-My name is Misha Stone,
and I'm a reader services
librarian in the Reader
Services department,
and before we begin
this evening,
I would like to acknowledge
that we are gathered
together on the ancestral land
of the Coast Salish people.
So together, let us honor their
elders, past and present.
We thank them for their
stewardship of this land.
Welcome to the library,
and thank you for joining us
for this reading
with Dr. Robin DiAngelo.
DiAngelo's essays and talks
have been so important
and revelatory to me.
I know that I'll be reckoning
with my own internalized racism,
with my own socialization
and trying to reduce harm
throughout my entire life,
both personally
and professionally,
and what I love about
the book "White Fragility"
is that it crystallizes so much
of what I've heard her say
and write all in one place
in a way
that I can continue
to move through it,
continue to reference it.
So I'm so honored to be here
for the book launch
for "White Fragility."
So we're all here tonight
for "White Fragility,"
and there's a lot of buzz
about this book already.
It's only been out for 2 days,
and I think it's a testament
to the fact that
this topic's time has come.
Poet Claudia Rankine said,
"Robin DiAngelo's
'White Fragility'
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.
In doing so, she moves
our national discussions forward
with new rules
of engagement."
And Michael Eric Dyson,
who wrote the lovely forward,
called it a "vital,
necessary book,
a bracing call
to white folk
everywhere to see their
whiteness for what it is
and seize the opportunity
to make things better now."
Please welcome Dr.
Robin DiAngelo.
-Woo!
Thank you so much.
Okay.
That was such a rush.
Before I launch in,
the way I'm going to do this is,
I'm going to read a little bit,
riff a little bit,
kind of guide you along
with some slides,
but I do want to reiterate
that this talk is happening
on the ancestral territories
of indigenous peoples,
and I believe very, very deeply
that if we don't know
our history,
if we cannot trace the past
into the present,
we cannot explain
current conditions in ways
that are transformative
rather than victim-blaming,
and I think today,
it's very, very clear
when we see struggles around
water rights at Standing Rock,
the Duwamish yet again
denied federal recognition,
which denies treaty
rights and sovereignty,
these struggles are never
separated from the present.
At the same time, a piece
of white fragility
is that white people
are not taught their history.
We don't know our history,
so I want to acknowledge that.
I want to position myself,
of course, as a white person,
and I'm talking to a very...
addressing a very,
very specific dynamic.
This is arguably the most
complex,
nuanced social dilemma since
the beginning of this country,
and there are myriad roads in,
and all of them are essential,
but so consistently left off
the table is whiteness, right?
So we often learn about
this group and that group
and their struggles
and their triumphs
and their heroes and heroines,
and yet we don't ask ourselves,
"Struggles and triumphs
in relation to whom?"
Right?
And so again, I'm going to focus
on white folks and white people.
I do use humor,
and I want to say a little
bit about why I use humor.
Some of it is my style, and also
because there's so much tension
and so much anxiety
and so much charge
and so much defensiveness
and on and on
for white people around race
that we can...
When we begin to get challenged,
we can shut down really quickly
or glaze over or tune out,
and all of those, of course,
function to protect
our positions
and hold our worldviews
in place.
And so the laughter
can help release some of that.
If we can laugh at this and mock
it a little bit, to be direct,
it can help us then step back
and not take ourselves
so seriously and hopefully again
open it up,
and I want to say
that defensiveness
this is killing
people of color, right?
This is very, very serious,
so my humor
is not meant to trivialize that,
but it is a strategy,
one of many that I use in order
to try to air
this out and open it up.
All right.
So I want to start by reading
a bit from the beginning.
"White people in North America
live in a society
that is deeply separate
and unequal by race,
and white people
are the beneficiaries
of that separation
and inequality.
As a result, we are insulated
from racial stress
at the same time
that we come to feel entitled to
and deserving of our advantage.
Given how seldom we experience
racial discomfort
in a society we dominate,
we haven't had to build
our racial stamina.
Socialized into
a deeply internalized
sense of superiority
that we either are unaware of
or can never admit to ourselves,
we become highly fragile
in conversations about race.
We consider a challenge to our
racial worldviews as a challenge
to our very identities
as good, moral people.
Thus, we perceive any attempt
to connect us
to the system of racism
as an unsettling
and unfair moral offense.
The smallest amount of racial
stress is intolerable.
The mere suggestion
that being white has meaning
often triggers a range
of defensive responses,
and these include emotions
such as anger,
fear and guilt and behaviors
such as argumentation,
silence and withdrawal from
the stress-inducing situation.
These responses work
to reinstate white equilibrium
as they repel the challenge,
return our racial comfort
and maintain our dominance
within the racial hierarchy.
I conceptualized this process
as white fragility.
Though white fragility
is triggered
by discomfort and anxiety,
it is born of superiority
and entitlement.
White fragility
is not weakness, per se.
In fact, it is a powerful means
of white racial control
and the protection
of white advantage.
In my early days of work
of what was then
termed a diversity trainer,
I was taken aback
by how angry and defensive
so many white people
became at the suggestion
that they were connected
to racism in any way.
The very idea that
they would be required
to attend a workshop
on racism outraged them.
They entered the room angry
and made that feeling clear
to us throughout the day
as they slammed their notebooks
down on the table,
refused to participate
in exercises
and argued against any
and all points.
I couldn't understand
their resentment or disinterest
in learning more about
such a complex social dynamic
as racism.
These reactions
were especially perplexing
when there were few or no people
of color in their workplace
and they had the opportunity
to learn
from my co-facilitator of color.
I assumed that
in these circumstances,
an educational workshop
on racism would be appreciated.
After all, didn't the lack
of diversity indicate a problem
or at least suggest that
some perspectives were missing
or that the participants might
be undereducated about race
because of scant
cross-racial interactions?
It took me several years
to see beneath these reactions.
At first,
I was intimidated by them,
and they held me back
and kept me careful and quiet,
but over time, I began to see
what lay beneath this anger
and resistance to discuss race
or listen to people of color.
I observed consistent responses
from a variety of participants.
For example,
many white participants
who lived in white,
suburban neighborhoods
and how
no sustained relationships
with people of color
were absolutely certain
that they held no racial
prejudice or animosity.
Other participants
simplistically reduced racism
to a matter of nice people
versus mean people.
Most appeared to believe
that racism ended in 1865
with the end of enslavement.
There was both
knee-jerk defensiveness
about any suggestion
that being white had meaning
and a refusal to acknowledge
any advantage to being white.
And over time,
I began to see
what I think of
as the pillars of whiteness,
the unexamined beliefs that
prop up our racial responses.
I could see the power
of the belief
that only bad people
were racist,
as well as how individualism
allowed white people
to exempt themselves from
the forces of socialization.
I could see how we are taught
to think about racism
only as discrete acts committed
by individual people
rather than as a complex,
interconnected system,
and in light of so many
white expressions of resentment
toward people of color,
I realize that we see ourselves
as entitled to
and deserving of more
than people of color deserve.
I saw our investment
in a system that serves us.
I also saw how hard
we work to deny all this
and how defensive we became
when these dynamics were named.
In turn, I saw
how our defensiveness
maintained the racial
status quo."
Okay, and none of the white
people that I identify,
whose actions I describe
in this book,
would identify as racist.
