White Fragility is one of those rare books where two people sharing nearly identical life experiences can read the exact same anecdote and response in directly oppositional ways. What’s more, those responses will likely be confirmed as entirely appropriate in equal percentages by others sharing certain similar conditions of existence. Anecdotes are peppered throughout the book which detail what the author describes as racially tense situations which a great number of white people would simply not see as being so. On the other hand, an equally large number of white readers might, at the very least, upon deeper consideration, agree that as a result of their own conditions of existence, at the very least not have seen racial components even if they would not go so far as to confirm the seriousness. And it is in that gap that the entire construct of white fragility exists and festers.
This is a book that explores racism as a mechanism of thought outside its usual confines. Normally, racism implies simply prejudice which is manifested in grotesquely obvious ways. The author draws a distinction: racism is the result of the collective prejudice “backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control.” As a result, racism can and does exist even in the complete absence of over discriminatory behavior by the majority of people. All it takes for racism to rule society is the majority to convince themselves they are not racist and then sit back and do nothing while institutional systems remain unchallenged. Anyone who doubts this need only read the chapter of American history on what happened during the summer of 2020.
White privilege. Aversive racism. White saviors. Color-blind racism. New racism. White solidarity. These are all terms which relate to ways that racism exists and is perpetrated without the need for a single rabid, Confederate-flag-waving skinhead even appearing on the scene. Not listed among those examples of non-racist racism is another important element: abject denial. It was the abject denial of complaints among black society of pervasive and violent systemic racism throughout law enforcement agencies in America that led to the transformative summer of 2020. Only with the invention and convenience of cell phone cameras did it finally become possible to document as undeniable truth what had existed in the minds of much of white society as paranoid conspiracy theory. The face of the police as sociopath in the guise of the officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck until he died changed everything.
And, of course, also changed almost nothing. While it is easy for white society to look into the callousness of that officer’s face and condemn him, it only takes things back to square one: the 1960’s idea of what a racist looks like. What White Fragility uncomfortably suggests is that every single white American whose mind was changed by that face is himself also responsible for that racism. Not in the form of the frothing George Wallace-style racist, but in the form of the white woman crying over the murder of George Floyd who by the very act of shedding tears threatens to transforms herself into the subject of race relations in America.
