Workbook for White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo E-Book

MaxHelp Workbooks

• Herausgeber: MaxHelp
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Any reader can use this Workbook for White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo and find immediate help in applying its major lessons.

Robin DiAngelo Ph.D., an acclaimed bestselling author and educator, examines whiteness and the US general population's propensity to shun conversations about racism in her book "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" (2018). She attributes this to "white fragility," the process of restoring "white equilibrium" as a response to "racial stress." She claims that American society is fundamentally racist, and the stability its people seek is to remain comfortably seated at the top of the racial hierarchy. She proceeds to expose racism as a highly adaptive system that fabricated the "good/bad binary" to appease the civil rights movement – a "moral flaw" where its incrimination calls for defense rather than self-reflection. With this, she advises Americans to "breathe, listen, and reflect" to imbue positive ways to respond as opposed to anger, guilt, and silence that "white fragility" forces upon them. DiAngelo, however, notes that creating a "positive white identity" is impossible for racism is deeply embedded in white identity. Instead, she idealizes a "less white identity" wherein one lets go of and faces their internalized racial superiority.

Do you want to apply the major lessons to your daily life? The goal of this workbook is to help even the any reader apply what may be the most critical lessons found in White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.
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• Quiz questions as a resource to be used for yourself or others

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Leseprobe

Workbook for

White Fragility:

Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Robin DiAngelo

MaxHelp WorkBooks

Table of Contents

Title Page

Just Mercy

1. Book Abstract: White Fragility

Please note: This is a summary and workbook not meant to replace the original work. If you have not yet read the original work, please do before purchasing this unofficial publication.

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Complete beginners can begin using this workbook for White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo to get immediate help of the major lessons found in this book.

The goal of this workbook is to help even the newest readers to begin applying major lessons from Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferris. Results have shown us that learning is retained better through repeated real-life applications.

By using this workbook, readers will find categorized lessons that we believed were major in defining the crucial messages of the author in the book. There are questions devoted both for self or corporate usage and actionable steps through charts and analysis tables to stimulate a continued engagement with the main lessons in the book.

Take out a pencil, pen, or whatever digital technology you would put to use to jot down, implement, and make happen. And don’t forget to have fun - that’ll also keep you learning.

Table of Contents

1. Book Abstract: White Fragility

2. About the Author: Robin DiAngelo

3. Important Notes About This Book

4. Beyond its Publication

5. Quiz Questions

6. Quiz Answers

7. Gift: Bonus Bestselling Workbooks

Book Abstract for White Fragility

Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D., released her latest book “White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism” in June 2018. The phrase “white fragility” first appeared in her eponymous academic paper published in The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2011.

"How has your race shaped your life?" probes Robin DiAngelo Ph.D., a New York Times bestselling author and racial justice educator, in one of her sought after lectures. The question never fails to baffle Whites, she notes, who take longer or even ambivalent about providing answers compared to their Asian, Latino, and African American counterparts. This seemingly ordinary anecdote, as DiAngelo relates, illustrates Americans' oblivion to their race, the sense of superiority it advances, and the consequent discrimination it afflicts outsiders.

In her book “White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” (2018), DiAngelo examines whiteness and the US general population's propensity to shun conversations about racism. She attributes this to "white fragility," the process of restoring "white equilibrium" as a response to "racial stress." She claims that American society is fundamentally racist, and the stability its people seek is to remain comfortably seated at the top of the racial hierarchy. DiAngelo asserts that their environment normalized Americans' domination and functioned as an "insulator" against confrontations about race, where opposition to their authority is rare. She explains that "white fragility" is "not a weakness per se," as it is a way to preserve their insulated society and reinforce their control. As a result, Whites have a weak "racial stamina" against "racial discomfort," wherein they feel that even the most innocuous conversations on ethnicity are affronts to their morality. They automatically raise their defenses and evade the subject altogether, and this, DiAngelo laments, is the major stumbling block to the furtherance of social justice in the West.

