Sublime

Example 3: White Fragility: Why It Is So Hard to Talk to White People about Race by Robin DiAngelo (2018)

Our umbrage at the term white supremacy only serves to protect the processes it describes and obscure the mechanisms of racial inequality.

Intellectualizing and distancing

While many whites see spaces inhabited by more than a few people of color as undesirable and even dangerous, consider another perspective. I have heard countless people of color describe how painful an experience it was to be one of only a few people of color in their schools and neighborhoods. Although many parents of color want the advantages gra

The metaphor of the United States as the great melting pot, in which immigrants from around the world come together and melt into one unified society through the process of assimilation, is a cherished idea. Once new immigrants learn English and adapt to American culture and customs, they become Americans. In reality, only European immigrants were

When I talk to white people about racism, I hear the same claims—rooted in the good/bad binary—made again and again. I organize these claims into two overall categories, both of which label the person as good and therefore not racist. The first set claims color blindness: “I don’t see color [and/or race has no meaning to me]; therefore, I am free o

a key privilege of dominance—the ability to see oneself only as an individual.

Let me be clear: while the capacity for white people to sustain challenges to our racial positions is limited—and, in this way, fragile—the effects of our responses are not fragile at all; they are quite powerful because they take advantage of historical and institutional power and control.