Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility has been getting a lot of attention as more people look to understand the persistent and urgent issue of systemic racism. Her tenacious, no-nonsense attitude has won DiAngelo many admirers, making her book a number one New York Times bestseller that plenty of reviewers love. Clearly, many people are eager to embrace it.
But in addition to all the praise, the book has also been heavily criticized. Linguistics professor John McWhorter goes so far as to call it racist. Does white fragility theory stand up to scrutiny, and perhaps more importantly, does it lead white people to understand racism and practice anti-racism in effective ways?
DiAngelo first introduced her theory in a paper written in 2011, arguing that in North America an “insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility.”