DiAngelo begins by emphasizing the "pillars of whiteness"–white supremacy, white segregation, and white solidarity–not as the antithesis of "white fragility," but as its intrinsic cause. She observes that race is often misconstrued as a biological construct based on external characteristics that have naturally evolved as people adapt to their geographical locations. These physical adaptations gave birth to stereotypical representations like that of the tall, white, blonde American, the Asian with the long, black silky hair and monolids, and the Blacks with their voluminous curly hair and velvet skin. She argues that racial classification through purely genetic factors is virtually impossible and that race is, in fact, a social construct that is contrived, much like the rhetoric for gender, to benefit specific groups. This misconstruction is the byproduct of America's colonialist roots that sought to validate "white supremacy." If racial science could provide tangible proof to their superiority, they are absolving their trespasses against enslaved Africans, displaced Mexicans, and murdered Indigenous people. By the 1600s, the colonial law first used "white" to ascertain citizenship. From then on, its legalization bestowed immense power to the colonialists, for it gave them the prerogative to define "white identity" as the "norm or standard for humans, and people of color as a deviation from that norm." The Supreme Court could then accept some Armenians as white to recognize their scientifically proven "Caucasian" genealogy while rejecting a Japanese' citizenship appeal based on his "Mongoloid" ancestry. This superiority bred countless privileges apparent even before their birth, their preferential acceptance into Ivy League universities, and ultimately translated into their advantaged positions in the job market and workplace. With its tremendous wealth and power, America became an aspirational dream, the land of milk and honey, mainly to immigrants who wanted to "assimilate whiteness" to be endowed with the same entitlement.

However, with centuries of conditioning and being socialized into this isolation, Americans, as DiAngelo regrets, have developed a myopic worldview. This made assimilation for outsiders more arduous, if not entirely possible. She calls "white segregation" the culprit to their racial oblivion in that they freely navigate spaces without having to worry about being an American–they are granted access in almost every social function, and their passports are one of the most powerful in the world. It also transposes into the partitioning of actual spaces wherein neighborhoods of people of color, especially blacks, are considered the breeding grounds of crime. This lowers the value of their land and generally impedes signs of economic growth. This unimpaired mobility is also evident in the ideological realm wherein their "innocence" is purported. People who are profoundly unaware of their race could not and would not speak about it. They are in a state of "willful not knowing," for it triggers racial stress that they don't have the stamina to handle. This leaves the advocating of racial literacy to people of color who face the dangers of being discredited for their "radicalism." While white segregation aims to draw the American distinction from outsiders, "white solidarity" is the implicit unifying pillar that protects their entitlement and boundaries. It promotes their ubiquity as indeed, Whites see themselves everywhere–from their nuclear family to their colleagues, in the movies as superheroes and behold, even in the established images of God, Jesus, and Mary. But most importantly, it silences dissent, even amongst themselves, through threats of ostracism. Even mere political correctness is deemed negatively, for it exposes an error that perpetuates their control. The preservation of white supremacy and segregation through white solidarity means Americans are never held accountable for their consequent racism. To stay at the pinnacle of hierarchy, they had to trample on people of color's rights. Unfortunately, it would be most painful for Americans to call this out themselves for granting people of color their rights is tantamount to losing it. Thus, social justice is the collateral damage for their comfort. DiAngelo finally concludes that the establishment, perpetuation, and unchallenged ubiquity of the supreme white ideology through the pillars of whiteness have unquestionably propelled America to its status as a global economic and hegemonic superpower.

The abolishment of slavery in 1865 marked the victory of the proponents of freedom and equality in the States, and with it came the impression that its oppressive structures were permanently dismantled. The sudden cognizance of the class divide put the tenets of the "pillars of whiteness" in question and the status quo in shambles. Racism was finally put into the fore of American socio-political discourse. DiAngelo traces racism's roots to prejudice and discrimination, which, she notes, are two very different terms. Prejudice is one's preconceived notion of a group. Usually governed by biases, it is the mental image in which we measure people against and the standard that guides our interactions.

On the other hand, discrimination is the materialization of this prejudice that consists of caustic actions to subjugate the other party. This reaction may be of great magnitude like white supremacists' violence against the blacks in the 50s to 60s or the discreet discomfort one feels around a Muslim for their supposedly terrorist association. DiAngelo holds that while "everyone has prejudice, and everyone discriminates," racism is only made possible by institutions that command legal jurisdiction. She further defines it as the result of individual aggressions accumulating into societal transgressions permitted by authorities. While it is true that white people also experience discrimination and that people of color have a prejudice against them, this could not translate into palpable racism, as DiAngelo supposes, because of the absence of a system that supports it. People of color simply just do not have the same status and power to wield the same expanse of racism as the whites.