jackie Robinson is a classic example of how whiteness obscures racism by rendering whites, white privilege, and racist institutions invisible. Robinson is often celebrated as the first African American to break the color line and play in major-league baseball. While Robinson was certainly an amazing baseball player, this story line depicts him as racially special, a black man who broke the color line himself. The subtext is that Robinson finally had what it took to play with whites, as if no black athlete before him was strong enough to compete at that level. Imagine if instead, the story went something like this: “Jackie Robinson, the first black man whites allowed to play major-league baseball.” This version makes a critical distinction because no matter how fantastic a player Robinson was, he simply could not play in the major leagues if whites—who controlled the institution—did not allow it. Were he to walk onto the field before being granted permission by white owners and policy makers, the police would have removed him.
Narratives of racial exceptionality obscure the reality of ongoing institutional white control while reinforcing the ideologies of individualism and meritocracy.
Consider one statistic from the preceding list: of the hundred top-grossing films worldwide in 2016, ninety-five were directed by white Americans (ninety-nine of them by men). That is an incredibly homogenous group of directors. Because these men are most likely at the top of the social hierarchy in terms of race, class, and gender, they are the least likely to have a wide variety of authentic egalitarian cross-racial relationships. Yet they are in the position to represent the racial “other.” Their representations of the “other” are thereby extremely narrow and problematic, and yet they are reinforced over and over.
It is rare for me to experience a sense of not belonging racially, and these are usually very temporary, easily avoidable situations. Indeed, throughout my life, I have been warned that I should avoid situations in which I might be a racial minority. These situations are often presented as scary, dangerous, or “sketchy.” Yet if the environment or situation is viewed as good, nice, or valuable, I can be confident that as a white person, I will be seen as racially belonging there.
The very real consequences of breaking white solidarity play a fundamental role in maintaining white supremacy. We do indeed risk censure and other penalties from our fellow whites. We might be accused of being politically correct or might be perceived as angry, humorless, combative, and not suited to go far in an organization. In my own life, these penalties have worked as a form of social coercion. Seeking to avoid conflict and wanting to be liked, I have chosen silence all too often.
Conversely, when I kept quiet about racism, I was rewarded with social capital such as being seen as fun, cooperative, and a team player.
For example, the criminal behavior of white juveniles is often seen as caused by external factors—the youth comes from a single-parent home, is having a hard time right now, just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, or was bullied at school. Attributing the cause of the action to external factors lessens the person’s responsibility and classifies that person as a victim. But black and Latinx youth are not afforded this same compassion.
When black and Latinx youth go before a judge, the cause of the crime is more often attributed to something internal to the person—the youth is naturally more prone to crime, is more animalistic, and has less capacity for remorse (similarly, a 2016 study found that half of a sample of medical students and residents believe that blacks feel less pain). Whites continually receive the benefit of the doubt not granted to people of color—our race alone helps establish our innocence.
“In a postracial era, we don’t have to say it’s about race or the color of the kids in the building…We can concentrate poverty and kids of color and then fail to provide the resources to support and sustain those schools, and then we can see a school full of black kids and say, ‘Oh, look at their test scores.’ It’s all very tidy now, this whole system.” Readers have no doubt heard schools and neighborhoods discussed in these terms and know that this talk is racially coded; “urban” and “low test scores” are code for “not white” and therefore less desirable.
While making racism bad seems like a positive change, we have to look at how this functions in practice. Within this paradigm, to suggest that I am racist is to deliver a deep moral blow—a kind of character assassination. Having received this blow, I must defend my character, and that is where all my energy will go-to deflecting the charge, rather than reflecting on my behavior. In this way, the good/bad binary makes it nearly impossible to talk to white people about racism, what it is, how it shapes all of us, and the inevitable ways that we are conditioned to participate in it. If we cannot discuss these dynamics or see ourselves within them, we cannot stop participating in racism. The good/bad binary made it effectively impossible for the average white person to understand—much less interrupt—racism.
Still, this program has been systematically chipped away at, and several states have eliminated affirmative action programs altogether. In turn, African Americans continue to be the most underrepresented group at the organizational leadership level. In 2018, affirmative action has all but been dismantled. Yet invariably, I will encounter a white male—bristling with umbrage—who raises the issue of affirmative action. It seems that we white people just cannot let go of our outrage over how unfair this toothless attempt to rectify centuries of injustice has been to us. And this umbrage consistently surfaces in overwhelmingly white leadership groups that have asked me to come in and help them recruit and retain more people of color.
White fragility functions as a form of bullying; I am going to make it so miserable for you to confront me—no matter how diplomatically you try to do so—that you will simply back off, give up, and never raise the issue again. white fragility keeps people of color in line and “in their place.” In this way, it is a powerful form of white racial control.
Notice that I did not tell Eva that she was racist or that her story was racist. But what I did do was challenge her self-image as someone exempt from racism. Paradoxically, Eva’s anger that I did not take her claims at face value surfaced within the context of a volunteer workshop on racism, which she ostensibly attended to deepen her understanding of racism.
