Let's Do Talk About Racism

But, let's make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Introduction & Purpose

Yeah, ok, this is going to take a bit. It has taken me two posts to actually begin. You can see intro 1.0 here. This is the actual start of my promised review of “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo, PhD. (All quotes and page references are from the paperback published by Beacon Press, copyright 2018, ISBN 978-0-8070-4741-5) I will start by saying that Dr. DiAngelo is very invested in the term “white fragility.” I think her investment in this term gets in the way of some important things she has to say, and I think her investment in this term causes a large blind spot in her analysis.

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Should You Buy This Book?

For those wondering if they should buy this book, I would suggest that you go to your local book store, pull the book off the shelf, find a chair and read the foreword by Michael Dyson and then go to the final chapter titled “Where Do We Go From Here.” You will have the gist of the book and save yourself a lot of frustration. Note that she would assert that this frustration is entirely due to your fragility. The possibility that my frustration stems from her logical inconsistencies, equivocation, and apparent inability to recognize when she contradicts herself—even within the same paragraph—would likely be taken as proof of her argument.

But, she makes some valid points. If you want to be alarmed, Google “chart of all the human races.” You will scratch your head in wonder. Well, I did anyway. Dr. DiAngelo makes the point that “race” is a construct, and she is correct. She also makes the statement that we all operate from within a framework, and this also is correct. That we are quite often blissfully unaware of our frameworks is also true.

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The Validity of Race as a Social Construct

Let’s start with race. Chapter 2 is titled “Racism and White Supremacy.” In the first paragraph of this chapter she says,

Many of us have been taught to believe that there are distinct biological and genetic differences between races.

White Fragility, Pg 15

If you read that and thought, “Well, yeah,” then you are wrong. Because race is a social construct based on actual genetic differences noted among members of the single human race. These genetic differences do not create different races. There is only the human race.

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Essence vs. Accidents: Understanding Race as a Construct

The essence of something is what fundamentally defines it—without it, the thing would cease to be what it is.

Accidents, on the other hand, are characteristics that can change without altering the essence. Consider a ball: its defining feature is roundness. A football may not be a perfect sphere, but it retains a fundamental roundness. The ball's material, size, and color—whether rubber, plastic, red, or blue—are accidental. If it were a cube, it would no longer be a ball.

Similarly, the essence of a human is to be a rational animal. Accidental traits include height, skin color, and eye color, bone structure and density, etc. However, historically, many have mistakenly treated race as an essence rather than an accident. Pseudoscientific racial classifications attempted to assign inherent, immutable characteristics to different groups, reinforcing social divisions. This misconception persists in some forms today, making discussions on race contentious.

To understand Dr. DiAngelo’s argument, one must recognize that race is indeed a social construct. It is deeply embedded in society, shaping perceptions and interactions. Without acknowledging this, meaningful conversations about racism become difficult. According to Dr. DiAngelo, racism is not merely an isolated act but a systemic force that reinforces and perpetuates the constructed divisions of race.

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DiAngelo’s Core Argument: Racism as a System, Not an Event

In my last post, titled Redefining Racism, I commented that she essentially states that if you are white, you are racist. But that is just part of it. In the next installment, we will explore her claim that racism is a system where white people are not just participants but embedded within the system itself. It’s a nuanced claim—but does it track? Are there systems actively sustaining “white supremacy”? Like I noted above, this is going to take a while.

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