TRICIA ROSE: All
right, everyone. I'm going to convene
us and get us started. Good afternoon. How are we doing? Can we hear me? Really? Should I break into song? Turn it up louder? I don't think I have
control over that part. Let's see. Do I have control
over the volume? Oh, OK, well, yeah,
well, that helps. You know, it does help. Please feel free
to start eating. That's the first, most important
instruction of the afternoon. I'm really delighted
to be here, and I'm happy that you all are here. We're running a
little bit late, so I want to get started
and make sure we have enough time for the kind of
engagement and serious dialogue and communication that Robin
DiAngelo is going to provide. So I'm really thrilled that
we're hosting this event again. It's really important
to have opportunities to think through issues
of diversification, power, inequality, and how they
play out in higher education. And I'm thrilled
that Brown is really becoming a leader in this way. But I'm also super thrilled to
collaborate with [INAUDIBLE]. We just have so much fun doing
lots of different things. We always are like,
yeah, yeah, good idea. I don't think we've ever thought
an idea was not good together. And so it's fantastic
to partner with her on this issue and
many other programs. She's had a really powerful
impact on the campus, and I'm grateful. I want to just tell you a
couple of things about CSREA very briefly, and then
introduce our fantastic speaker. So I'm the director
of the Center for the Study of
Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. I'm also the chancellor's
professor of Africana Studies, and I'm in the dean's office
for special initiatives, which means I have three
jobs, and they are all seemingly closer to 100%
than seems appropriate. But they're all
incredibly important work, and they dovetail
together beautifully. The center, in particular,
is a research center at Brown that supports and generates
rigorous and accessible-- this is something we're
very proud of fostering-- rigorous and accessible research
on a broad range of issues pertaining to race and
ethnicity in America. We try to build community among
scholars and students working in these areas, and
we try to foster generative public conversations,
sometimes on difficult, but always on important issues. We have lots of different
kinds of programming. If you go to our website,
just put race, ethnicity at Brown in a search engine,
and our center will come up. But one program we developed
since I've been director is called the Third
Rail lecture series. And this is our 2016-2017
annual speaker co-sponsoring with this event of
the Third Rail series. And the Third Rail
series is aimed to address some of the most
thorny and contentious issues related to race and ethnicity
in American society. So we chose the title Third
Rail quite intentionally. I mean, in general
colloquial terms, when we say it's a third rail
topic, it's to be avoided. It produces a lot of anxiety. People immediately
pull away from it. I mean, certainly whiteness
and white fragility would fit this description. It's not unplanned
cocktail chitchat. [LAUGHTER] But the third rail is
also a source of energy. If you think about-- I'm a New Yorker, so
for me the third rail was the thing not to fall
into the tracks and touch, because you wouldn't
make it home. But the third rail is
also a source of energy, and it supplies
high-voltage power to a train on an
electric railway. And so if you think
of it metaphorically, you can think that if we
harness the energy and knowledge of third rail topics
in an appropriate way for social good, it might
actually take us really where we need to go. And today's luncheon
keynote speaker, we're exceptionally
fortunate to have her because she takes on this
issue with the kind of grace and seriousness that we need. Today she will speak on white
fragility and its impact on diversity and inclusion
efforts on campuses. Robin DiAngelo has
been a consultant and a trainer for
more than 20 years on issues of race
and social justice. Her areas of research
are in whiteness studies and critical discourse
analysis, and she explicates how whiteness is reproduced
in everyday narratives and practices. She's the author of What
Does It Mean To Be White-- Developing White
Racial Literacy, and Is Everyone Really Equal?-- An Introduction to Key Concepts
in Critical Social Justice Education. In particular, she's advanced
the increasingly influential idea of white fragility as
a critical facet of the way communities resist
racial justice efforts. And I've found this concept
generative and quite productive, because
it illuminates how it functions
both individually, on an interpersonal level,
but also structurally. And I remember reading it
relatively recently again, and in the context of all
of the public narratives about challenging students
of colors' apparent capacity to be triggered by
anything, and that somehow they're the reason that
there's conflict on campus, because they're upset about
equality and injustice and mistreatment. And what's brilliant
about white fragility is that it speaks
about whites being triggered by the very
fact of being challenged. So it helps us see that there's
a whole reversal of the project here, and she'll connect
this when she gets here. But in any event,
white fragility is critically important to
our understanding of how race and racism works on campuses. And it seems to me, if we're
going to take seriously the diversification efforts
in which we're involved, we can't simply talk
about non-whites. We have to talk about the
entire picture of the way race is playing out, and
there would obviously be no need to talk about
diversity without whiteness as a social structure. So anyway, join me in welcoming
Robin DiAngelo to Brown. [APPLAUSE] ROBIN DIANGELO:
