White Fragility in Action: Rules of Engagement

Being a summary of the next 3 chapters

The book becomes repetitive and a bit mind-numbing.

Brief summaries of the next three chapters follow. The previous chapter was White. Triggers. Turns out these triggers result in white fragility. Never mind that white fragility causes the racial triggers…

Chapter 8: “The Result: White Fragility” – DiAngelo argues that the previous seven chapters converge here: white fragility is not a glitch. It’s the system working as designed.

• Racism is a system of oppression with agency.

• White people are indoctrinated into it simply by being white.

• Our unconscious participation in this system causes real harm.

• When we’re confronted with this reality, we resist, and that resistance is white fragility.

In short, white people can't tolerate racial discomfort, can't accept our role in systemic racism, and respond with avoidance, denial, or outrage.

Her conclusion? White fragility manifests as bullying.

Chapter 9: “White Fragility in Action” – much of this chapter focuses on a woman from Germany “…I will refer to as Eva…” who did not accept DiAngelo’s assertion that she was inevitably racist. Eva’s reasons were essentially that she did not grow up around black people, race was not discussed, etc., that she held no racism.

DiAngelo pushed back: “I pushed back on this claim by asking her to reflect on the messages she had received from her childhood about people who lived in Africa.” p 118. When Eva approached DiAngelo at the end of the workshop and said, “You made assumptions about me,” DiAngelo does not apologize for making assumptions, does “apologize” by saying “…I would never want her to feel unseen or invalidated…” but holds to her challenge that Eva’s growing up in Germany did not preclude her from absorbing problematic racial messages. ibid.

Later DiAngelo learns from another workshop attendee that Eva has stated she will never attend another workshop put on by DiAngelo. DiAngelo comments, “Notice that I did not tell Eva she was racist or that her story was racist. But what I did do was challenge her self-image as someone exempt from racism.”

Please reread that and think about it a moment. DiAngelo essentially says, “I did not call her racist, I said she needs to examine why she thinks she’s not.”

The remainder of this chapter is spent using Eva’s emotional reaction as an example of white fragility in action. Basically Eva had an emotional reaction to having her assumptions and behaviors challenged.

Her summary, “…the prevailing white racial assumptions and the behaviors they engender project racism.”

My comment: DiAngelo may not have called Eva a racist, but she has stated over and over that all white people are inevitably racist. If she thinks that did not come through in her workshop and that Eva didn’t pick up on that, she is naïve.

Chapter 10: “White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement” – Here DiAngelo gives a list of 11 rules of engagement that white people enforce on anyone wanting to talk about how white people are all racists. If you are white, fasten your seatbelt as you confront these realizations of who you are. Remember, according to DiAngelo, what follows, if you are white, is how you deal with conversations about race.

The first rule is: Do not give me feedback on my racism under any circumstances. p. 123

She then follows up with the 10 rules of engagement that must be followed if you dare to break rule # 1.

2. If you ignore this rule and give me feedback anyway, you are wrong, and I will explain why.
3. If you persist, your tone will be monitored and criticized.
4. If you still don’t stop, your intentions will be questioned.
5. If you continue, you will be accused of making me feel unsafe.
6. If you persist even more, you are being mean and will be criticized for how you delivered the feedback.
7. If you persist further still, you will be told that you are damaging our relationship.
8. If you continue, I will complain to others about you.
9. You will be told that your feedback is not welcome or appropriate.
10. Your feedback has made me feel bad.
11. You are the problem.

I’m guessing many of you are surprised that this is how you unconsciously, yet inevitably, operate whenever someone brings up race in a conversation with you.

Her comment after listing the rules is,

“The contradictions in these rules are irrelevant; their function is to obscure racism, protect white dominance, and regain white equilibrium.” p. 124

I will summarize this chapter with her own closing paragraph.

“I repeat: stopping our racist patterns must be more important than working to convince others that we don’t have them. We do have them, and people of color already know we have them; our efforts to prove otherwise are not convincing. An honest accounting of these patterns is no small task given the power of white fragility and white solidarity, but it is necessary.”

A couple of closing thoughts on these three chapters. DiAngelo is using a rhetorical device that could be called elimination of the exit. She has created a closed rhetorical loop where any disagreement is simply demonstration of her point. While everyone in prison may assert they are not guilty, that assertion is not proof of guilt. DiAngelo treats it as proof.

Lastly, I’m a little disturbed by her scapegoating of Eva. As noted in earlier installments of this book review, DiAngelo has stated that she wrote this book because it was hard to give these talks to groups of people. I think Eva has been sacrificed on the altar of DiAngelo’s need to validate her writing of this book. It struck me as, “See, this is why we can’t have nice seminars. Now I have to write a book.”

In my opinion, she doubles down in the next chapter. I will remind also that I am revisiting this whole thing for an ultimate purpose of demonstrating the bankruptcy of CT and CRT. Her whole book depends on this worldview.

Next: White Women’s Tears

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