The fragility of whiteness

The author explains that “white frailty is a stage which even a minimal amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a series of d efensive movements on the part of the white subject. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as arguing, silent, and letting go of the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, work to re-establish the racial balance of whites”.

In an interview with The Guardian, the academic vents that “the problem with whites is that they just don't listen. In my experience, day in and day out, most white people are not receptive to discovering the impact of their actions on other people. There is a refusal to know or see, or hear or hear, or validate”.

The issue is seen as thorny because it faces fundamental nuances of racism: privileges and social status of this group constituted as hegemonic. The author draws attention to the “protective cushion of resources and benefits” in the dynamics of racial relations as it stands.

She explains that, when confronted, whites become defensive because they do not want to go deep into the discussions that involve social inequality and the injustices produced by racism in relation to their responsibilities. She teases “What are white people afraid of missing when they hear?”

As whiteness is rarely challenged to think its color in the social fabric, when placed in check as a racial player, the reaction behaviors are the inability to tolerate the subject, as well as racial stress.

DiAngelo, says whiteness is considered the rule of humanity, culture becomes something discussed only in reference to people of color. So, for this to stop, whites need to deal with what it means to be a member of that social group.

For the author, "this racially encoded language reproduces racist images and perspectives, while at the same time reproducing the comfortable illusion that race and its problems are what 'they' have, not us."

In the same sense, DiAngelo elucidates that these privileges are solidified in history, tradition and normativity, with the formatting of the individual and collective consciousness of white as an elevated being, with the fragility of whiteness being conceptualized as a product of habit, that is, a response or “condition” produced and reproduced by the continuous social and material advantages of the white structural position.

Among other factors, the scholar insists that recognizing that accesses are unequal in relation to racial groups; observe the spaces and how social segregation takes place; thinking critically about the complexity of racism through contact with other narratives are important steps to face this veil of white fragility.

In her words: “racism is a white problem. It was built and created by white people and the ultimate responsibility must rest with white people. For a long time, we looked at it as if it were someone else's problem, as if it had been created in a vacuum. I want to stand up against this narrative.”

Therefore, since it is white people who hold institutional power in light of the economic, political, legal and social machinery, it is essential to understand the race not only of those who are affected by racism, but who produces it, as it supports the racism of collective form who does not work to end it.