White Fragility: Book Review

A while back a fellow Christian told me they had read Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.  At the time I knew very little about it for better or worse.  Since then, the book title and author continued to pop up in literature I read on the subject of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and racism.  “I guess I need to read this book,” I said to myself.  Well, I read it, and what follows is what I think about it. White Fragility provides a good introduction to what CRT looks like when you put it in action.  Don’t misunderstand me, I did not say the book was good; I said the book provides a good introduction to the subject matter.  The book is grounded in fallaciousness, emotional and subjective experience over and against evidence, and a body of self-contradicting claims that runs counter to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In this review, I will try my best to fairly represent DiAngelo’s main premise and line of reasoning followed by a breakdown of some fallacious points she makes throughout the book.

Getting to the Bottom of White Fragility

The book’s main premise goes like this:

whiteness is more than a skin condition, it is a complex, an innate sense of superiority that perpetuates white power and dominance in all societies.  White people are inescapably racist, whether consciously or unconsciously; they are born this way into a systemically racist society, and by nature of this fact, white people are extremely sensitive and easily triggered by the suggestion of their racism.  It is almost impossible to tell a white person that they are racist without triggering a defense mechanism within the person. 

This hypersensativity is what Robin DiAngelo has coined white fragility.  In this book DiAngelo defines this problem of whiteness, white fragility, and many other tenets of CRT.  Her effort is to clarify the underlying issues which make American society, including workplace diversity training and personal relationships between blacks and whites, ineffectual in resolving this strongly rooted, systemic problem of racism.

DiAngelo has worked as a consultant and diversity trainer for more than twenty years.  Throughout the book she uses many personal examples from her years of working on the front lines, trying to make white people conscious of their white fragility.  In only one of the examples cited from her many workshops did DiAngelo experience a white person who, instead of denouncing their unavoidable racist mindset and behaviors, accepted their whiteness and was able to fight it off long enough to grow from the education.  The single example was DiAngelo herself.  Even in this lone example, she admits having to fight off deeply engrained racist urges in the process.  Otherwise, DiAngelo cites one example after another of white men retaliating against her education workshops, white women breaking down in tears after being told they were demonstrating racist behavior, and variant other white reactions which are all included for the purpose of proving the reality of white fragility and unconscious racism.

Making Arguments Out of Assumptions

A. Begging the Question

In reading White Fragility you may notice several items that stick out and undermine DiAngelo’s effort to prove inherent racism within white America.  First, as I mentioned before, DiAngelo’s entire book and argument is based on a logical fallacy: begging the question. 

Begging the question or circular reasoning is when “an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion,” (Begging the Question).

In other words, instead of proving her main point, DiAngelo just assumes from the get-go that racism is inherent/unavoidable, and systemic.  I use the word assume purposefully, because instead of proving her arguments, DiAngelo assumes their factualness.  She lists “individualism, 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, warnings, taboos on openly talking about race, and white solidarity” as her proofs of this inherent white supremacy in America (DiAngelo 8).  One example of such proof is the depiction of whiteness as the human ideal.  DiAngelo alludes to cosmetic commercials on TV as a proof of racism.  The logic goes like this: since most cosmetic commercials portray white, female models instead of black models, correlation equals causation and the cause is racism (Ibid. 56).  This is begging the question.  She does the same thing by appealing to the disparities between white and black neighborhoods, showing how white neighborhoods are richer and white people tend to leave a neighborhood once the black population gets to approximately 7 percent (Ibid. 92).  The only cause for this correlation is racism for DiAngelo, no ifs, ands, or buts.  White Fragility is riddled with such proofs (better termed assumptions).

B. The Proof of History

The other major indirect burden of proof throughout the book is American history.  DiAngelo regularly appeals to American history, citing actual histories of classic racism (i.e., antebellum slavery and white brutality during the Civil Rights Movement) to prove her New-Age definition of racism.  According to DiAngelo, the long history of actual racism in America means that we have made no progress on this battlefront, we have simply covered up the issue with a blanket and called it by a different name.  This appeal to history is strategic on the author’s part and manipulative.  The problem is, racism in the past does not prove racism in the present.  Furthermore, individual acts of racism in the present do not prove “systemic” racism.  DiAngelo assumes correlation equals causation, fallaciously and manipulatively using past history, individual acts of racism, personal experiences, and other such proofs to foster an entire book based on circular reasoning.

