White Fragility, Chapter Twelve

In Chapter Twelve of White Fragility, Robin Diangelo titles it “Where Do We Go from Here?”. Based off that title and it being the last chapter of the novel, we can infer that Diangelo is going to recommend some ways we can mitigate white fragility or prevent future social and racial injustices. Diangelo begins the chapter with a real-world experience with a black person who was not fond of her comment/joke she made. It gives the reader a sort of interest that she herself has portrayed racism towards a person of color without realizing it at first. But she acknowledged her actions later when she thought about it and realized that it offended that person. But I like how she was able to sit down with that person of color she offended and talk with her about the issues that she had made, and resolve those issues by asking if there were any more problems between them to address.

When I first read a part of the chapter, Diangelo mentions how white people come up to her and ask her what to do about racism. She basically just responds “What do you mean you do not know what to do about it?” This kind of invalidates what she does as her profession though since she goes around teaching people about antiracism and white fragility in her workshops. I feel like if she was there to teach those adults about these habitual ways of white society, then she should be able to help them out a little more because she is educated in that topic area. I do not think telling white people when they come up to her and ask her what they should do, is very helpful; she questions them as if she makes them figure it out themselves. And because the topic of racism is very complex in the way different races think, answering that question is not simple. In that paragraph, Diangelo talks about it as if racism is easy to understand. Maybe she is trying to say something else, but that is what I get from reading that paragraph. When Diangelo writes, “…if my answer is that I was not educated about racism, I know that I have to get educated” (Diangelo 144). The way she says it makes it seem so simple. But the process takes a lot of time and less ignorance.

Reading further in the chapter, Diangelo explains why she lets the white people figure out how to deal with and talk about racism themselves. That really helps me understand why she said what she said. She claims that it would allow white people to do research and learn about racism on their own; and, if white people take the time to figure out the answer to their question themselves, it shows that that person actually cares and is putting in effort to do so. I like how she uses the doctor and patient diagnosis example to demonstrate her claim.