White Fragility review continued
Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism
I’ve been struggling with how to continue this review of “White Fragility.” I am a hetero-white cis-gender male who is also Catholic – in many minds the very epitome of all that is wrong with the world. If I am critical of this book in any way, why should anyone care?
I also should make note of the subtitle of the book which I put as the subtitle of this post. Diangelo believes that white people have a hard time talking about race, and so, I guess, she wrote this book to address this problem. Her assumption that it is hard for white people to talk about race makes her choose arguments and examples to demonstrate her belief, but to what end? We shall see by the end of this if we can discern why she wrote this book.
I think that perhaps my best approach then is to summarize Diangelo’s main points in each chapter as fairly and accurately as I can. Everything that follows will be my summary of main points in each chapter. If I have a comment to add, I will do so in italics.
I will then close each chapter review with some final comments. This entire book review will necessarily require several installments as a single post would become over long. I will plan on two chapters per post.
Chapter 1: The challenges of talking to white people about racism.
NB: Unless you see italics, what follows is a summary of her views.
Chapter 1 comes out strong: White folks don’t see themselves as white – that is to say they don’t see race as part of who they are. Because of this, white people’s opinions on race are uninformed. White people also don’t understand what socialization is and how it works and so don’t see how they are raised to be racist by default. Additionally whites have a simplistic understanding of what racism is, basically understanding it as ‘bad things done by bad people’. DiAngelo specifically deprecates this understanding and defines racism as the fact of being white in a predominantly white culture. As most people don’t see themselves as bad, white people in general don’t see themselves as racist. Given all this, white people will naturally be made uncomfortable by this book. White people need to take a breath, understand racial humility, and struggle with what it means to be white.
This tone of “take a breath, understand racial humility, and struggle with what it means to be white,” is a theme throughout the book. And I will ask again, “to what end?”
Chapter 2: Racism and white supremacy
After setting up that white people simply see themselves as human and superior, she goes on to explain how and why.
Race is a social construct used to validate the treatment of blacks by whites. It appears to be based on biological differences between “the races” but these biological differences are superficial, and at any rate, there is in fact only one race. Race “science” was driven by social and economic forces. The resultant classification of race based on external appearance gradually became codified into our legal system, Armenians, for example, petitioning to be classed as white, and winning because they are “scientifically Caucasian” and Japanese failing to be classed as white because they were “scientifically Mongoloid.” This is all accurate in my estimation, and I agree with her that race is a social construct based on superficial differences. I will have more to say on this at the end.
Racism is distinct from mere prejudice and discrimination. Racism is basically a collective group’s prejudice and discrimination backed up by legal authority and institutional control. As such, racism is deeply embedded in our society. Being white confers status not enjoyed by non-whites. Even that last sentence makes the point, there is white and then there is everything else. Here is where she begins her argument that racism is a system of oppression, not just individual “bad things done by bad people.” In her mind, it is woven into the fabric of society. Now, I agree with some of this. But not because of whiteness as the single operating principle. I would submit that any dominant culture favors its members and that is simply part of what defines a culture. At some point a culture should ask of itself what of the other? Is there injustice and what should we do about it?
Being white is seen as simply being human and because of this whites do not recognize their privilege and superiority as being unusual or even notable. Jackie Robinson is an example. He is presented as the first black man to break the color line in major-league baseball. He is depicted as an exceptional athlete that was the first to be good enough to play on a white team. I think DiAngelo arrives at that conclusion without sufficient warrant (i.e., without enough evidence to justify it). I don’t think anyone that knew anything about baseball at the time was confused about how good the black baseball players were. Ironically, I think her assertion here harms her argument, which is that Jackie Robinson was allowed to play by the white folks that controlled baseball. So, her argument that white people just needed to see black people as inferior gets in the way of an important message, which is that there were/are systems in place upholding racism.
However, there is some truth here. For example, I have a Mexican co-worker who was mowing his lawn, and was asked how much he charges. I’ve never been asked that question; passers by simply assume I am mowing my own lawn, and I expect them to assume so.