"In fact, I think they would
most likely identify
as racially progressive
and vehemently
deny any complicity
with racism,
yet all of their responses
illustrate white fragility
and how it holds
racism in place.
These responses spur
the daily frustrations
and indignities people of color
endure from white people
who see themselves as
open-minded and thus not racist.
This book is intended for us,
for white progressives
who so often,
despite our
conscious intentions,
make life so difficult
for people of color.
I believe
that white progressives
cause the most daily damage
to people of color,
and I define
a white progressive
as any white person
who thinks he or she
is not racist or is less racist
or is in the choir
or already gets it.
White progressives
can be the most difficult
for people of color,"
because to the degree
that we think we have it,
we're going to put
all of our energy
into making sure you think
that we have it and none of it
into what we need to be doing
for the rest of our lives.
Right?
"White progressives do indeed
uphold and perpetrate racism,
but our defensiveness
and certitude
make it virtually impossible
to explain to us how we do so."
So I'm pretty sure
I'm speaking to a room
filled with white progressives,
so let me just be clear.
You are not the choir.
There is no choir.
I am not the choir.
When I say there is no choir,
it's because my learning
will never be finished,
and the moment
I think I'm the choir,
I think I'm going to be done,
and I'm going to have certitude.
I often joke, but on some
levels, it's kind of true.
When I first applied to be
that diversity trainer
back in the early '90s,
I thought,
"Well, of course I'm qualified
to lead discussions on racism.
I'm a vegetarian.
How could I be racist?"
Now, I would need to be
vegan today,
but, you know, in the '90s,
that was pretty alternative,
right?
I even got called a communist
once when I said,
"No, I'm a vegetarian."
But, you know, my point is,
I just thought it was all about
open-mindedness
and alternativeness,
and let me just say that,
you know, I love Seattle,
and everything I learned
about white fragility,
I learned here working
with white progressives.
So chapter one, "Challenges to
Talking to White
People About Racism."
Right?
I have never met a white person
who did not have
an opinion on racism.
Have you?
If you are not sure that
all white people
have opinions on racism,
just bring it up the next time
you're around
a bunch of white people,
maybe tonight
when you have a drink in Ballard
after the talk
and see how that goes.
Not only do we all have
opinions,
but they tend to be
very emotionally charged,
and that has nothing to do with
whether they're informed or not.
I have an opinion
on virtually everything.
That does not make them
informed.
I don't believe you can grow up
or spend
any significant time
in the United States
without developing
opinions on racism,
and they will be emotional
and strongly held,
and again,
that has nothing to do
with whether they're informed.
And, in fact, if you are white,
and you have not devoted years
of sustained study,
struggle and focus
on this topic,
your opinions are necessarily
very limited,
and, no, a trip
to Costa Rica,
multiracial nieces
and nephews, right,
these are not sustained study,
struggle and focus.
Now, how can I say that
when I don't know
most of the people in this room?
And this, of course,
is the first thing
that tends to trigger
white fragility:
generalizing about white people.
As a sociologist, I'm really
comfortable
generalizing about white people.
Social life is predictable
and patterned,
you know,
in really observable ways,
and we've got to grapple
with those patterns,
but I can say this,
that your opinions,
without sustained study,
struggle, focus, you know,
mistake making,
relationship building, repair,
they're superficial because
nothing, nothing in society
gives you the information
you need to have more than that.
In fact, you can get through
graduate school in this country
without ever discussing racism,
can you not?
You can get through teacher
education in this country
without discussing racism,
and if you're in a progressive
teacher-education program,
you'll have one required
multicultural education class,
but that doesn't mean
you'll be talking about racism.
You might just be talking about
how to introduce ethnic authors
in February.
Right?
You can get through law school.
You can through social work,
right?
You can be seen as qualified
to lead
a major or minor institution
in this country,
to lead a group of people,
to supervise people.
You can be seen as qualified
to do those things
with virtually no ability
whatsoever to engage
with any complexity or nuance
in the issue of racism,
can you not?
All right.
So that is the first challenge:
humility.
Right?
The second is individualism.
Apparently, white people
do not understand socialization
because we really think
that we are exempt from it,
and, of course,
the irony of that
is because we're socialized
to value the individual.
We put a lot of effort there,
but we think that, you know,
just because I say I am
or want to be,
I could be exempt
from these forces.
So that is another challenge,
and again, generalizing,
suggesting race has meaning
for white people
will often trigger
white fragility.
We think if we don't see it,
it isn't there,
and, "You haven't explained
it to me
yet enough
so that I understand it,
so I'm not really sure
that could be valid."
Right?
And we tend to use
our reactions as a way out.
There is no way we're going
to get where we need to go
from a place of white comfort,
and I am comfortable
racially virtually 24/7,
so that is not my goal,
but we will often use
that lack of comfort
as a sign that something's
been done wrong
rather than something
probably has been done right
and that we need to use that
as a way into
the deeper framework
that would cause such upset
rather than use it as a way out.
And we don't understand
racism as a system,
so this is another key challenge
which leads me to chapter two,
which is "Racism
and White Supremacy."
Racism is a system,
not an event, right?
And it's the system we're in,
and none of us could be
and none of us were exempt
from its forces, right?
But the way we're taught
to think of racism functions
beautifully to not
only obscure the system
but to exempt us
from its forces, right,
or to have us believe
we are exempted from its forces.
Now, as a white person,
I was raised
to be racially illiterate,
and I actually think
all white people are raised
to be racially illiterate
in this culture,
and in gaining racial literacy,
I have had to understand
not just the collective dynamics
and dimensions of racism
but how racism
impacts different groups
who are perceived and defined
as people of color,
how it impacts them
differently, right?
So not all peoples of color
experience racism differently.
The things I have internalized
about different groups
is different where and how
they are positioned
always in relation to whiteness
or far away from whiteness
and how that manifests, right?
All of that must be understood,
but after a good 20-plus years
of talking day in and day out
to white people about racism,
I feel very confident to say
that there is something
profoundly antiblack
in this culture
and that nothing seems to turn
white people's
cranks of resentment
like thinking
Black people got something over
on us that they didn't deserve,
and the deeper belief is that
they're inherently undeserving.
I believe in the white mind,
Black people are
the ultimate racial other.
Right?
And that there are
these bookends,
and again,
your perceived proximity
to each end
of that impacts
how you're going to experience
your racialization,
so having said that
and not really having time
to do history,
I just want to give you
one glance
at the trajectory
of antiblackness
in this country
since its beginning,
and this slide will be
deliberately dense.
We can literally think about it
as state-sanctioned
organized crime that,
at least, discrimination
against African-Americans
from the beginning,
and it starts with kidnapping
and 300 years of enslavement,
torture, rape and brutality,
and it carries on, and about
a quarter of the way in,
you see bans on
testifying against whites,
which made it
technically legal to murder
Black people in this country,
and you are now in my lifetime.
And I'm going to say it again
because a lot of white people
seem to think a long time ago.
We're in my lifetime
about a quarter of the way
through that slide.
And then we see,
about two-thirds of the way
through,
employment discrimination,
and we are in 2018
with copious empirical evidence.
Right?