Thank you so much. I got to remember to
stand right there. Oh, I have a relatively
brief period of time with you, so I'm just going
to launch right into it and draw your
attention to my race. I'm white. Check me out, everybody. And part of being
white is that goes against all my socialization. I was not raised to think
about myself in racial terms. Somebody had a race,
of course, but not me. And I certainly wasn't raised to
think about my race as relevant in any way to my
life experience. So to be standing
in front of you and leading from that
is counter, again, to how I was socialized. I am very clear
today that I'm white. And I have a white frame of
reference, a white worldview, and I move through the world
with a white experience. And it is not just a
universal human experience. It is a most particularly
white experience, in a society that is profoundly
separate and unequal by race. So while I'm always
coming from that position, I just want to be really
explicit about it today. And in a kind of master's tools
dilemma, to decenter whiteness, you have to center it
in a different kind of way than the way it
normally remains centered. Right, through its
unmarked, unnamed, and as you were saying, the kind
of projecting onto everybody else, but never looking at,
who's the problem, basically. And so to center it, but shine
light on it, to expose it, is to decenter it. And while people of color,
from a very early age, have to know my reality
in a way that I'm sorry to say I don't
have to know theirs, this may still be
useful in that I'm going to name and
admit to things that are so rarely ever named
or admitted to by white people. So that may be useful for you. If you've ever wondered
how on earth we can pull off what we pull off,
I'll lay that out for you. For the white folks
in the room, I've never met a white
person who didn't have an opinion on racism. Have you? Let me know if you have. If you're not sure about it,
just bring it up the next time you're around a
lot of white folks. We all have opinions, and they
tend to be really emotional. But if we have not devoted years
of sustained study, struggle, and focus, our opinions
are necessarily limited, because nothing in
dominant society gives us the information
we need to have the complex, nuanced
understanding of arguably the most complex,
nuanced social dilemma since the beginning
of this country. In fact, you can get through
graduate school in this country without ever discussing
racism, can you not? You can get through law
school in this country without discussing racism. And you can get through teacher
education in this country without discussing racism. If you're in a progressive
teacher education program, you'll have one required
multicultural education course. The faculty will have
fought for that course for 10 freaking years. And that's no guarantee
you'll be discussing racism in that course. You might be just discussing
multiethnic authors, and how to introduce them. So my challenge
to the white folks in this room is no
matter where you are on this lifelong
continuum, is to listen from a place
of humility and openness. That's our challenge. So white fragility is the
inability for white people to tolerate racial stress,
and racial stress is basically anything that challenges
our positions, what we feel entitled to, our identities. And we don't respond very well. And we push back to block
or stop the challenge, and to kind of
get back into what I think of as our
racial equilibrium, our racial comfort. And so the first
part is mapping out how we come to kind of be
inculcated in white fragility, and then how it manifests. So by every measure,
across every institution in this country, there
is racial disparity. I think we all know
this, even in spite of our narratives of
meritocracy and individualism. Every institution, every
measure, racial disparity. At the same time,
what is today's dominant racial narrative? Well, I'm a former
professor of education, so I used to teach in a large
teacher training program. The program-- it was in
Westfield, Massachusetts. And it was 97% white. It was rare for me to
ever have a student of color in any class. And we were 10 miles from
Springfield, Massachusetts, which is 57% black and Latinx. And on the first day of
class, I would ask my students to write me an
anonymous reflection on a couple key questions. What are some of the ways your-- how racially diverse were
your schools and neighborhoods growing up? What are some of the
messages you've received across your life about race? And what are some
of the ways in which your race has shaped your life? And what I'm going to
show you is representative of the hundreds of these
anonymous reflections I've collected over the years
from our future teachers in their junior and senior
years of university, soon to be certified
as highly-educated and set forth to teach in
those schools in Springfield. "My neighborhood growing up was
not racially diverse at all. Every family in my neighborhood
was also Caucasian. Throughout my time in
school, I have continually been taught that skin
does not matter." Is that familiar to you? It should be. It is the dominant
white racial narrative. It is definitely a
post-civil-rights narrative, not a pre-civil-rights
narrative. But I see a really
big contradiction in this narrative, which is,
I'm assuming obvious to you, if race doesn't matter,
why so separate? And from that comes
a question for me. How do we actually
teach that race doesn't matter in segregation? Well, I would argue that's
not what we teach at all. It's what we tell. It's not what we teach through
the practice of our lives. So the question that
drives my work is, how do we pull this off? How do they pull that off? Sitting in such
explicit segregation. I would also say
that while this is a post-civil-rights narrative,