Finally, we are socialized at a young age to be uncomfortable talking about race. The example given is of a child saying, “Look mommy, that man’s skin is black!” and the mother shushing the child and being embarrassed. This shows how children are taught to navigate race at an early age. It also shows how we are conditioned to be uncomfortable talking about racism. Here I think, in a nutshell, is the main problem I have with this book. She is deeply invested in the term White Fragility and the idea that white people are inherently uncomfortable discussing race. Her perception of white discomfort largely stems from her own experiences as a diversity trainer, where she interpreted resistance as fragility rather than skepticism or disagreement. Critics from various ideological perspectives, including scholars like John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, have pointed out that her approach risks alienating people rather than educating them. I suspect this book serves more as a personal manifesto than a genuine attempt to foster productive dialogue. And yet… she has things to say that are worth saying. She just can’t get out of her own way.
Essence and accident - a brief side-bar.
I received the following comment from a reader of the previous article.
… On another note, I would like to suggest the essence of humanity is probably not "to be a rational animal", though I get your contrasting point about accidents. (I call these things "variations on a theme", just a variation within the human biological expression, like tall, short, XY, XXXXXXYY genes, lazy, industrious, etc.)
I think the essence of humanity is BIOCHEMISTRY. WITHOUT WHICH, there is no human emotion and no thought.
So, as a preface, I follow an Aristotelian-Thomistic world view which includes being a moderate realist. The distinction I was making between essence and accident comes from Aristotle and Aquinas, but it’s a useful tool for thinking about identity more broadly.
At its core, the idea is about what makes something what it is versus what can change about it without altering its fundamental nature. A chair can be made of wood, metal, or plastic, but if it doesn’t function as a chair, it’s no longer a chair. Likewise, humans vary in height, skin color, or even cognitive ability, but those are accidental properties—they don’t change what it means to be human. What defines humanity at its core? That’s where Aristotle identified rationality as key, because even though we’re biological beings, we’re also uniquely capable of abstract thought, moral reflection, and complex reasoning.
Your point about biochemistry being foundational to human thought is definitely true in the sense that without biochemistry, there is no mechanism for thought. But does that mean biochemistry is thought? If human essence is just biochemistry, then the difference between a human and an ape is merely a matter of degree, not kind. And yet, we see a stark difference: humans write symphonies, develop philosophical systems, and contemplate their own mortality. Apes are intelligent, but they don’t seem to be spending their time worrying about the meaning of life or whether they ought to eat a banana instead of just wanting to eat it.
This is where I think there’s a category mistake in equating biochemistry with essence. Biochemistry explains the physical conditions necessary for thought, but it doesn’t tell us what thinking is or why it differs so radically between humans and other animals. Saying "human essence is biochemistry" is like saying "the essence of a book is ink and paper." Ink and paper are necessary for a book to exist in physical form, but they don’t explain why a book contains meaning or how the same paper and ink could hold Shakespeare or a grocery list. Similarly, biochemistry is a material cause of human life, but it doesn’t fully account for the qualitative leap between human rationality and animal cognition.
Now, some people might push back and say, “Well, how do you know animals don’t engage in abstract reasoning? Just because we can’t prove it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.” That’s technically true—but it’s also not an argument for animal reasoning. If there’s no actual evidence that a fish is doing calculus, I don’t feel compelled to believe it is. The burden of proof should be on the person claiming that animals engage in abstract reasoning, not on those who find no evidence for it.
Of course, different philosophies approach this question in different ways. Some materialists argue that consciousness and thought are purely emergent properties of biochemistry, while others reduce the mind to mechanical processes. But that runs into tricky territory—if mind is reducible to chemistry, does that mean free will, morality, and reason itself are illusions? Or is there something about being human that transcends chemistry alone?
I think there is, which is why I adhere to an Aristotelian-Thomistic world view and embrace the concept of the Four Causes (Formal, Material, Efficient, and Final - all things which cause a thing to be what it is.)
Reading “White Fragility is Hard! Buy me a cigar!