So let's pick it up there:
employment discrimination,
educational discrimination,
biased laws
in policing practices,
white flight,
subprime mortgages,
mass incarceration,
the school-to-prison pipeline,
disproportionate special-ed
referrals and punishments,
testing, tracking,
school funding,
biased media representation,
historic omissions
and so much more.
It is a system, not an event.
It's the system we're in,
and none of us could be
and none of us
were exempt from its forces.
If we want to be unique
and special individuals,
then we need to figure out
how whatever we see
as special
and different about us
set us up into that system
because it did,
so I'm talking...
I know white people really well.
I'm talking X, and you're like,
"Ha! I was Y."
Right?
Okay.
You were Y.
Most whites are X.
How did Y set you up?
It did.
Right?
The question is not if.
It's how.
Okay.
I'm going to repeat it.
It's a system, not an event.
And how do we cope
with the moral trauma
of what I just read to you?
Okay?
Resmaa Menakem has
a beautiful book,
"My Grandmother's Hands,"
where he talks
about racial trauma.
There's a trauma, I believe,
to white people of racism,
but I don't think it's...
It's a different...
It's a moral trauma, right?
And it's a piece of
white fragility,
not being able to face
our complicity in this system.
Well, historically, we projected
our sins onto the Black body.
Right?
Lazy, shiftless, criminal.
We projected our sins
onto the Black body, right?
Today, in addition
to doing that,
we obscure the system
of racism that we uphold,
and we exempt ourselves
from its forces, right?
And we do this in a way
that appears to be progressive,
right, that race
doesn't matter to us.
This is the board
after the grand champion
"College Jeopardy!"
round, right,
and for me,
it just speaks volumes, right?
Not, again, knowing our history
and being able to trace it
into the present is one
of the volumes it speaks.
Another one is: That is
the history of this country.
It is not their history.
It didn't happen in a vacuum.
One of the aspects
of institutional power
is the ability to disseminate
your worldview to everyone,
to position it as objective
and universal, right,
and to tell the story, right,
the story of the other
when we are not in relationship
with the other, right?
So I want to give you an example
of the power of the story,
and I want to do it through
"The Jackie Robinson Story."
Y'all
know Jackie Robinson, right?
So Jackie Robinson has been
quite celebrated
for doing something.
What's the tagline that goes
with Jackie Robinson?
He...He broke
the color line, right?
Now, so let's do a little
discourse analysis
because every year
on the anniversary,
we celebrate him
breaking the color line.
So think about what
that invokes, right?
He was exceptional.
He was special.
He did it.
Finally, one of them had
what it took
to break through
and play with us.
Up until him,
nobody had what it took,
so subtext:
inferior group.
Right?
But he did it, and, of course,
the day he did it,
the day he broke the color line,
racism in sports ended.
So imagine if we told the story
like this: Jackie Robinson,
the first Black man
that whites allowed to play
Major League Baseball.
And I want you to notice
the difference in that story.
One, that's the truth.
It didn't matter
how exceptional he was,
and I actually don't believe he
was the first most exceptional,
but if we didn't say
he could play, he couldn't play.
If he walked out onto that field
before we said,
"You can walk out
on the field,"
the police would have
removed him.
It wasn't up to him, right?
Now, the reason I want us
to tell the story
the second way is, one,
because it's true and, two,
because I need
role models, right?
How did white people
get organized?
What did they do
behind the scene?
What barriers did they face,
what challenges, right?
What strategies did they use,
and could we use
any of those today
and adapt any of those today?
Right?
It's not about me
wanting to point out
how bad white people are.
So chapter three looks at racism
after the civil rights movement,
and after the civil
rights movement,
it made a brilliant adaptation,
so post-civil rights,
racism got reduced
to the following formula.
"A racist is an individual
who consciously does not
like people based on race
and is intentionally
mean to them,"
always an individual,
must be conscious,
must be intentional,
and that definition exempts
virtually all white people
from the system of racism.
This definition, I believe,
is the root of virtually all
white defensiveness on racism.
Have you guys noticed any
white defensiveness on racism?
Yeah.
It makes it virtually impossible
to talk to the average
white person
about the inevitable absorption
of a racist worldview
that we get from being
socialized in a racist culture
in which white supremacy
is the bedrock
because you suggest
that anything I have done
is racially problematic
in any way,
and I'm going to hear a question
to my moral character,
and I'm going to need
to defend my moral character.
You know, we've probably seen
this a million times, right?
So that definition actually
functions to protect racism
even as it looks
like progress, right?
Racism became bad
post-civil rights.
So this sets up what I think
about
as the good-bad binary
that kind of...
It's either or, right?
Racists are bad.
Not racists are good,
and we know how to fill
that in, don't we?
Ignorant, bigoted, prejudiced,
mean-spirited, definitely old,
and when we die off,
there'll be no more racism.
You know, I've been working with
a lot of these tech companies
that when I walk around,
I think to myself,
"God, I guess you have to be
under 30 to work here,"
and I'm telling you, they cannot
think critically about race,
and the people of color that
work with these young people
are in so much pain, right?
No.
I get asked all the time,
"Do you think young people today
are less racist?"
Actually, the question
usually begins with,
"Don't you think"...
And just a head's up:
If you approach me with "Don't
you think," the answer is no.
Because
that's not an open question,
but, no, I don't actually
think young people today
are less racist
because that consciousness
hasn't changed our outcomes.
In fact, they're
getting worse, right?
Okay.
So Southern for sure,
don't you think?
Around here, I'm pretty sure
they live in Fife.
I've never been to Fife,
but on the way to Tacoma,
I see Fife.
I'm like, "Ooh, boy. It looks
like racists live there."
And when I'm on my way up north,
it's, like, Smokey Point.
Okay?
All right.
Not racists are good.
We're educated, progressive,
open-minded, well-intended.
We're young.
We're northern.
We live on Phinney Ridge,
but we're all moving to Portland
really soon because Whole Foods
is so corporate now.
Again, this is the root
of virtually
all white defensiveness,
and it just functions
so beautifully to exempt us,
so we just have to
get rid of it,
and when white people hear me,
and they feel angry
and pissed off and defensive,
can I just say this?
Now that you guys are listening
to me up here,
when you laugh at my jokes,
I'm going to keep getting
looser and looser.
Damn, white people
are pissy about racism.
We are so pissy on this topic.
We're mean on this topic, right?
And so if you're sitting here
feeling that,
just see if it isn't rooted
in this definition,
and if you cannot
let go of this,
you're just not going to be
able to move forward.
All right.
So aversive racism is a form
of what sociologists
call new racism, right?
And so it's racism
that progressive whites
are most likely to hold,
but because it conflicts with
our identities as good people,
we're most likely to be
in denial about it.
So let me find that piece.
"It's a manifestation of racism
that well-intentioned people
who see themselves as educated
and progressive
are more likely to exhibit.
It exists under the surface
of consciousness
because it conflicts
with consciously held beliefs
of racial equity
and justice.
Aversive racism is a subtle
but insidious form
as aversive racists
enact racism in ways
that allow them to maintain
a positive self-image, e.g.
'I have lots of
friends of color.