C. The Proof of Personal Experience

Personal experiences, especially the personal experiences of black people, are heavily used throughout White Fragility to persuade the reader that unconscious racism is behind every corner and curtain.  DiAngelo’s subjective, relative research approach is made bare no sooner than in her introduction.  In regard to what led to her conclusions about white fragility and racism DiAngelo says, “It took me several years to see beneath these reactions [the reactions of white people to accusations of their white fragility]… But over time, I began to see… I observed consistent responses… Most appeared to believe… These responses were so predictable–so consistent and reliable–I was able to…reflect on what was behind them… I began to see… I could see… I could see… And in light of so many white expressions of resentment toward people of color, I realized…” (Ibid. 2).  Notice the italicized words which highlight the subjective nature of DiAngelo’s experimental research.  Such shoddy research methods would certainly fail DiAngelo in a biology lab.  This kind of observational data collection and interpretation is how Darwin concluded that micro adaptation in the beaks of finchs proved macro adaptation across entire species.  If this comparison to Darwin is more hurt than help, forget it.  Just realize that DiAngelo is making unnecessary inferences based on a crude collection of subjective data (her and other people’s experiences).  Also note that DiAngelo says even she is unavoidably racist (Ibid. 145).  If this is true, then how can readers trust her racist conclusions?  It is my firm belief that DiAngelo does what many people do when reading the Bible: they come to the Bible already having formed a conclusion of what it says on a subject and then look for a verses to prove they were right to begin with.  Whether interpreting the Bible or culture, you get the same thing: error.

D. The Proof of Self-defeating Claims

Finally, there are the myriad self-defeating claims made by DiAngelo from beginning to end of the book.  Consider a few examples.  1) Racism is not limited to people of one race mistreating people of another race based on their skin color.  Perhaps the supporting pillar of DiAngelo’s entire theory of white fragility and unconscious, inevitable racism is her redefinition of what racism is.  “I am not using this (classical) definition of racism,” (Ibid. 13).  Rather, she defines racism as,

“When a racial group’s collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control, it is transformed into racism, a far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors,” (Ibid. 20).  

In other words, racism is a group (collective) problem that involves both prejudice and power (control).  Thus, since all white people are born into a position of power and privilege, they are inevitably racist by their natural desire to maintain their power and privilege.  Michael Dyson hits the nail on the head in describing this definition of racism: “Race is a condition. A disease. A card. A plague. Original sin,” (Ibid. ix).  It is key to understand how DiAngelo is defining racism throughout the book, but it is also key to note how she proves her new definition. After stating racism goes beyond individual acts of prejudice, she repeatedly uses examples of overt, individual acts of prejudice to prove that racism is a collective and systemic problem perpetuated by the racial power and privilege one is born into.  This is another case of manipulation as she takes examples of individual racism which we do have evidence for and tries to distract the reader into thinking these prove systemic racism that we do not have evidence for.  2) Noticing a person’s race is racist.  DiAngelo gives the example of a white baby telling his mother in a grocery store, “That man’s skin is black,” as an example of inbred racism (Ibid. 37).  This example is meant to show the racism in noticing the person as black as opposed to simply a person.  Then, separated by several chapters, DiAngelo goes on to talk about how white people perpetuate racism when they “refuse to focus on race” (Ibid. 85).  Which one is it?  Should we encourage people to disregard skin color or not?  Should white people notice the blackness of their neighbor’s skin or refuse to focus on it?  3) “Our learning will never be finished,” (Ibid. 8).  DiAngelo categorizes the study of racism as a never ending, life-long  process of learning.  Yet, for someone that believes humans can never come to any final or definite understanding of racism, DiAngelo is very sure of her conclusions about racism.  She is so sure of her conclusions that one of her final appeals for action is this: “We can also demand that we be given this information (CRT) in schools and universities and that we not be required to take special, elective courses to be exposed to it,” (Ibid. 146).  This unattainable knowledge about CRT and racism is so uncertainly certain that it needs to be a required college credit right next to College Algebra, American History, College Orientation, and Writing Composition.  4) Inform whites about their internal racism.  In the book’s last chapter, DiAngelo tells woke readers that they must talk to their white friends, coworkers, family members, etc., and make them aware of their unconscious racism, correcting them when they do or say something racist.  However, earlier in the same book DiAngelo says about white people who do not conform to her redefinition of racism, “I am not saying that you are immoral,” (Ibid. 13).  DiAngelo says this because she rejects universal morality and absolute truth.  She wants to have her pie (no moral truth) and eat it too (rebuke people for not conforming to her truth).  This is self-defeating.  Such is the case with all relativism.

Conclusion

It disturbs me that millions of copies of this book have been sold since its publication in 2018.  It further disturbs me when I discover Christians who have read White Fragility and fail to recognize DiAngelo’s antiracist gospel for what it is: diametrically counter to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  She is teaching a false gospel (Critical Race Theory),  grounded in a new total hereditary depravity (unconscious racism) and a life of meritorious penance (reparations and perpetual guilt for being white) for which there is no hope of forgiveness.  To this false system, I offer the words of Paul which he spoke to Christians who were attempting a return to the old law: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage,” (Galatians 5:1).  Don’t fall prey to this false gospel and let it hold you under bondage like you experienced under the curse of sin before obeying the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Works Cited

“Begging the Question.” txstate.edu, https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Begging-the-Question.html#:~:text=The%20fallacy%20of%20begging%20the,called%20arguing%20in%20a%20circle. Accessed 27 April 2021.

DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press, 2018.