BOOK REVIEW: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

White Fragility is a short but affecting read; it is revelatory, informative and inspirational. The author provides insight into the myriad ways that white people respond to discussions about race and white supremacy. This excerpt (from page 2) basically encapsulates the primary thesis of the book: Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race. We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as unsettling and unfair moral offense. The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable--the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. I conceptualize this process as white fragility. The author Robin Diangelo uses the words "we" and "ours" in this quote and throughout the book to be explicit and forthright about her positionality as a white woman discussing racism. I imagine White Fragility would be very difficult for white people to read this book without experiencing some of the reactions that the author describes above. In fact, the author recognizes this and spends a significant amount of time in the book speaking directly to white readers of the text, to attempt to modulate and potentially forestall these reactions. I have to imagine how white readers will respond to reading about the ubiquity and resilience of white supremacy because I am not a white person.  Despite this fact, the experience of reading White Fragility as a non-white person is an exciting experience. My primary feeling was one of admiration (at the thoughtfulness and precision of the language of the book and the cogent and contemporaneous nature of the ideas included) and amazement (at the sheer number of "secrets" revealed and taboos broken about discussing race, anti-blackness and white supremacy). While it is well under 200 pages, White Fragility provides numerous resources for facilitating the process of getting white people to talk about racism, such as the pages of footnotes at the end of the book providing evidence for claims made in the text, as well as "Books, Articles and Blogs" for the reader to continue their education on the subject(s) of race, racism and white supremacy. Additionally, there are very useful lists included in the book which distill and highlight some of the key concepts. An example is this list of the functions of white fragility (found on page 122): Maintain white solidarity Close off self-reflection Trivialize the reality of racism Make white people the victims Hijack the conversation Protect a limited worldview Take race off the table Focus on the messenger, not the message Rally more resources to white people Another strong aspect of the book are the particular chapters devoted to "White Women's Tears," "Anti-Blackness," and "The Good/Bad Binary." Overall, White Fragility is a tour de force explication of why it is so difficult to have conversations about racism and (therefore begin) the process of dismantling white supremacy. In the end, I found the book somewhat depressing because it makes the prospect for improved race relations in the United States appear to be unlikely by analyzing and enumerating what would be entailed in producing such a future. With that said, the problem is not with the book, which does a great service to us all by illuminating and elucidating ideas and actions about race and white supremacy, but with us, the reader(s). RATING: FIVE STARS.

Title: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism.
Author: Robin Diangelo.
Paperback: 462 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: March 26, 2019.
Date Read: July 27, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: There Is No God: Atheists in America

I am known as something of a "closet sociologist" (and an out atheist) and so news that a new book about atheists in America from two sociologist professors is coming out soon is exciting. The book is There is no God: Atheists in America by David A. Williamson and George Yancey.

Here is the blurb for the book on Amazon.com:

There is No God: Atheists in America answers several questions pertaining to how the atheist population has grown from relatively small numbers to have a disproportionately large impact on important issues of our day, such as the separation of church and state, abortion, gay marriage, and public school curricula. Williamson and Yancey answer the common questions surrounding atheism. Just how common is the dismissal and derision of religion expressed by atheists? How are we to understand the world view of atheists and their motivations in political action and public discourse? Finally, is there any hope for rapprochement in the relationship of atheism and theism? In There is No God, the authors begin with a brief history of atheism to set the stage for a better understanding of contemporary American atheism. They then explore how the relationship between religious and atheistic ideologies has evolved as each attempted to discredit the other in different ways at different times and under very different social and political circumstances. Although atheists are a relatively small minority, atheists appear to be growing in number and in their willingness to be identified as atheists and to voice their non-belief. As those voices of atheism increase it is essential that we understand how and why those who are defined by such a simple term as “non-believers in the existence of God” should have such social and political influence. The authors successfully answer the broader question of the apparent polarization of the religious and non-religious dimensions of American society.

Hmmmm, my birthday is coming up and this might be a good gift. Jus' saying!

Hat/tip to friendly atheist

UPDATE: Homeless Black girl now thriving at Harvard

The story of Khadijah Williams, "the homeless black girl from Los Angeles who went from Skid Row to Harvard," has been in my thoughts lately. I first blogged about her incredible story way back in 2009, and since then she has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and is apparently thriving at the most prestigious university in the country.

Thanks to the power of Google (and a pretty distinctive first name) it was pretty easy to get an update on how Khadijah is doing now. She's in her Junior year at Harvard, majoring in Sociology, and an occasional blogger herself!

Here's an excerpt from one of her recent posts:

What makes students from our background “disadvantaged” is our understanding of parts of the world, which are different than (but not inferior to) the ways that are valued in this society. I have friends who are wealthy and have tons of intellectual learning, but not much experiential learning like you and I have. Going to college has allowed me to understand the importance of both. I’ve learned so much about the world talking to my friends and conversing with professors, reading books, and the like. But my experience and the learning that comes from it has allowed me to fully appreciate other experiences I had, such as my trip to South Africa (more at a later post). A lot of times, it seems all I hear as a low income student is how “disadvantaged” I am, how “lacking” I am as a nontraditional student. But going to college has helped me understand how my own background has given me the ability to appreciate experiences and situations at an experiential and an intellectual level.

Clearly, she knows how to write, and more importantly, also knows how to think. I am just happy that everything turned out fine. First Female Black President of the United States, anyone?

GSS Shows Support Exceeds Opposition To Marriage Equality

University of Illinois Sociologist Darren Sherkat has crunched the numbers of the 2010 General Social Survey to reveal that for the first time, more Americans support marriage equality than oppose the idea.

Sherkat says on his blog:

For the first time, a legitimate scientific survey is showing very clearly that the proportion of Americans who agree or strongly agree that same sex marriage should be legal exceeds the proportion who either oppose or strongly oppose marital rights.  46% of Americans favor civil rights, while 40% oppose civil rights, and the remainder just can’t seem to decide. Of course, this is an incredible shift from the first time the question was asked in 1988–when 73% of Americans opposed marital rights, but it is also a seismic change from 2004, when only 30% of Americans supported marriage rights for same sex couples, and 56% opposed civil rights.

Sherkat has analyzed the differences in support of and opposition to marriage equality by a number of different identifying characteristics such as race, religion, political affiliation.

For example, Sherkat has written a paper debunking the "zombie meme" that Black people were responsible for Proposition 8's passage (and the subsequent implication that African-Americans are more homophobic than white people). He demonstrates he racial gap in opposition to marriage equality in the following graph:

The reason for the racial gap in opposition to marriage equality, Sherkat explains in "Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage," is primarily explained in the different rates of religiosity among Black Americans and white Americans. Even so, in the last 6 years since same-sex marriage has been a reality in Massachusetts and beyond, opposition in the Black community has fallen faster (17 percentage points) than opposition in the White community (15.4 percentage points).

Sherkat's most interesting result is in his analysis of how religious beliefs and partisan affiliation impact opposition to marriage equality .

As Sherkat (somewhat irreverently) explains:

Notice that among fundies, who believe the bible is the inerrant word of god, support is very low even if you are a strong Democrat–but it’s twice as high as it is among Republican fundies. Among moderates and seculars, the effect of political party is quite dramatic—67% of strong Democrats who think the Bible  was inspired by god support same sex marriage, while among Republicans with the same beliefs support is 18%. Among people who think the bible is bunk, 82% of strong democrats support same sex marriage, while only a third of republican non-believers support civil rights. Party matters.

I wonder what the Log Cabin Republicans have to say about these results?