I judge people by the content
of their character,
not the color of their skin,'
and whites enact racism
while maintaining a positive
self-image in many ways,
for example:
rationalizing racial segregation
as unfortunate but necessary
to access good schools,
rationalizing that
our workplaces
are virtually all white
because people of color
just don't apply,
avoiding direct racial language
and using racially coded terms
such as urban,
underprivileged, diverse,
sketchy
and good neighborhoods,
denying that we have
few cross-racial relationships
by proclaiming how diverse
our community or workplace
is and attributing
inequality between whites
and people of color
to causes other than racism.
Consider a conversation
I had with a white friend.
She was telling me
about a white couple
who she knew who had
just moved to New Orleans
and bought a house
for a mere $25,000.
'Of course,'
she immediately added,
they also had to buy a gun,
'and Joan is afraid
to leave the house.'
I immediately knew
they had bought a home
in a Black neighborhood.
This was a moment
of white racial bonding
between this couple who shared
this story of racial danger
and my friend,
and then between my friend and
me as she repeated the story.
Through this tale,
the four of us fortified
familiar images
of the horror of Black space
and drew boundaries
between us and them
without ever having
to directly name race
or openly express our disdain
for Black space.
Notice that the need for a gun
is a key part of this story.
It would not have the degree
of social capital it holds
if the emphasis were on
the price of the house alone.
Rather, the story's
emotional power rests
on why a house
would be that cheap
because it's in
a Black neighborhood
where white people literally
might not get out alive,
yet while very negative
and stereotypical
representations of Blacks
were reinforced
in that exchange,
not naming race provided
plausible deniability.
In fact, in preparing
to share this incident,
I texted my friend and asked her
the name of the city her friends
had moved to.
I also wanted to confirm
my assumption
that she was talking about
a Black neighborhood."
I share the text exchange here.
"Hey, what city did you say
your friends
had bought a house in
for $25,000?"
She replies, "New Orleans.
They said they live
in a very bad neighborhood,
and they each have to have
a gun to protect themselves.
I wouldn't pay $0.05
for that neighborhood."
I reply, "I assume
it's a Black neighborhood?"
"Yes, you get what you pay for.
I'd rather pay 500,000
and live somewhere
where I wasn't afraid."
I reply, "I wasn't asking
because I want to live there.
I'm writing about this
in my book,
the way that white people
talk about race
without ever coming out
and talking about race."
She had a very interesting
response to that.
"I wouldn't want you
to live there
because it's too
far away from me."
Notice that when I simply ask
what city the house is in,
she repeats the story about
the neighborhood being so bad
that her friends need guns.
When I ask if
the neighborhood is Black,
she is comfortable
confirming that it is,
but when I tell her
that I'm interested
in how whites talk about race
without talking about race,
she switches the narrative.
Now, her concern is about not
wanting me to live so far away.
This is a classic example
of aversive racism,
holding deep racial disdain
that surfaces in daily discourse
but not being able to admit it
because the disdain conflicts
with our self-image
and professed beliefs.
Now, readers may be
asking themselves,
"But if the neighborhood
is really dangerous,
why is acknowledging
this danger a sign of racism?"
Research in implicit bias
has shown that perceptions
of criminal activity
are influenced by race.
White people will
perceive dangers
simply by the presence
of Black people.
We cannot trust our perceptions
when it comes to race and crime,
but regardless of whether the
neighborhood is actually more
or less dangerous
than other neighborhoods,
what is salient
about this exchange
is how it functions racially
and what that means for the
white people engaged in it.
For my friend and me,
this conversation did not
increase
our awareness of the danger
of some specific neighborhood.
Rather, the exchange reinforced
our fundamental beliefs
about Black people.
Toni Morrison uses the term race
talk to capture, quote,
"the explicit insertion into
everyday life of racial signs
and symbols
that have no meaning
other than positioning
African Americans
into the lowest level of the
racial hierarchy," unquote.
Casual race talk is a key
component of white racial
framing because it accomplishes
the interconnected goals
of elevating whites
while demeaning people of color.
Race talk always implies
a racial us and them.
So folks who have seen me
present before know
that I use this metaphor,
and I do tend
to think in metaphors,
and as I do the work
that I do,
and I talk on a daily basis
to white people,
I literally got this image
in my mind of a dock or a pier,
and what it signifies for me
are two things.
One, how surface or superficial
our narratives are,
but also the dock,
if you look from above,
appears to be floating
on the water, but it's not.
There is an entire structure
submerged under the water
that props that dock up.
It rests on literally pillars
anchored into the ocean floor,
and everything I do in my work
is trying to get us off
the top of the dock
and under there
to examine those pillars
because despite all the bull...
on top of the dock,
our outcomes have not changed.
All right?
So we have to ask ourself,
"What's going on?"
All right?
So as I listen
to these narratives,
I think about them
in two overall categories:
color-blind and color-celebrate.
Right?
So let's start with
the first set: color-blind.
Probably the number one
color-blind racial narrative is,
"I was taught to treat
everyone the same."
Anybody ever heard that one?
Okay.
Let me just tell you, when I
hear this from a white person,
and I hear it frequently,
there's a bubble over my head,
and it has a few things in it.
The first thing is,
"Oh, this person
doesn't understand
basic socialization.
This person doesn't
understand culture.
Ooh, this person is not
particularly self-aware, right?"
And I need to give a heads-up
to the white folks in the room.
When people of color
hear us say this,
they're generally not thinking,
"All right.
I am talking to a woke
white person right now."
Usually some form of
eye-rolling,
and actually,
it recently cofacilitated
with a Black woman who said,
"That is the most dangerous
white person to me."
Okay?
So it's not functioning the way
we think it is,
and this is another
piece of humility for us.
We are the least qualified
to determine
whether we understand
this or not.
All right?
Because so often the things
that we think convey
that are not conveying that,
and all of these
are within that, you know,
"It's in the past,
just everyone struggles.
My parents weren't racist.
That's why I'm not racist.
Oh, my parents were racist.
That's why I'm not racist."
It doesn't matter, really,
what we say first.
What comes next must be,
"I'm not racist."
So-and-so just happened to be,
but it has nothing
to do with race,
and it also has nothing to do
with why no one in the office
gets along with her.
And this is another one
I actually ask white folks
to remove from their vocabulary,
oh, by the way,
along with reverse racism,
which there's no such thing.
All right?
Right?
Remove from your vocabulary
anything on the topic of race
that begins with,
"Just happened to be,
regardless,"
including that your neighborhood
just happened to be white.
All right?
"Yes, but at the human level,"
when we make that move, right,
get race off the table,
and let's position some kind of
shared universal experience.
There isn't one in this
physical plane that we live in,
in a society deeply separate
and unequal by race, right?
So I call these color-blind
because they basically say,
"I don't see it,
and if I see it,
it has no meaning."
And there's a question that has
never failed me in my efforts
to uncover how we pull this off,
right, and that question is not,
"Is this true,
or is this false?"
because if we apply
that question,
we're going to argue
and argue and argue.
The question that has never
failed me is,
"How do these narratives
function in the conversation?
How does it function?"
and if we ask that question,
we can see that all of these
narratives function
to exempt the person
from any part of the problem.
All of them take race
off the table.
All of them close rather
than open the exploration,
and in doing that,
all of them protect
the current racial hierarchy
and the white position
within it.
It doesn't have to be
your intention,
and I'll just be blunt.
I'm not interested
in your intention.
I'm interested in
how this functions.
What is the impact
of these narratives?
They are closers, not openers.
