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Racial issues are one of the most debated topics for a year now. Black Lives Matter has raised problems that are still current and never resolved in America and this has extended the debate to the whole world. In this context, the concept of white fragility, that is, the resistance of white people to talk about racism, denying the accusations and putting themselves on the defensive.
White fragility: what it is
The term derives from the title of a 2018 book by writer Robin DiAngelo. The work returned to the spotlight last year to top the New York Times bestseller list after George Floyd was killed in May 2020 and the reason is easily imaginable. “White fragility” indicates, according to a first use of the term by DiAngelo in 2011, the propensity of whites to reject accusations of racism through a series of unconvincing and realistic arguments.
The writer says American society is imbued with one racist and white-centered culture that makes racism is a systemic phenomenon and, for this very reason, whites struggle to realize the problem. But how does it actually manifest itself? According to the writer, white fragility is an automatic defense mechanism that takes place in many ways. One of the most used ways is concern trolling, that is the expression of one fake concern with which you want or believe you can support the cause, thus removing all responsibility.
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White fragility: the reasons behind it
According to DiAngelo, white fragility arises from the will of the whites of safeguard their privilege, effectively perpetuating over time those racial hierarchies that have divided the country for centuries. Central according to the writer is the concept of white unconscious privilege which means that the “privileged” often does not even realize the advantages they enjoy.
Even the very concept of “privilege” has been investigated by some scholars and so has been defined in its modern form by Peggy McIntosh, a researcher at Wellesley Centers for Women, in her 1988 essay entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: ” I have come to see white privilege as a invisible package of unearned goods that I can count on collecting every day, but of which I was destined to remain in the dark ”.
White fragility: the criticisms
Although the foundations from which the writer DiAngelo starts are widely recognized, some criticisms have also been leveled. One is the tendency to ignore the differences within the white population and to regard whites (defined by her as “whitehness”) as a single block with no shades inside. This reasoning, if you like, is not very far from the racist one that sees white people having rights just because they are white.
According to John McWorther, a collaborator of The Atlantic and a professor at Columbia University, DiAngelo’s work then ends up belittling blacks by denying all the achievements achieved over the years. In short, the issue is complex and needs further investigation, certainly in itself it constitutes food for thought, especially with regard to the racist incidents that still shake America.
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