what is white fragility

Perhaps you have heard the term "white fragility" and have wondered what that really means.  Here is one example.  

 In 2011, I was in a book group reading The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness.  I was 46 years old and my eyes and mind were just being opened to a reality that I had been basically blinded to for all my life.  I read the early chapters of The New Jim Crow as a skeptic and was certain the content was not accurate and was only the author's perspective.  By the middle of the book I was being challenged and then wrecked.  The world as I had believed it was crumbling and giving away to a different reality.  I was overwhelmed to say the least.  

At one of our weekly book discussions, I voiced that I was having some aha moments and that it felt like scales were falling from my eyes.  One black leader from our community came back with a very strong retort....stating that he was having trouble believing that I could really be having aha moments when his lived experience of racism was so blatant and so prevalent every day.   

This same man later spoke up after I had shared that I thought it would take friendship and trust for us to work together across race and move into a different future.  His sharp reply-  "I don't want friendship! I want justice!"  

White fragility would have looked like me getting defensive, feeling attacked, and not coming back to the group.  Instead, this community leader's words were really a defining moment for me.  His emotion and words made me wrestle deeply  and prompted more curiosity than ever to better understand what he meant through his pain, passion, and words.  I am grateful for his bluntness and honesty.  It helped me face the gravity, urgency, and critical nature of this conversation.  

We can learn a great deal if we can sit with people who are in pain and really listen.  This will require us to be mindful about what defenses might arise inside of us, to acknowledge them, but to set them aside, so that we might ultimately discover the road of solidarity toward justice.    

In White Fragility: Why it's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, author Robin DiAngelo defines white fragility like this:

"White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium."

The best suggestion I can make if you are serious about opening yourself to learning about the reality of racial oppression in our country is to stay in it.  Stay. in. it.