White Fragility, Chapter Eight

Chapter 8 of White Fragility by Robin Diangelo describes how white fragility comes about as a result of life experiences and what white people were taught at an early age. I believe this to be true as I do think that whatever you learn at an early age and how you were raised really affects how you will live when you grow older. What you were taught as a foundation and what you have seen from experience during your childhood greatly influences your opinions and decisions in the future. Because habits are hard to break, if you are exposed to certain things and see certain things at a young age, you may not be able to unsee it, and even sometimes children will follow in those footsteps. Not everybody was raised in a caring home or had a roof over their head, so for each individual, these experiences are different. But in this case, Diangelo compares these childhood experiences to race. She quotes Debian Marty, a professor of communications: “As in other Western nations, white children born in the United States inherit the moral predicament of living in a white supremacist society. Raised to experience their racially based advantages as fair and normal, white children receive little if any instruction regarding the predicament they face…” (Diangelo, 108). For white children as a whole, they do not grow up having to struggle being a certain skin color. They are given most of the advantages already by being born in this world as a white person. They were not taught what to do in situations where they are not favored, so they grow up thinking that they are not doing anything wrong when it comes to race.  

She also explains how white people, as they grow older, deny racism as a real issue. She talks about the ways that white people defend themselves when they are challenged by the topic of racism. Diangelo claims that white people oppose racism because they do not see that they themselves are the race with the most advantages in society. I like how Diangelo uses examples from the Oscars in 2016 to prove her point. I agree with Diangelo when she writes, “… whites invoke the power to choose when, how, and to what extent racism is addressed or challenged” (109). Somehow these defense mechanisms work because white people will use moral character to justify why their race is so superior. In my opinion, the only real reason why there is no equality between whites and people of color is because “the whites said so”. If the whites do not agree with something, then in their eyes, it is not valid. If they agree with something, they will accept it. That is why our society is so dislodged in this inequality that I believe will not be fixed for a long time. Like Diangelo mentioned about childhood, that is the way white people were raised for many generations before, so they think that is the correct way to do things. It is hard for them to address the racial issue and change it because they are not used to it. She also gives examples of ways she has experienced these things in the workforce.