“White Fragility”: Robin DiAngelo Book Review - A Sociological Examination.
“Racism is a systemic, societal, institutional, omnipresent, and epistemologically embedded phenomenon that pervades every vestige of reality.”
As a sociologist and a reading buff on all matters pertaining to race, I was thrilled to discover this sociological critical race theory into “why it is so hard for white people to talk about race”.
As an educator and a sociologist DiAngelo opens up the conversation about race and white fragility.
White fragility is a complex entity, but DiAngelo is firm in her assertion that white fragility stems from much of the ideological apparatus of the state. White fragility ‘protects racial inequality’ and maintains the racial hegemony within society.
The emphasis on the term fragility is an important one to note because the use of the word highlights a crack in the looking glass of racial hegemony. White people are so concerned with mainating racial hegemony that they will do anything to stop the system from breaking. Thus arises white fragility.
I say this with no accent of remorse, but my favourite chapter had to be “White Female Tears”. To hear a white woman tear down the fragility of white women and exclusionary feminism was a refreshing insight. It made me think of the work by Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017), discussing how feminism has often had an uncomfortable relationship with black women. This is why the work put forward by feminists such as bell hooks and Audre Lorde is greatly needed. My full review of Lorde can be found here and my full review of Eddo-Lodge can be found here.
Often white women will utilise to their advantage their supposed biological temperaments towards fragility and emotionality to absolve themselves of any responsibility towards their racist actions. This is problematic for several reasons.
They are utilising the patriarchy at the expense of biological determinism for other women.
Evading responsibility for one’s actions shows no acceptance of wrong actions.
Relating to the first issue, it works to strengthen the patriarchy by putting women in a bad light.
It causes divisions in feminism; a movement that is meant to be defined by intersectionality.
The list could go on, to be honest. Even though “Women Don’t Owe You Pretty” (Given, 2020), take a word of advice from me; crying to absolve yourself of racial responsibility really isn’t a good look.
In the New Yorker’s review on “White Fragility”, Waldman, (2018) comments that “White Fragility” pulls ‘b
ack the veil on so-called pillars of whiteness: assumptions that prop up racist beliefs without white people realizing it’. I think this is an astute analogy to describe the contemporary nature of the book.
As an Arab and a Muslim WOC I resonated with the words put forward by DiAngelo. I am of Iraqi heritage and had a brother die soon after birth due to being born in the Global South, which I wrote about in an article for Azeema Zine here. DiAngelo powerfully comments upon this, which I resonated with fully in her assessment 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”.
I resonated deeply with these words and found myself getting emotional whilst reading them, as every assertion is true and valid of my own phenomenological reality and experiences.
My family were ghettoised by Newcastle City Council into a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood, because of our race.
As a direct result, I could not attend my chosen school, because of my race.
My brother died, because of geographical positionality, and of course, because of his race.
My father could not find adequate employment to suit his qualifications, because of his race.
Our family are in the low-income bracket, because of our race.
We are not believed by healthcare professions because of our race.
My mother was kicked out of her GP Surgery, because of her race.
I had my early diagnosis of a mental health disorder at twelve withheld from me, because of my race.
My family in Iraq will die early, because of their race.
I was labelled as idle at school and not believed to have a mental health diagnosis, because of my race.
I was denied safeguarding from the police, my school and social services, because of my race.
This is far from an exhaustive list of all the ways I have been directly impacted by the colour of my skin. Every bad thing that has happened to me in life has been because of my gender and my race. WOC often share and carry this dual burden.
Sociological Examination:
As the book is written from a sociological perspective I think it is only right that I endeavor to comprise a sociological examination of “White Fragility” and how it links to the pre-existing literature on the matter.
When I read the book I often look to the work of Richard Dyer (1997) in his groundbreaking book “White”. I look to his work, because like DiAngelo, Dyer is a white man looking into race relations from the position of an ally and outsider. When I say outsider, I am not regarding the ‘othering’ narrative placed upon ethnic minorities, which theorists such and Ålund (1999) and Yuval-Davis (1997) have commented upon, but an outsider in the sense they are not usually apprehended by their race. They come from a position of privilege and utilise their privilege to discuss the complex issue of race with their fellow white counterparts in a language they will understand.
In his book, Dyer (1997) comments on how black people are often deterministically assumed to act in a supposed ‘urban’ manner due to the social codes inscribed onto their bodies due to their skin colour. This is mirrored in the work by DiAngelo, as she tells an anecdote of how her friends have often used homogenous terms and euphemisms when describing black people and particularly black neighbourhoods. This is once again where the process of ‘othering’ arises as black communities get homogenised and ghettoised by the mechanisms of their social status pertaining to issues of where they live, what is their employment status, etc. This creates a custom of what DiAngelo refers to as ‘white flight’, where white people will often seek to escape predominantly black neighbourhoods. Once again this is part of the othering act against black people as white people actively seek to distance themselves from black communities due to racialised misconceptions of said communities.
Furthermore, from a feminist perspective, performativity and dramaturgy apply here. The materiality of the gendered body can be accounted for in the materiality of the racialised body. Though most of the studies on the materiality of the body account for gendered relations, they can be translated over into a racialised perspective. Gayle Salamon (2010) offers a unique insight into this dynamic by assessing how phenomenological experiences of the body are often materialised by the social environment, mirroring much of the theory work offered by DiAngelo, White people do not see their race in the same way POC are made to be aware of their race by and everyday process of gendering and racialising.
One drawback of the book is that from the perspective of social interactionism, the book can be deemed in a phenomenological sense to be a tad deterministic. This, however, is true of all critical race theories and theorists. After all, Goffman’s analogy on social interactionism suggests we are all social actors navigating through a world that was constructed for us before we were even born. This is thus applicable to critical race theories and theorists and makes the book more empirically relevant, despite its plethora of anecdata.
The book has its drawbacks. Many question whether a white woman can truly empathise with the plight of POC. However, it is important to remember that DiAngelo is speaking from the perspective of an educator and a sociologist, and the book is meant to be informative and not pedagogic.
A must-read for sociologists or anyone interested in racial theory. Bravo, DiAngelo. Bravo.
Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
(4 Stars out of 5).