Book Review: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Robin DiAngelo

5/5

In an effort to re-educate myself on racial issues during this period of unrest, I've been trying to read some books about racism and systemic oppression. White Fragility forced me to think about how I interact with everyone, and my own intrinsic behaviors. The overarching message is that everyone is racist, that by turning the word racist into something that people only associate with lynchings and horrible acts of violence, we've only further internalized the problems that are truly oppressing POC in America.

This book is only around 170 pages, but it's still hard to get through. Not because it's boring, but with every highlight I made I had to think back to my own life. This book was written by a white woman, but she fully acknowledges her inability to fully understand how people of other races feel. It's a book by a white person attempting to communicate problems to white people that they are creating.

I'm a strong believer in the sentiment that everyone should do their best to self-educate themselves and try to stop themselves from offending anyone else. Race is a super tricky issue, but if everyone put the time in to try to read books like this and stopped to think about what they were saying, we might have a more inclusive society. I would recommend this to anyone feeling hopeless right now, there's always some way that you can try to make a difference.