Well, probably the folks
in this room,
we're beyond color blindness,
right?
What do we say?
Right?
Where's my little clicker?
Here it is, okay.
Hm.
We say things like this,
"Oh, I work in
a very diverse environment."
If we can't say that,
and many of us can't,
we'll come up with
some kind of proximity, okay?
"I have people of color
in my family. Me?
I'm not racist.
I used to live in New York."
This one will get used
interchangeably with,
"I'm not racist.
I'm from Canada.
I'm not racist. I'm from Hawaii.
I'm not racist.
I'm from Europe. I'm not racist.
I was in the military."
Apparently, there are no racism
in any of those places.
When I hear that one,
"I used to live in New York,"
I always think, "Oh, my God,
you walked by people of color
and didn't lose your shit?
That's amazing."
Okay, so how many of you,
in a conversation
with a white person,
have heard some version
of those narratives right there,
those three?
Okay.
Right?
And if we're going to be
really honest,
we've said some version
of these narratives, right?
That last one, sociologists
actually have a term for it.
It's called
the inoculation case.
"I've been near people of color,
and it stripped me
of my racism."
And I want you to notice
how often white people
invoke proximity as evidence.
This is important
because it helps reveal
what's under the dock.
It helps reveal
what we think racism is,
that we would invoke proximity
to show that we're not racist,
and I need to understand
what I think racism is
if I'm going to impact
my role in it, right?
So let's do some
discourse analysis.
Let's think critically
about these three narratives.
When a white person invokes
one of these narratives
in a conversation
about racism,
they're giving you
their evidence, right?
Racism comes up.
I say this.
This is my evidence.
In my mind, what's that
"my evidence" of?
What do I want
to make sure you know?
-You're not racist.
-I'm not racist.
Right?
So in order to be good evidence,
it must distinguish me
from a racist.
So apparently, a racist
cannot do these things,
or this wouldn't be
good evidence.
So a racist cannot work
three cubicles
down from a person of color,
could not have people of color
in their family
and would find living
in New York intolerable
even though I could think of
at least one racist
that lives
in New York, so...
Now, I have yet to let
go of that little joke
because I do enjoy it,
but it does rest
on the good/bad binary.
I'm on the same continuum the
person I'm thinking of is on.
Just want to be clear
about that.
Okay, so I'm going to just ask
a rhetorical question
to the people of color
in this room,
and I'm going to look
at my dear friend
Aisha over there and Paula.
And I'm going to say,
"Could a racist work
three cubicles down from you?"
Hell yes.
Right?
People of color, do you have
white people in your life
who you love deeply
and who, on occasion,
reveal their internalized
racial superiority...
-Yes.
-...
their internalized racist
assumptions about the world?
-Yes.
-Yup.
-White people,
do you hear that?
Could you even be
married to them...
-Yup.
-Yeah.
-...and they could still...
It doesn't disappear the day
they fall in love with you?
Okay.
Right?
So I hope we...
I mock it a bit
because it's ridiculous, right?
But it's so ubiquitous,
so we really just got
to ask ourselves,
"What do I think it is,
and what am I saying,
and how is that
functioning, right?"
And clearly, this rests
on that simplistic definition.
Apparently, a lot of white
people think
that a racist cannot
tolerate any proximity,
even the sight of people
of color,
and so if there's
any friendliness across race,
there cannot be racism.
This is another thing
that makes us so difficult
in these conversations, right?
So I'm just going to put it
right out here.
As a result of being born
and raised as a white person
in this culture,
I have a racist worldview.
I have deep, racist biases.
I have developed
racist patterns,
and I have investments
in a system
that has served me very well
and is very comfortable for me,
and it really helped me
get over sexist
and classism
that I struggle with.
And I also have investments
in not seeing any of that,
for what it would mean
for my identity
and what it would require
of me in action, right?
I can choose it.
Don't want it.
Got it.
And it's actually
incredibly transformative
and liberating to begin
from that premise
so that you can begin
to think,
"Well, how is it
coming out in me?"
so that I might be able
to stop that or ameliorate
that rather than,
"It's not coming out in me."
I sometimes think, if I went
into the bathroom,
and I came out,
and the back of my dress
was hiked into my pantyhose,
and my ass was showing,
I sure hope you'd let me know.
And I wouldn't say to you,
"How dare you suggest my ass
is showing?
And you better proceed
as if it isn't!"
And yet the worst fear
of a white progressive
is that we're going to say
or do something racist,
but, "By God,
don't you dare say
that I just said
or did something racist,"
rather than, "Thank you.
I didn't see myself doing that,
and now I can do
something different."
All right.
"I was in the Peace Corps.
I marched in the '60s.
I voted for Obama.
I'm on the Equity Team."
Okay, go on.
I already know all this.
I told you.
I've been to Costa Rica
and tutored there
for a week
with the little children,
and this is a real
Seattle one.
"We don't like how white
our neighborhood is,
but we had to move here
for the schools.
What could we do?"
I think it's very disingenuous.
I think we do like how white
our neighborhoods are,
and that's another
conversation.
Right?
So these are not color-blind.
These are color-celebrate.
I love it, right?
And I'm going to just say this.
I love it in the right doses.
I like it in the Montessori
School
with the children
of the international workers
that come from Microsoft.
Right?
So again, if we apply
the same question,
not true, fault
or right, wrong,
but how do these narratives
function in the conversation?
We get the same answer.
They all exempt the person
from any part of the problem.
They all take race
off the table.
They all close rather than open,
and they all protect
the current racial hierarchy
and the white position
within it.
They're actually in practice
and impact,
not any more progressive,
and they have not changed
our outcomes.
So we have to get under here
and see what's going on,
and what I think is going on,
what I think of as the linchpins
of new racism, right,
is the good/bad binary, man,
that one is really effective;
deep, implicit bias,
which you can't help but absorb,
this precious ideology
of individualism.
At the same time, this idea
that we don't speak
from any particular position
but speak for all of humanity,
and people of color
speak for their group,
and when we're interested
in hearing about that,
we'll ask them, but we'll
cover everything else, right?
Any people of color get asked
to be on the Equity Team
automatically when it's not even
necessarily your interest or...
Okay.
Internalized superiority,
which you cannot help
but you have if you are raised
white in this culture,
and in some level and investment
of not seeing this,
and finally,
the power of segregation
to hold it all in place.
I think, for me, the most
profound message of all
is that I could call
a white neighborhood good.
I could call a school filled
with all white teachers
and white children
a good school,
but the fundamental message is
that there's no inherent value
in the perspectives or
experiences of people of color.
So these messages are raining
down on us relentlessly, 24-7,
and we don't have umbrellas,
and nothing could,
and nothing did exempt us
from their forces.
It's on us to figure out
how they shape us, not if.
All right?
So all of this sets up
some patterns.
All right?
Preference
for racial segregation,
lack of understanding
what racism is,
seeing ourselves
as individuals,
not understanding that we bring
our history with us.
History matters.
It's a history of harm.
Assuming everyone is having
our experience, arrogance,
lack of humility,
unwillingness to listen,
dismissing what
we don't understand,
apathy towards racial justice.
After, again, 20-plus years,
I think most white people
are pretty apathetic
about racial injustice.
Inability
to or lack of interest
in sustaining relationships
with people of color,
wanting to jump over
the the hard personal work
and get to solutions,
confusing not agreeing
with not understanding.
