White Fragility Digest #6: 18 May 2018

[MrScorpio]

Welcome to VIDEO FRIDAY, Everybody!

This edition of the digest is dedicated to spreading good information. I'm presenting some videos which feature White Fragility as the topic, starting out with Dr. Robin DiAngelo. I hope that you all will take some time over the weekend to watch these fascinating and informative videos. .

Link to tweet

"White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium."

Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D

The next Digest will be published on Sunday.

White Fragility Digest Archive:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210609305

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210612268

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210616002

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210620209

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210623832

[MrScorpio]

1. Tim Wise "The Pathology of White Privilege"

Link to tweet

[MrScorpio]

2. Uprooting White Fragility: Intersectional Anti-Racism in the 'Post-Racial' Ethical Foodscape

Link to tweet

[MrScorpio]

3. White Fragility In The Workplace Newsbroke (AJ+)

Link to tweet

[oberliner]

4. Clarissa explains it all

[MrScorpio]

5. You know, dude, the sheer irony of your post is mind boggling.

But somehow, I don't think you'll understand why that's the case.

[MountCleaners]

11. Did it ever occur to you....

That your posts affect people? Like, they are disheartening, depressing, and discouraging? You seem to think they have no impact. But many of us have had very bad experiences with racism and you should know it hurts when someone doesn't get "it" and makes a very big show of the fact that they're not willing to listen and learn. That's because many of us have to live with something that hurts us every day, and we deal with discouraging, disheartening racial deafness every day.

People's "opinions" don't exist in a vacuum where they can't contaminate anything. They have a real material impact, from stress to losing your job to even losing your health or your life. Please think about whether you are contributing to this in any way.

[NCTraveler]

14. That clears some things up. nt.

[Oneironaut]

15. You just gave yourself away as a 90's kid.

[underpants]

6. 👀 We've got a long soggy weekend ahead of us here

I'll try to catch as much as I can.

[Dalida]

7. Are people bad for living free of "race-based stress"?

I don't have any race-based stress either, but then again I'm not an American, and consequently I don't have an unhealthy obsession with race. I'm of more of a live-and-let-live mentality.

The quoted paragraph can be equally true about any racially homogeneous society - certainly an overwhelming number of African countries, or most Asian countries like China, Japan, the Koreas... Also Arab countries, you name it... Guaranteed they don't go around feeling "race-based stress" or even contemplate the term. Should they be berated for being thusly "insulated" and "fragile"?

Certainly if some grand social experiment was undertaken where millions of blacks were dropped in the middle of Japan for example -a country with virtually no blacks - the "racial comfort" (her words) of the Japanese would decrease. Will the good doctor go there and berate them for it, or does she reserve her scorn for whites?

This has nothing to do with being this or that color, and - provided this is even a "thing" at all - everything to do with being an ethnic minority. I'm sure the white minorities in South Africa or Zimbabwe feel more of this stress than white Americans, and I'm sure the black majorities don't feel any more race-baced stress than white Americans either.

I don't think she'll win any converts by propagating for more racial stress - among whites or among any group. This is just another example of someone who has herself become insulated from the stress of the real world by huddling in the halls of academia and never venturing outside. But it must be nice not to have to live paycheck to paycheck so that you can dream up all kinds of loopy stuff!

[MrScorpio]

8. It's important to ourselves as Americans that we have these discussions...

Considering what POC of color have to live with every day in this country under systematic white supremacy.

It's the real deal.

[Blue_Adept]

9. I'd love to get some stats on where race based stress exists

Is it in certain regions of the country? More suburban than urban or more rural? Demographics?

[MrScorpio]

10. Check this out...

https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/white-people-freak-theyre-called-race-hesaid/

[Gothmog]

12. K&R

[NCTraveler]

13. Original piece from DiAngelo

https://robindiangelo.com/2014site/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/White-Fragility-Published.-1.pdf

[heaven05]

16. thank you

educational