Racism, the Individual, and Society

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hart For White People To Talk About Racism

When confronting racism in America today, it isn’t enough to simply ban expressions of personal bigotry. That’s a statement most race scholars can probably accept, but which remains controversial among the general public. Even in American law today, “racism” means personal bigotry; SCOTUS took systemic racism out of consideration with McCleskey v. Kemp, in 1987. American sociologist Robin DiAngelo wants to reverse this trend. But I fear she goes too far in the other direction.

DiAngelo, who works mainly as a diversity consultant for high-dollar corporations, starts with a simple question: why do well-paid White executives, in mostly-White offices, turn defensive, even wrathful, when consultants note their companies’ racial breakdowns? Who do White people refuse to believe that racism includes the inheritance of centuries of inequality, manifested by the fact that Black Americans disproportionately don’t own their homes? Why do Whites refuse to even consider the possibility that racism perseveres?

I synopsize DiAngelo’s extensive conclusion: because naming and discussing systems violates America’s master narrative of individualism. We White Americans want to believe ourselves unbound by limitations of race, class, sex, or the kitchen sink. To suggest that systems exist, from which Whites have profited at others’ expense, offends our core sensibilities. That’s why we respond with defenses of “I’m not racist” or “I’m not responsible for my ancestors’ crimes.” We’re simply making everything individualist again.

DiAngelo finds this unsatisfactory. When White Flight and its doppelgänger, Gentrification, continue shaping urban landscapes, this isn’t individual. When access to good schools and good jobs requires demonstrated proficiency on standardized tests, which mostly evaluate what well-off Whites consider worth knowing, bootstrap ingenuity isn’t good enough. When 55% of White Americans believe anti-White racism is widespread, but few report experiencing it, this reflects a culture-wide phenomenon. And we can only address it together, collectively, systemically.

So far, so good. I agree with DiAngelo’s take on systems, perhaps because I’ve read her position before, in authors like Michael Eric Dyson and Ibram Kendi. (Which reflects another problem: the White people likely to read this book are Whites like me, who already essentially support her position. But I digress…) The legacy of redlining, shoddy education, and mass incarceration continues shadowing Black and Hispanic Americans’ opportunities, even though outright discrimination is now unlawful.

Robin DiAngelo

My problem is, DiAngelo insists racism is only systems. From the beginning, and periodically throughout the book, she repeats the message that individual bigotry isn’t really racism, that only systems which structurally inhibit BIPOC opportunity should count as racism. Even as she recounts narratives from her executive consultancy of Whites refusing to consider their ingrained bias, even while they talk over Black colleagues or otherwise demonstrate personal prejudice, DiAngelo insists racism is nothing but systems.

Perhaps this reflects DiAngelo’s background in academia, and her work with business executives. She mostly interacts with people who’d rather die than openly speak the N-word, or otherwise express individual bigotry. Such people cannot comprehend that systems manifest in their behavior, because they believe their education and economic standing have purged intolerance from their hearts. Because America’s well-off often believe they achieved greatness through their individual efforts, they’re perhaps ill-prepared to believe systems even exist.

But, having divided the last decade between assembly-line work and construction, I’m willing to attest that bigotry still exists. That young BIPOC strivers, desperate to escape their inherited straits, really do hear the N-word spoken aloud among their White peers and co-workers. That even if racism originates in systems, it becomes ingrained among individuals, who pass their bigotry onto their children. And that poor Whites, desperate for any advantage, sometimes still actively push African-Americans down.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I agree with DiAngelo’s beliefs about systemic injustice. But, in stating that individual behavior is socially conditioned, DiAngelo functionally denies individual agency. I can’t do that. Experience teaches me that humans are products of their conditions, and individual beings, at the same time. Without individual agency, nobody can effectively overcome obstacles, or challenge unjust systems. This doesn’t mean systemic racism doesn’t exist, only that individual racism exists too, and needs confronted.

DiAngelo never says anything out-and-out wrong. Her words simply reflect her academic and professional background, as my words reflect my background. For anti-racists interested in how the individual and the systemic interact, I recommend Ibram Kendi, whose positions overlap with DiAngelo’s, but go into much greater depth. DiAngelo’s book overlooks important nuances. I suspect she wrote it as a companion to her consultancy business, not realizing it would take on a life of its own.