Is it possible that
you're not actually informed
enough to disagree?
Have you ever had someone say,
"No, you misunderstood.
No, you misunderstood."
What if the person
understood you perfectly,
in fact, they even
understood what you meant,
and you don't understand
how what you meant
comes from a racist framework?
Right?
A need to maintain
white solidarity, right?
That's the unspoken agreement
amongst white people
that we'll keep each other
comfortable around our racism.
Highest priority is saving face.
I always like to say...
When I do a caucus group
or something,
and the white people are afraid
I might think they're racist,
I think you're racist.
I do because I think
I am, too, right?
But, yeah, let's be done
with that.
And actually, your carefulness
and your hiding yourself
and your not contributing
to the conversation
won't actually change
that assessment at all,
and people of color
don't find that to build trust.
Right?
Defensiveness, of course,
and a focus on intentions
over impact,
so when any of this
is triggered,
we get off our white racial
equilibrium.
Right?
So what is white racial
equilibrium?
Well, racial comfort,
that's for sure,
seeing ourselves
as individuals,
seeing ourselves as just
human, obliviousness.
Well, it's this funny...
There's a stew
inside of white people
that makes us really
irrational on this topic,
and I've tried to kind of
identify some of those pieces,
but one if them is
that we really
are taught not to see this.
So if you're a person of color
scratching your head thinking,
"How can they not see this?
I just don't believe
they don't see this."
We actually really don't see it.
Oh, and, hell yes, we know it.
And we do see it,
but we cannot admit that.
Both these things
are actually true.
We don't see it, and we do
see it but can't admit to it.
And it's part of what makes us
so irrational, right?
Apathy, dominance, control.
I'm working on this huge
contract with racial justice
for a large organization,
and they asked us
to take the word white
out of all the slides.
That's a great example,
isn't it, of white fragility?
So don't name white.
Don't name...
That's our racial
equilibrium, right?
And entitlement to people
of color's bodies...
-Yes!
-Russell Minnikin talks
about...
It's really been only
in the last couple of decades
that people of color have had
dominion over their own bodies.
And so entitlement to people
of color's bodies
comes out in lots of ways,
right,
from just violating the space
to touching the bodies,
to expecting you to carry
the emotional burden of race,
all of that,
but you want to know,
for me, a really great example
of the white fragility triggered
when my entitlement or white
entitlement to Black bodies
is a man quietly,
solemnly and respectfully
going on one knee,
and the eruption, right,
the criminalization, right?
The great example of white
fragility
connected to this
last bullet here
is the eruption of umbrage
and criminalization
when a Black man simply went
down on one knee respectfully.
Talking about Colin Kaepernick,
what an example!
So what interrupts our racial
equilibrium?
Well, if you
challenge objectivity,
if you talk openly about race,
all right,
if you challenge white
entitlement to racial comfort,
if you challenge the expectation
that people of color
will serve us
and do our work for us,
if you break
with white solidarity,
you challenge white
racial innocence.
Right?
Oh, and by the way,
you can download all this
on handouts from my website.
Oh, oh, wait a minute,
and it's in the book.
It's in the book.
Right?
Challenge to individualism,
challenge to meritocracy,
challenge to white authority,
all right, challenge
to white centrality,
challenge to universalism,
right, suggesting that maybe,
in fact, we don't speak
for all of humanity.
We speak from a particular
perspective,
and it's deeply limited,
okay?
So this leads to
white fragility.
And we actually have the poster
boy for white fragility
right here in the front row
because I'm married to him,
and I made him pose
in the kitchen.
And he's like, "Everyone
is going to think
I'm an asshole now!"
I'm like, "Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they are."
Open the dictionary.
Look up "white fragility."
They're going to see
your picture.
Okay, so back to something
more serious.
Right?
I couldn't resist.
So when all of this insular,
coddled environment builds
an inability to bear witness,
an inability to have capacity
to hold the discomfort,
I've been thinking lately
that part
of what it means to be white
is to never have to bear witness
to the pain of racism
on people of color
and never having to bear witness
to the pain
I've caused
to people of color,
never having to be accountable
to that pain, all right,
and all the ways that I push
off accountability, right?
And so when I thought of
this term "white fragility,"
the fragility part,
we're fragile in that
we can barely tolerate
the slightest challenge, right?
I mean, I'll show you
my e-mails.
Just the suggestion
that being white has meaning
will set us off,
but there's a continuum.
And so we're fragile
in that way,
but it's not fragile
at all in its impact.
It's really effective, right?
"I need you to stop. I need
to get back into my position
and my entitlement
and my comfort,
and I will do what I need
to do to get you to stop."
And I think that white
fragility functions
as a kind
of white racial bullying.
We make it so miserable
for people of color
to talk to us
about their experiences,
to call us in,
that most of the time they don't
because it's not worth
getting punished more.
Trust me.
They take home so much of it
because it so rarely goes well.
Right?
And I'm just going to ask
a rhetorical question
to people of color
in the room.
How often have you tried
to talk to white people
about our inevitable
and often racist behaviors
and have that go well for you?
Okay.
I mean, literally,
not even once, right?
And so it's weaponized
defensiveness.
It's weaponized hurt feelings.
It's weaponized denial
and obliviousness,
and so I'm not the 1 percent.
I've never even been a manager,
but I can control
the people of color
in my orbit
through white fragility, right?
And so I also think of it
as a form of everyday
white racial control.
"You can be in my orbit,
and I'll use you
as diversity cover
as long as you
keep me comfortable.
But if you challenge me,
you're going to become
a personal problem,
and you're going to be ejected,"
and, boy, do we see this
in the workplace.
"We want you on the committee.
We're not going
to pay you anymore,
but we do want you
on the committee
as long as you don't actually do
what we asked you
to be on the committee to do."
-Yes.
-Right.
Right?
Oh, I got to read a piece
from 112.
I got a story that I really
want to read.
Okay.
"So I was working with a group
of educators
who had been meeting regularly
for at least eight sessions.
The group was composed
of the equity teams
for a public school system,
self-selected by people
who wanted to support
equity efforts in their schools.
I had just finished
an hour-long presentation titled
Seeing the Water: Whiteness
in Daily Life.'
This presentation
is designed to make visible
the relentless messages
of white superiority, et cetera.
The room appeared
to be with me,
open and receptive with many
nodding along in agreement.
Then a white teacher
raised her hand
and told a story
about an interaction
she had as she drove
alongside a group of parents
protesting the achievement
gap in her school,
and she then proceeded
to imitate one mother
in particular
who offended her.
'You don't understand
our children,'
this mother had called out
to her as she drove by.
By the stereotypical way
that the white teacher
imitated the mother, we all knew
that the mother was Black.
The room seemed to collectively
hold its breath
at her imitation, which was
bordering on racial mockery.
While the teacher's concluding
point was that on reflection,
she came to realize
that the mother was right
and that she really didn't
understand children of color,
the emotional thrust
of the story
was her umbrage at the mother
for making this assumption.
For the room,
the emotional impact
was on her
stereotypical imitation
of an angry Black woman.
As this story came to a close,
I had a decision to make.
Should I act with integrity
and point out what was racially
problematic about this story?
After all,
making racism visible
was literally what I had
been hired to do.
