White Fragility

Robin DiAngelo Press Reviews

Brings language to the emotional structures that make true discussions about racial attitudes difficult. With clarity and compassion, DiAngelo allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people.' This is a necessary book for all people invested in societal change through productive social and intimate relationships -- Claudia Rankine

A methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance - New Yorker

Fascinatingly reads as one-part jeremiad and one-part handbook. It is by turns mordant and then inspirational, an argument that powerful forces and tragic histories stack the deck fully against racial justice alongside one that we need only to be clearer, try harder, and do better. - LA Review of Books

A hugely valuable book that shows how fearful, wounded and angry white reactions shut down vital discussions of race and racism and thereby uphold and perpetrate white supremacy. Its main insights relevant well beyond the United States, White Fragility will facilitate difficult but necessary conversations that we must have in Britain too. With both compassion and uncompromising clarity, Diangelo helps us understand the everyday manifestations of 'white supremacy' and provides several unexpected answers to the familiar defensive question 'How is that racist?' If we want to end racism and develop as human beings, we must be prepared to get 'racially uncomfortable -- Dr Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge

A fresh, sane, clear-sighted analysis on the racial and social challenges we face in the 21st century... Robin DiAngelo is a white person with whom we would do well talk about race with. And listen to. - Johny Pitts