White Fragility

Read Online White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo - Free Book Online

Book: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo Read Free Book Online
Authors: Robin DiAngelo
Ads: Link
extensive, with thousands of stored “bits.” These bits are pieces of cultural information—images, stories, interpretations, omissions, silences—that are passed along from one person and group to the next, and from one generation to the next. The bits circulate both explicitly and implicitly, for example, through movies, television, news, and other media and stories told to us by family and friends. By constantly using the white racial frame to interpret social relations and integrating new bits, whites reinscribe the frame ever deeper.
    At the most general level, the racial frame views whites as superior in culture and achievement and views people of color as generally of less social, economic, and political consequence; people of color are seen as inferior to whites in the making and keeping of the nation. At the next level of framing, because social institutions (education, medicine, law, government, finance, and the military) are controlled by whites, white dominance is unremarkable and taken for granted. That whites are disproportionately enriched and privileged via these institutions is also taken for granted; we are entitled to more privileges and resources because we are “better” people. At the deepest level of the white frame, negative stereotypes and images of racial others as inferior are reinforced and accepted. At this level, corresponding emotions such as fear, contempt, and resentment are also stored.
    The frame includes both negative understandings of people of color and positive understandings of whites and white institutions. It is so internalized, so submerged, that it is never consciously considered or challenged by most whites. To get a sense of the white racial frame below the surface of your conscious awareness, think back to the earliest time that you were aware that people from racial groups other than your own existed. People of color recall a sense of always having been aware, while most white people recall being aware by at leastage five. If you lived in a primarily white environment and are having trouble remembering, think about Disney movies, music videos, sports heroes, Chinese food, Aunt Jemima syrup, Uncle Ben’s rice, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, Columbus Day, Apu from
The Simpsons,
and the donkey from
Shrek.
    Reflect on these representations and ask yourself, Did your parents tell you that race didn’t matter and that everyone was equal? Did they have many friends of color? If people of color did not live in your neighborhood, why didn’t they? Where did they live? What images, sounds, and smells did you associate with these other neighborhoods? What kind of activities did you think went on there? Were you encouraged to visit these neighborhoods, or were you discouraged from visiting these neighborhoods?
    What about schools? What made a school good? Who went to good schools? Who went to bad schools? If the schools in your area were racially segregated (as most schools in the United States are), why didn’t you attend school together? If this is because you lived in different neighborhoods, why did you live in different neighborhoods? Were “their” schools considered equal to, better than, or worse than, yours? If there was busing in your town, in which direction did it go; who was bused into whose schools? Why did the busing go in one direction and not the other?
    If you went to school together, did you all sit together in the cafeteria? If not, why not? Were the honors or advanced placement classes and the lower-track classes equally racially integrated? If not, why not?
    Now think about your teachers. When was the first time you had a teacher of the same race as yours? Did you often have teachers of the same race as your own?
    Most white people, in reflecting on these questions, realize that they almost always had white teachers; many did not have a teacher of color until college. Conversely, most people of color have rarely if ever had a

Similar Books

Forbidden Quest

Alaina Stanford

The Last Queen

C.W. Gortner

Kissing The Enemy

Helena Newbury

Leaving Dreamland

Jessica Jarman

Rebounding

Shanna Clayton

GirlMostLikelyTo

Barbara Elsborg

A History of the Future

James Howard Kunstler