Robin DiAngelo's book White Fragility, subtitled 'Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism', was met with very polarizing reactions when it was published in 2018. In her book, DiAngelo, an academic, unveils the reasons why white people react negatively when questions of race are raised in settings in which they find themselves. DiAngelo attributes their reaction to what she calls 'white fragility', a concept she first coined in 2011, which is defined as 'a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves'.
A controversial but well-researched and argued book which featured in the New York Times bestseller list, White Fragility seems more important than ever before, especially when we think of movements like Black Lives Matter. It explores how racism permeates society from top to bottom and how racism is perpetuated not just by violent racist individuals and groups but also by the structures and thought-processes of the societies we live in and belong to.
