I want to share something really valuable with you. I received the following note recently.
Hello, I wanted to thank you for helping me convince my workplace not to adopt and spread Critical Race Theory. My boss sent out an email to our strategic planning committee on how to address these current events. She casually mentioned the possibility of using White Fragility as a starting point for discussion. I used information I learned from you to argue that CRT is racist and divisive. She listened. Now all 8,000 of our annual clients and the 150 people I work with can avoid being strongarmed into this garbage.
Obviously, I’m thrilled. So, I asked if I might see what had worked and then, when I saw it, if I could share it with other people who are trying to help keep white fragility and Critical Race Theory out of their workplaces. The result is below.
I don’t want to make this about my own editorializing, but I do want to say that these ideas are more dangerous than advertised. Perhaps they can be incorporated in a stable fashion into an organization, but it seems unlikely. Most often, they will eventually do tremendous damage anywhere they’re incorporated. This is because they poison the corporate culture and make it divisive and tense, which then explodes the moment a divisive issue comes up (e.g., the incident in Minneapolis involving the death of George Floyd).
The message that worked is provided below. Feel free to use it, combined with the other resources here on New Discourses, as a template to create your own materials and get this stuff out of your companies. Knowing what I do about these critical theories, I can assure you that, despite the risk in standing up against them, your company assumes a lot of risk by importing them. As you will see, a very common problem is that people think Critical Race Theory is one thing when it is really another, and good-intentioned people tend to adopt it without realizing what it is (and reject it when they do know what it is).
Dear [Boss],
Thanks for asking for input about what kind of curriculum the organization should use to respond to the current conversation about racism in America. This is an important conversation, and I’m glad we’re trying to have it and being open-minded about discussing it.
To be up front about it, I have deep issues with the white fragility / Robin DiAngelo model (Critical Race Theory, “whiteness,” and intersectionality). I believe these theories promote racism, division, cancel culture, and victimhood. If our organization could stay out of the fray with this model I think we should.
We could be serving our clients in a more holistic and accessible modality. We serve, employ, and are funded by people with diverse opinions, backgrounds, and political views. Calling anyone who doesn’t continuously feel guilty for their original sin of being born white a “white supremacist” and their unwillingness to accept that title as “white fragility” – it’s a guarantee for division and upset that burns the bridges that would be needed to build a unified, just, and equitable society.
I have read some of Robin DiAngelo’s work (papers, not the whole White Fragility book) for my theories of oppression and social justice classes in college. I have also watched a few of her seminars on YouTube. She is absolutely accepted, seminal, and central to the anti-racism movement as it is currently formulated.
The major issue with the current conversation around race is that the goalposts have been moved, but we continue to use the same language to describe very different things. The most foundational example is the new definition of racism.
The dictionary definition that we all grew up with is: “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.” Whereas the critical race theory definition of racism is long and complicated, as given here:
The definition of racism offered here is grounded in Critical Race Theory, a movement started in the 1970s by activists and scholars committed to the study and transformation of traditional relationships of race to racism and power. CRT was initially grounded in the law and has since expanded to other fields. CRT also has an activist dimension because it not only tries to understand our situation but to change it. The basic beliefs of CRT are:
Racism is ordinary, the “normal” way that society does business, the “common, everyday” experience of most People of Color in this country.
Racism serves the interests of both white people in power (the elites) materially and working class white people psychically, and therefore neither group has much incentive to fight it.
Race and races are social and political constructs, categories that society invents and manipulates when convenient. In reality our differences as human beings are dwarfed by what we have in common and have little or nothing to do with personality, intelligence, and morality.
Society chooses to ignore this and assigns characteristics to whole groups of people in order to advance the idea of race and the superiority of whiteness. The power elite racializes different groups at different times to achieve their economic agenda, continually and repeatedly prioritizing profit over people.
This definition makes it hard to even start a conversation. It is a power struggle that includes inflammatory language, name calling, and doesn’t leave people room to save face and grow in ways that actually combat the problems that racist biases and systems create. This definition classifies people exclusively by skin tone and leaves no room for those people to ever be redeemed from the power status of their birth. According to this black people will always be powerless and white people will always hold supremacy. That is pure racism according to the dictionary definition by which most people function.
Understanding this definition is important when we as an organization look at our policies and protections for staff and clients. Obviously we want to make sure we are being equitable, humane, and putting people over profit. But calling “normal” racism – on a personal individual level. Accusing people of hatred when they are expressing love – it makes people feel hopeless. That is the entire concept of white fragility. It is a way to invalidate the feelings people have when they are called mean names. The definition of white fragility is: discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice. The title of the book is mocking people for not accepting the CRT definition of racism as normal activity, and therefore all “white” people instead of mistreating people based on their race.
Maybe it’s my white fragility, but I don’t think you need to call people names in order to recognize and correct systemic injustice.
Sincerely,
[Employee]
13 comments
If you’re not calling CRT what it is, which is Antiwhiteism at the institutional level, then you’re full of shit.
In as little as 10 years or less, it will be too late to reverse course on this inverted reality. Group IQ differences is the only valid claim that’s relevant to racial differences in the modern world according to psychometric data that spans over 100 years of research, and the fact that IQ is 80% genetic is the inconvenient truth those who control all media, finance, and academia cannot acknowledge since it destroys all their lies about race and their power.