Further, several
African American teachers
in the room
had certainly noticed
the reinforcement
of a racist stereotype.
To not intervene would be,
yet again, another white person
choosing
to protect white feelings
rather than interrupt racism,
a white person who built herself
as a racial-justice consultant,
no less, yet I would be taking
the risk of losing the group,
given the likelihood that the
woman would become defensive,
shut down, and the room
would split into those
who thought I had mistreated her
and those who didn't."
This happens every time
you actually call it out
in the moment
in the room, right?
And I decided to do what
would maintain my integrity,
and I called it out,
and I called it out
as diplomatically as I could.
I just said, "Ooh, you know,
teachable moment,
I'm going to ask you
not to tell that story again.
Here's why.
Here's how you could tell it
in a way that
doesn't reinforce that."
We went back and forth
a little bit,
to make a long story short,
of course,
the room did erupt in twos.
She left the group.
She quit the group.
This was the eighth session
for the equity teams,
and again,
all the focus was on,
"How'd I or how didn't
I mistreated her?"
All right?
And this is often what happens.
So whites receiving feedback
above and below, right,
what feelings do white people
have when we often try
to give them feedback
on our racist patterns, right?
Tell me if you don't recognize
these:
attacked, silenced, shamed,
accused, insulted,
judged, angry,
scared, outraged.
Yeah?
Now, how do we act
when we feel this way?
Right?
Well, we withdraw.
We cry.
We go silent.
We argue.
We deny.
We focus on our intentions.
We seek forgiveness.
We explain.
We insist there was
a misunderstanding.
Right?
And so what kind of claims
do we make
to justify behaving this way
and feeling this way?
"I know people of color.
I marched in the '60s.
I took this in college.
I was a minority in Japan.
The real oppression is class.
You misunderstood me.
You're playing the race card.
If you knew me or understood me,
you'd know I can't be racist.
This is not welcoming to me.
You're making me feel guilty."
I want to say something
about shame.
Whenever white people
jump to a narrative
really quickly on racism,
I'm always suspicious of it,
and shame is one we jump
to really fast.
white progressives really,
really like to lean on how much
racial shame they feel,
and I would actually ask you
to think about on a daily basis,
how often do you, if you
are white, feel racial shame?
Seriously.
Well, first of all, probably
just when racism comes up,
and even then?
So maybe 2 percent of the time?
Right?
"I was in New York recently,
and I stepped over
a homeless man
who was Black on my way
into Whole Foods,
and I felt shame
for just a minute.
But then Rainier cherries
are in season,
and I forgot all about it."
I'm serious.
That's how that functions.
I really don't think we feel
that shame that much,
but even if we do,
then you have to ask yourself,
"How is it functioning?"
What does it do for you?
What is the cultural capital
that you get from that?
And if you can't answer
that it's somehow
moving you forward
in your anti-racist efforts,
then you're going to have
to get through it.
Right?
Okay.
"It's just one little,
innocent thing."
Some people find offense.
"You hurt my feelings.
This is political correctness.
I don't feel safe."
I'll just really quickly say,
the word safe coming
out
of the mouths of white people
on the topic of racism
is illegitimate.
Because what does safety mean
from a position
from social, historical,
institutional,
cultural power
and privilege?
No, it's generally,
"We don't feel comfortable,"
but that doesn't have
as much cultural capital.
It's not as precious.
"The problem is your tone,
and I know what it is
to be oppressed."
So if we think about the dock,
right, the feelings,
the behaviors,
the claims,
what could be
the underlying assumptions
that would lead us
to make these claims, right?
"Well, as a white person,
I will be the judge
of whether racism has occurred.
My learning is finished.
I know all I need to know.
Racism can only be intentional.
Not having intended
it cancels it out.
White people who experience
another form of oppression
can't experience
racial privilege.
If I'm a good person,
I can't be racist.
My unexamined perspective
is equal to an informed one.
I'm entitled
to remain comfortable,
so you have made
a very serious social breach.
As a white person, I know the
best way to challenge racism,
and you're doing it wrong.
Nice people cannot be racist.
If I can't see it,
it's not legitimate.
If I have any proximity
to people of color,
I can't be racist.
If I have no proximity
to people of color,
I can't be racist
because I'm racially innocent."
I would make a case
that white people
who grew up on farms
and rural environments
where there are
no people of color around
actually are less sheltered
from racism
because you are left to rely
on the most problematic sources
for your understanding
of people of color.
"My worldview is objective,
and yours isn't."
I don't know what else could be
functioning under there, right?
So how does all that function?
Maintains white solidarity,
closes off self-reflection,
minimizes,
silences the discussion,
makes white people the victims,
protects limited worldview,
takes race off the table,
focuses on the messenger,
not the message,
rallies more resources to
white people, protects racism.
I could get into this
really deep,
but here is what I want
to say about this.
The reason I like this picture
when I do presentation
is because,
for me, this is an amplified
visual of institutional power,
and if I walked in that room
as a woman
because that would be
the salient identity
for me in that room,
it would be visceral to me
the lifetime of entitlement
exuding out of
these men's pores, right?
And so if you can see that,
if you can see not only
the lifetime of entitlement,
but if you were to suggest
to them
that maybe they should have
some women
or people of color
in that group, I can't know,
but I believe to my core
they would feel contempt
because they don't see
the perspectives of women
and people of color as valuable.
I believe that to my core.
I don't know them,
but I'm pretty damn sure.
If I can see it in them,
then...
And I don't relate
to them, right?
But what version of that
is coming from my pores?
What version of that is visceral
for people of color
when I'm in the room, right?
So...
Women of color, you want
to be the one that goes in there
and helps those white women
see their racism?
Does that sound good,
all by yourself?
They need some diversity.
All right.
So my point is, I can be
in this room
experiencing sexism
and patriarchy,
and I can be in this room
perpetrating racism, right?
white women don't actually land
any more softly
on people of color,
and I think when we don't
back people of color,
the betrayal and the hurt
is deeper
because we have
a potential way in,
and we use it often
as a way out.
If you don't think
I'm an angry feminist,
ask the poster boy
for white fragility over here.
But our resentment about sexism
can cause us
to not back people of color
and actually collude
with the benefits of whiteness
to get a little bit ahead,
right?
Okay.
So I'm going to end by just
bringing this question up
so that I can preempt it
because I really
don't like this question.
And if this is the question you
have right now, if you're white,
and this is the question
you have right now,
then I have one for you.
What has allowed you
to remain ignorant
about how to interrupt racism?
Why, in 2018,
is that your question?
And that's actually a sincere,
challenging question
because if you really start
to map it out,
you'll have your answer.
So I want to share what could be
under that dock
if we had
a transformed framework,
but before I do it,
I want to give an example
of a moment of racism
that I recently perpetrated,
okay?
Instead of reading it
from the book...
It is written in the book,
but it's easier for me
to just say it.
I used to be the director
of equity for a large nonprofit,
and on the equity team
were three people, myself,
the co-director
and executive assistant.
And Debra and Marsha
were Black women,
so there were three of us.
Two of us were Black.
One was white,
and we hired a consultant.
The organization hired
a consultant to come in
and design the website,
and so she was going around
setting meetings
with all the departments
to find out what we did
so she could build each
department's particular page.
