Journal of Social Work

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Book review ! The Author(s) 2019
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Robin DiAngelo, White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.
Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018; 154 pp., ISBN 9780807047415, $16 (pbk)

Reviewed by: William R Frey, Columbia University School of Social Work, USA
DOI: 10.1177/1468017319868330

Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism? White fragility may be an
answer to this question. In classrooms, at work, with friends and families, and even
among acquaintances and strangers, many white progressives continue to say things
and commit acts that perpetuate racism, while reframing ourselves as the victim,
drawing attention to our feelings and away from the person or people of color we
interpersonally and systemically harm. In her new book, White Fragility: Why It’s So
Hard for White People to Talk About Race, Dr Robin DiAngelo argues that this
performance of racialized victimhood serves to counter a disequilibrium white people
subconsciously experience when we encounter even a minimal amount of racial stress,
triggering defensive acts—white fragility. This book marks an important addition to
the canon of critical thought regarding whiteness and white supremacy.
In an age of commonplace “reverse racism” accusations, DiAngelo effectively
and critically outlines how white people in the United States have got to a point of
skewed understandings of race and racism and how these understandings uphold
our socialized, white supremacist worldviews. She accomplishes this by taking the
reader on a theoretical, historical, conceptual, and experiential journey leading to
her current understandings and analyses of white fragility. Within the 154-page
book, DiAngelo compares and contrasts the definitions of prejudice, discrimina-
tion, and racism, noting the importance of understanding racism as a system
backed by various forms of power (e.g. legal and institutional), which exist
beyond the interpersonal. She chooses to focus on the Civil Rights Act of 1964
as a defining moment when overt forms of racism were seen as less socially accept-
able—reinforcing a need within white people to separate ourselves from anything
considered remotely racist. This white desire of separation resulted in adapted
forms of racism which continue to perpetuate institutional and systemic racism
while “seemingly” offering white people more wiggle room to deny any personal
responsibility—colorblind, aversive, and cultural racism.
Key to this shift in the manifestations of racism, as DiAngelo outlines, is the
personalization of race within a good/bad binary: “only bad people are racist”.
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Within this binary, to suggest someone is a racist is to suggest they are a bad
person, triggering a white person’s need to defend their character. This binary,
as DiAngelo points out, is a false one, due to the systemic nature of racism and
white supremacy. Another systemic and foundational element of white supremacy
and white fragility is anti-blackness. DiAngelo posits that anti-blackness is rooted
in our guilt as white people, and an unwillingness to confront the ways we have
harmed and continue to harm black people. All of these components lead to racial
triggers for white people, following a predictable series of events: (1) someone
challenges our assumptions or behaviors causing feelings of being considered a
bad person; (2) leading to behaviors drawing attention to us and away from people
we harm; (3) resulting in a justification of why we are being falsely accused—a
straightforward equation for white fragility.
DiAngelo engages anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as the
theoretical grounding for white fragility, speaking about a white person’s “familiar
ways of perceiving, interpreting, and responding to the social cues” around them
(p. 101). Additionally, habitus is affected by the field, or social context the person is
in, and capital, or social value that person holds within a specific field. White
fragility often occurs when there is disequilibrium in a person’s habitus, when
we encounter unfamiliar social cues, or someone challenges our capital—white
people utilize white fragility to regain balance. Thus, DiAngelo defines white fra-
gility as “a state in which even a minimal amount of racial stress in the habitus
becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves,” often subconscious
(p. 103). A key distinction DiAngelo makes is that white fragility functions
beyond individual forms of defensiveness. She also sees white fragility having
systemic impacts as a “sociology of dominance: an outcome of white people’s social-
ization into white supremacy and a means to protect, maintain, and reproduce
white supremacy” (p. 113). Unfortunately, this is one of the few times institutional
and systemic impacts of white fragility are mentioned.
Throughout the book, DiAngelo adamantly seeks to reframe conversations about
race and racism among white people—thinking beyond if and focusing on how racism
functions throughout our lives. Her arguments outlining the foundations and func-
tions of white fragility support this push to think and act beyond a negation of racism
impacting our worldview. One of her most poignant remarks is a call to white people
that feels more like a plea: “I repeat, stopping our racist patterns must be more impor-
tant than working to convince others that we don’t have them” (p. 129). This quote by
DiAngelo represents the essence of her book. White fragility exists in order to protect
the notion that white people do not have racist patterns, deflecting responsibility and
just as importantly, forfeiting potential pathways for accountability.
While DiAngelo successfully supports the arguments of her book and presents a
comprehensive structural analysis of racism, white supremacy, and a mostly inter-
personal understanding of white fragility, some questions remain. First, DiAngelo
maintains a US-centric frame when speaking and analyzing white fragility, men-
tioning the ways in which race is understood based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
While she states that white supremacy is circulated globally, I am left wondering
Book review 3

how white fragility functions differently in other areas of the world where white-
ness may be defined differently. Using DiAngelo’s own theoretical grounding in
Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, people’s ways of perceiving the world change
based on their positionality, taking into consideration the field in which they are
and the social value they hold in a particular social context. DiAngelo gives a
party, workplace, or school as examples of fields. Fields should additionally be
thought of on a global scale—the ways in which capital and habitus shift as white
people move throughout global institutions and structures. I wonder what a book
about white fragility on a global scale may look like. How would it have been
constructed differently to conceptualize and position whiteness globally, and how
would that shift our understandings of white fragility?
Second, DiAngelo speaks only briefly on the intersection of race and gender when
conceptualizing white fragility in her eight-page chapter titled “White Women’s
Tears.” However, throughout this chapter there is little analysis on how the function
of white fragility changes based on the various social identities involved in an inter-
personal experience. How do gender, race, class, religion, ability, sexual orientation,
and other social identities impact the function and manifestation of white fragility?
Finally, reaching beyond the interpersonal acts themselves, many questions arise
regarding how white supremacy overlap with patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism,
and imperialism. How is white fragility situated on institutional and systemic
levels? DiAngelo briefly touches on this when she describes white fragility as a
sociology of dominance, but I would expect to see more considering the impact of
these various intersecting systems on every aspect of life. It is important to consider
the ways whiteness protects itself on interpersonal, institutional, and structural level
and DiAngelo misses this opportunity. Since whiteness is socially constructed and
exists on institutional and structural levels, so must white fragility.
For all the effort DiAngelo puts into outlining that racism, white supremacy, and
anti-blackness are structural, the solutions she offers are strikingly personal and inter-
personal in nature. Towards the end of the book, she lists many antiracist assump-
tions white people should internalize, stating that she believes if we do so, there would
not only be interpersonal relational change, but institutional change as well. While the
multilevel change she outlines seems to follow logical steps, there has been very little
empirical work to support a relationship of cognitive attitude and bias change leading
to behavior change. However, on an interpersonal level, DiAngelo’s antidote to white
fragility is an important one. Her antidote for white fragility involves building up our
racial stamina in order to fully confront the harm we cause rather than continuing to
deny our involvement. While many of the solutions DiAngelo offers have been inte-
gral on my own journey of confronting and uprooting whiteness in my own life, I
want us to seriously consider what “antidotes” may look like beyond the personal and
interpersonal selves. Considering the lens and frame adjustments, globally expanding
the frame and using an intersectional lens to refocus analyses, DiAngelo’s last chapter
question may hold new meaning: Where do we go from here?