Robin deAngelo is a fake name that means “robbing the angeloS(axons)”. CRT is a cheap ploy to extract power and wealth on the part of a small group of tribal psychopaths from people who’ve raised the collective world’s standard of living by employing the female method of warfare (gossip, shaming, blaming, rallying, ridiculing, and deceit).
Want to make lying illegal?
Propertarianism is the solution if we can get 2 million of us to peacefully show up. Stop the complaining and seek solutions that will work or we’ll keep losing ground to these cunning neo marxists.
All of this has been done through the manipulation of language.
Unwitting (Classical) Liberals are carrying water for neomarxism that’s been disguised with Liberal language. Justice, Equality, Diversity. Or, Liberal language has had its meaning swapped out: just like switching the fake diamond for the real diamond in a movie. Patriotism and Nationalism now equal Fascism and even Ultranationalism to the most naive. By Coincidence, many happen to have a brick or molatov in their hand, and were told by CNN and many elected Officials that it’s OK to wage violence against “Fascists”. I consider this Sedition.
Even though this took 80 years to develop, we can treat it the same as a partnership that evaporates in seconds when one realizes they’ve been duped. Half a generation may be lost, but Gen Z seems to have the same pragmatism as Gen X…. and young people, especially the most street-smart, can smell bullshit a mile away.
I read Robin DiAngelo’s book “What does it mean to be white” after a copy was accidentally left by a passenger on a train in England. This was about six years back. I had never heard of DiAngelo or her theories then. This was all new to me. I had not the slightest notion she was a major influence on US
thinking, (Indeed I knew so little about her I assumed the author – Robin – was a man!)
My immediate reaction to her ideas was this was the “Original Sin” I had been told about (and taught) in Protestant Northern Ireland around 1955..
Thus I am pleased to see so many other people also see her as a purveyor of ‘Original Sin’.
BTW, The first time I actually ever saw a black person in the flesh was about 1960 when I arrived at Euston station in London having taken the overnight ferry and boat train from Belfast. So how does this affect me????
I would add this: from speaking with my white peers, anger and resentment are growing at a worrying clip. People are angry, really angry, about being forced to engage on these topics when they are not related to our mission. In any large workforce with many older people, the variety of personal experience (and often extreme suffering) will be vast. Those of us with personal tragedy and/or our own fraught experiences with law enforcement/criminal justice are in no mood to be told we are privileged and callous.
I work for a large pharma company, and we are already being told we will be forced to have “courageous conversations” every quarter. (I guess the beatings will continue until morale improves.). Since we are also being flagellated with the anti-racism, white fragility language (and being told to read DiAngelo’s and Kendi’s books), I anticipate that these conversations will not be dialogues, but soliloquies–with the white listeners being shamed and humiliated. Not only is our workplace NOT racist (no one has raised ANY concerns about that), but we have had de facto quotas and affirmative action hiring for decades (another thing that causes race relations to deteriorate).
I am at a loss as to possible actions. We (white “we”) are not being encouraged to make our voices heard. I anticipate that were I to raise a concern, my career prospects would nose dive–although no one would ever articulate the reasons why to me. I have considered a blast email from an anonymous source–laying out arguments and ideas very similar to those here. My fear is that there is no such thing as “anonymous.”
Any ideas would be helpful.
What do we do if it’s too late to resist, and we’re already being encouraged / pressured to read it by the diversity, equity and inclusion folks?
Anon, Just change it to Diversity Inclusion & Equity. Acronym DIE. Catchy yes? Equity does not mean what you think it might. It means making reparations for past wrongs even if one has never done them. It is essentially socialism-give what you have to those who don’t have. Punishment for any success you may have because of a number of reasons.
I’m from Vancouver Canada and these ideas are being fast tracked into the company policy since the fall out from the George Floyd incident.
I am in the Portland Or area and this SJW wokeness is in full force. There is no disagreement allowed. (even when there is total agreement on the murder of Mr. Flyod – I have not heard anyone defending his murder and I do not defend it) I agree with what you have written and I would point out the example of Darryl Davis an wonderful black man who converted over 200 KKK members to renounce the KKK. He did not do it by CRT. Much respect for Mr. Davis.
I too am in Portland and wonder if I could patronize a single small business in the city if they knew I even read this article. The virtue signaling and intolerance coming from these people at the very same time is astounding.
Thanks James. My company is getting mighty “woke” over the past week. As a non-woke but still very strong Anti-Trump actually progressive liberal I always assume I can “pass” as a team player when these things come up. But it really feels different now. They haven’t set up any “fragility” seminars yet, but I fear they will when the office re-opens. If I’m told to lie on the ground, wash someone’s feet or anything even close to that dehumanizing, I’d simply have to refuse & most likely quit.
At least I can try this first. Thank you!
-Yenrap
This was very heartening to read. When I first read of ‘white fragility’ I immediately recognised DiAngelo’s schtick as a riff on the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin. It is good to find that others see this charlatan’s bullshit for what it is. She gets away with it today because the elephant in the echo chamber of identity politics is in fact religion or more accurately a deficiency of the same which the chattering classes supplement via the gruel of ‘woke’ served them daily by the mainstream media.
I am not sure about the New Discourses policy regarding external links, but this piece by Frank Furedi in today’s spiked-online offers a darker perspective on the same.