OK, “here we go” with a “book report” (in class, to boot) of Robin Diangelo’s controversial tome, “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism”, with a foreword by Michael Eric Dyson. I bought this on Kindle because I couldn’t get a hardcopy quickly. The author’s “right of publicity” as a corporate diversity trainer is well known and perhaps problematic.
As an elderly white cis gay man, I had definitely been under the impression that things had become a lot better by even the 1970s, in that I was seeing racial diversity in the professional workplace (in IT) everywhere (I had a black manager at Univac in 1974). Blacks were running for office and winning seats, as with President Obama. The impression of racial diversity had been magnified, of course, by Latinos (especially in NYC) and Asians (who have a tradition of doing well in school). In 1996, there was a situation where I was tangentially involved in a lawsuit when I replaced a black person who had been fired. I can’t go into that here, but I thought his claims of discrimination were greatly exaggerated given the norms of “personal responsibility in the workplace” at the time.
But there have been other incidents. In that same workplace, two other black employees had noted that they thought I could “pass” since I looked like everyone else, and that I lived at home with my mother (because I wasn’t married and children). Well, ten years later I would be doing just that. There was an incident in a Walgreens around 2013 when a black female clerk in a Walgreens in Arlington VA thought I was rude to her when I put down cash on the counter rather than handing it to her. That was not on my mind; there was a moment of physical clumsiness, and I’ve gotten use to doing that around security shields in convenience stores.
The author points out in a middle chapter, that things did change in the 1960s, as it was no longer acceptable to make overtly racist statements, or to “be” personally racist. That change was gradual. In the early 1980s, in Dallas, a coworker made a unflattering statement about professional football players. Two different apartment rental agents (in 1971 and 1979) made racist statements when renting to me (since I am white). And at a thanksgiving dinner at a family friend’s house around 2007 when my mother was starting her decline, one person regretted the end of segregation.
No, in those situations you didn’t call people out, you didn’t dare. (I needed the apartment.)
I thought things were better, generally, with Obama in office. But in 2014 we had Ferguson. In 2015 we had Baltimore. And so on. Of course, especially with Ferguson, there are specific details that do matter.
And then in 2020 we have George Floyd, and earlier Breonna Taylor, and numerous other cases. Apart from the usual Left, even Libertarians have been warning that the police have gone way too far and that activists should film them
So we’re at a place where we do have to confront the fact that there is a systemic problem, at least with the police, with education in many communities (as a vestige of segregation and redlining from the past), health (pollution, like Flint MI), and statistically speaking, risk exposure today in the workplace with COVID (and that is pretty much the same with Latino as well as black).
I want to come at this from another perspective. In my own situation, my remaining free to express myself online under my own brand (rather than simply joining conventional activism – I may be oversimplifying) I have, elsewhere, talked about the idea that by 2021 or so I think my “right” to have a brandable presence online will depend on a kind of “social creditworthiness”. That’s something that I have called “pay your dues”, with respect to having taken undo advantage of privilege, although that’s usually “economic privilege” that spans a lot more than “just” race. Some of it is a matter of “skin in the game”. Some of it is “watch your karma”.
But Diangelo, Kendi, and others want to fix a systemic problem that we normally think of as relating to group justice. There is an opportunity now to force everyone in a situation like mine to join the fight as a kind of quid pro quo.
Now when we think of “groups”, we normally think of families (extended), tribes, communities, ethnic groups, nations, and only artificially enormous groups that we call races, which are usually refined on the Left by intersectionalities.
Science says that race is a totally social construct. Indeed, in any kind of reparation, it may be very hard to draw a line (apart from slave descendant). Diangelo quibbles toward the end on whether white people should consider themselves a group (which is what the alt-right wants).
Rather, she says, if you are white (and possibly if you and your ancestors have been here a long time and were not slave descendants) you are benefiting undeservedly from this accidental privilege and you must be expected to return it. It is a special kind of social credit, but owed to a group.
You did not cause it, but you unwittingly benefitted from it, so you must “return” it and pay back. This is an aspect of civilization where group power matters, and you must accept that, and black people need to take yours back. So the moral world becomes non-Euclidean, or perhaps relativistic. No not be racist is not enough; you must do “community service” with actions of anti-racism. (The lack of harm is not the same as caring.)
So, you ask, “what must I do”. She responds “what has enabled you to be a full, educated, professional adult and not know what to do about racism?”
So you educate yourself, and you talk to people. You confront them. That is a lot more sensible advice if you have kids and are regularly in situations where you have an opportunity to. I am not. But she also suggests that “I” have a responsibility to establish proximity with black people and bring them into my personal life, when I generally don’t do that with anyone for its own sake. I don’t “meet people” for the fun of it.
Other activists are more demanding, saying that I have a specific organization to support black clauses (patronize them or raise money for them in public, etc). That’s the quid pro quo.
There is a personal side to this. First, let me back up. I’ve reviewed already on a legacy blog Izabella Hickles’s “summary”, where she talks about black sensitivity to hair styles (Robin apparently does not). As I discussed in a piece on fetishism on June 15, 2020 on my DADTNotes blog, I noticed when growing up that men seem distinguished from women my more body hair (besides the beard) and only later noticed that this seem to apply only to white (Caucasian) men. When I became a gay adult, I had decided that I could not feel attracted to anyone who was not white (usually). This could sometimes present social challenges (like on disco floors). But is this part of systemic racism? Or may you rightfully segregate your most intimate life. A lot of activists say, no you may not. ‘
Diangelo manages to review the 2009 film “The Blind Side” near the end of her book.
References:
Race Conscious:
Wall Street Journal, Sabrini Siddiqui
(Today I also reviewed “We Are the Radical Monarchs” on a legacy blog. It certain fits in to the idea of anti-racism toward the end. (This will have to be restored later.))
Author: Robin Diangelo, Michael Eric Dyson
Title, Subtitle: “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism”
publication date 2020
ISBN 978-0807047415 paper, also Kindle
Publication: Beacon Press, 12 chapters, 192 pages
Link: Publisher’s
(Posted: Tuesday. July 21, 2020 at 11:30 AM EDT)