So she scheduled a meeting
with the equity team,
and it was 3 in the afternoon.
And we went in, and it turns out
that she was also a Black woman.
I will call her Angela,
and right away,
she had this survey
that had lots of questions
about what we do,
but it was the afternoon.
I found the survey kind of
annoying, and it was tedious,
and it didn't really speak
to what we do.
So I kind of shoved it aside,
and I said, "Let me explain.
We go out into the different
satellite offices,
and we lead racial
justice trainings."
In fact, we went up to the far
north one recently,
and Debra was asked
not to come back.
I guess her hair scared
the white people.
I make this little joke, right,
because Debra
has long locked hair.
The meeting ends,
and I wish I could tell you
that I realized what I had said,
but I didn't.
So a few days later,
Marsha came to me and said,
"Angela was really offended
by that joke you made
about Black women's hair."
I know better, right?
And so I immediately
understood and said,
"Thank you
for letting me know."
And so I followed a series
of steps to repair that,
and the first thing I did
is I called a friend of mine,
another white woman
named Christine, and said,
"I need to process
something with you."
And I vented my anxiety,
my embarrassment,
and then when I kind of
got that off,
we put our heads together,
and it's like,
"Let's think about
how your racism
was manifesting in that meeting.
Get really clear, okay?"
I got clear, and I felt ready
to then come back to Angela.
So I called her, and I said,
"Would you be willing
to grant me
the opportunity
to repair the racism
I perpetrated towards you
in the meeting last week?"
And she said, "Yes."
Now, she could've said, "No,"
and I was prepared.
In fact, I thought she was
going to say, "No."
I thought she was going to say,
"Whoa, are you a hypocrite?"
and if I could not hold that,
then I was not going to be
making an authentic repair,
right?
So she didn't say, "No,"
however.
She said, "Yes."
And so we met, and I said,
"I just want to own
that racism and that joke."
And so we talked about it,
and she basically said,
"I don't know you.
I have no relationship with you.
I have no trust with you,
and I do not want to be joking
about Black women's hair
in a professional work meeting
with a white woman
I don't know."
Right?
I just want to be really clear
so that white folks understand
that piece of it.
The other piece that I owned
was that in my cockiness,
I was being
the woke white person
and making fun of the white
people who didn't get it,
so I was making that move.
I was credentialing myself,
so I owned that.
And then because I knew
that Christine and I,
as two white people,
would probably have missed
some things,
I said, "Angela, is there
anything I missed?"
And she said, "Yes.
That survey you
so glibly shoved aside,
I wrote that survey,
and I have spent my life
justifying my intelligence
to white people."
Okay, that was just like a...
because I immediately got it.
It never occurred to me
she wrote the survey,
and then looking back
at how I just dismissed it,
so I owned that.
I apologized, and then next step
I took was,
"Is there anything else
that needs to be said
or heard
that we might move forward?"
And she said, "Yes.
The next time you run
your racism at me"...
I want to pause right there.
Notice that she didn't say,
"if."
She basically said, "If we're
going to be working together,
I know you're going to run
your racism at me again,
so the next time you do it,
would you like your feedback
publicly or privately?"
Yeah, I loved her for that,
and I said,
"Oh, publicly,
definitely," right?
I think most white people
would've said,
"Oh, God, no, privately,"
but it's really, really...
I told her,
"It's really important that
other white people see that I am
now free of these patterns."
I run them less.
I'm not defensive
when I run them.
Notice I never explain
my intentions.
I have very good repair skills,
but I have these patterns,
and it's important that
other white people see that
and that I have the opportunity
to model non-defensiveness.
"And so anything else?"
"Nope."
"Are we good?"
"Yep, let's move on."
And we moved on, and actually,
there was more trust there
because one of the things
she said to me is,
"What you did in that meeting
happens to us every day.
This what you're doing
right now, this does not happen.
Thank you.
What I'm looking for is,
where can I go with you?" right?
Repair.
So I want to end with
what could be under that dock
if we had a transformed frame
because we can't get
where we need to go
from where we are right now.
Right?
Being good or bad
is not relevant.
All right?
Racism is a multilayered system
infused in everything.
whites
have blinders on racism.
I have blinders on racism.
Racism is complex.
I don't have to understand it
in order for it to be valid.
white comfort maintains
the racial status quo.
Discomfort is necessary
and important.
I must not confuse comfort
with safety.
I am safe in discussions
of race.
The anecdote to guilt is action.
I bring my group's history
with me.
History matters.
I might see myself
as just an individual.
The people of color in my life
see me as a white individual.
The question is not if but how.
Nothing exempts me
from the forces of racism.
Whites are unconsciously
invested in racism.
I am unconsciously
invested in racism.
I want you to imagine,
if white people
internalized this framework,
how revolutionary
it would be.
Right?
Bias is implicit.
I don't expect to be aware
of mine
without a lot of effort.
Right?
Feedback from people of color
indicates trust
because it is
a huge moment of risk
across a deep history
of harm.
Right?
Feedback on white racism
is really difficult to give.
How I receive it is not as
relevant as the feedback itself.
If you bring it to me upset,
bring it to me upset.
There are no rules
for how you should tell me
that I've harmed you.
It takes courage to break
with white solidarity.
How can I support those that do?
How can I back?
If I'm not willing to step out
and take a risk,
how can I back
other white people
who do instead
of tearing them down,
finding that one thing
that I said in this talk tonight
that you can grab onto
so that you don't have
to look at yourself?
Given socialization,
it's more likely that
I am the one who
doesn't understand the issue.
Can you imagine if white people
were coming from that place?
Racism hurts, even kills,
people of color 24-7.
Interrupting it is more
important than my feelings,
ego or self-image.
Thank you.
I only have time
for two questions,
so here's the one
I'm going to answer.
"Will your book be available
in audio?"
Yes.
Okay, this one,
"How can a person of color
navigate around white fragility
in the workplace
when direct confrontation
usually ends in retaliation?"
Yeah, I mean, the first I just
want white people to understand,
how much psychic
and emotional labor
people of color go through
to walk on eggshells around us.
You know, white people
so bitterly complain,
"Oh, you mean I can't say
anything anymore?
I have to walk on eggshells?"
Please, the emotional labor
and the knots people of color
tie themselves into,
so they don't trigger us:
It is just heart-wrenching.
And so I guess the first thing
I want to say is,
I want us to knock
this nonsense off
so that this doesn't
have to be the question,
but it is the question.
So there are different
strategies.
I actually think that choosing
not to address it,
for people of color,
can be an empowered choice.
"I got to get through the day.
I'm not throwing my pearls,
so I'm going to let it go.
And that's actually
a choice I'm making,
and it's an empowered choice."
Another strategy can be
to elicit
one of those white progressives
who says they are an ally
and then say,
"Then step up and"...
Not to take care of you,
but there are times
when that's
a really good strategy, is...
So much of my training
came from women of color saying,
"You go talk to that person
that's giving us a hard time
in the training."
They're going to hear it
from you better,
and I'm from Seattle.
I'm as conflict-avoidant
as the rest of us who are white,
but that really built up
my stamina, right?
So just really quickly,
those are some strategies.
And because I know it's late
and because the time,
I'm going to close,
so just thank you, guys, all.
Our work will never be finished,
okay?