this is apparently the younger generation, that when
my generation dies off, there'll be no
more racism, right, because it's all the old people. You heard that one? Yeah. No. I don't think this is
any more transgressive. It's actually quite a brilliant
adaptation to the challenges of the civil rights movement. OK, and by the way,
this is why I don't just affirm everybody's
opinion in my classes. I know it's a little counter to
the sacredness of everybody's opinion, but these
opinions are not informed, and they function
really problematically. So racism-- let's
just really quickly-- is a system. It is embedded across
all institutions, and it results in the
consistent reproduction of unequal distribution of
resources between white people overall and people
of color overall, with white people as the
beneficiaries of that system. And that, of course, goes
against what dominant culture's definition is, which
is individual acts of intentional meanness. And if you don't
do those, you're outside of this conversation. So Marilyn Frye is
a scholar who uses the metaphor of a
birdcage to kind of push against this
dominant narrative of it's just all about individuals. And I think it's a
beautiful metaphor. I think a lot in metaphors. And so she says, if you
walk up to that birdcage and you put your face all
the way against the cage, and so you're taking a
very micro or myopic view, you're not going to
see the cage at all. You're not going to
see the wires at all. Maybe a little bit on
your peripheral vision, and you're going to
say, what's the problem? Why doesn't that
bird just fly away? The little door is
open in the cage. What's going on? But if you move back and you
begin to take a wider view, you begin to see these bars
and these bars and these bars, and you begin to see
the interlocking system and nature of oppression,
in this case, racism. So let's look at what
some of those are. Our institutions, our ideology,
internalized oppression, constant microaggressions,
isolation, embedded in culture,
invisibility, the burden of representation. I'm going to imagine
the folks of color in this room can
relate to the burden of representation,
always carrying the psychic weight
of racialization, where I don't carry that weight. Rewards for conformity-- keep
white people comfortable, you're going to
get further along. Threats, constant
threats of violence, deeply embedded in our
history, and unacknowledged historical trauma,
to name a few. And just to give a glimpse, I
do believe there's something deeply and specifically
anti-black in this culture and in the white consciousness. And that does not mean
that all groups of color don't suffer under racism
and white supremacy, but when I want white folks to
connect to the racial other, I think for us, black people
are the ultimate racial other, and by every measure,
tend to be at the bottom. So just a quick
glance at essentially what Ta-Nehisi Coates would
call the organized crime against African-Americans
throughout history and into the present. So I show this to you
to contrast it, again, with the dominant
definition, which is that it is simply
individual dislike and intentional meanness. So in spite of this, I think
the most brilliant adaptation of racism post-civil-rights
was what I think of as the good-bad binary. So post-civil-rights, to
be a good, moral person, and to be complicit with racism,
became mutually exclusive. You couldn't be a
good, moral person and be complicit with racism. Racists had fire hoses and they
beat people and dragged them away from lunch counters. That was a racist, right,
and if I wasn't that, I was a good person. And I think it's made
it virtually impossible to talk to white people
about the inevitable racism that we absorb, internalize,
and participate in. I think it's the
root of virtually all white defensiveness. Have you noticed any
white defensiveness? Anybody? OK. Right, so I've got this
incredibly simplistic understanding of racism. You suggest something I have
done has a racist impact. I'm going to hear
a literal challenge to my moral character,
and I'm going to need to defend
my moral character. I know you've seen this. And I will defend
my moral character, and I will do it by
basically invalidating that it was racism, in
whatever way I can do that. So it's this either-or
conceptualization, and we really have to
be ever-vigilant today, because it's so easy to fall
into this trap of the people here versus the people here. I don't even want to invoke
the names, but I think you know what I mean-- this kind of distancing,
that progressive whites are outside of this. I actually think
progressive whites-- I'm going to be really honest-- are the most challenging. And I'm a progressive
white, by the way. I'm talking about myself,
because the degree to which we think we're
good to go, that's where our energy
is going to go to, is making sure you
understand that we're good to go, and not to
where it needs to be going for the rest of our lives,
which is deep, deep reflection and action. So we know how to
fill this in, right? Racists are bad, and
they're ignorant and bigoted and prejudiced. They're mean-spirited. They're old. They're Southern. They drive pickup
trucks, because we can get some classism in there,
and they live in Manchester? I don't know. I don't live around
here, but they don't live in Providence, that's for sure. Right? And your not-racists
are good, and they're educated and progressive and
open-minded and well-intended. They're young. They're Northern. They shop at the co-op. Not Whole Foods. Whole Foods is a corporation. They don't shop at Whole Foods. But they do love Trader
Joe's, and they're moving to-- [LAUGHTER] They're moving to Portland,
Oregon, really soon. OK. All right. So this either-or,
I mean, it's just-- I'm confident that
you've seen it, and we've got to get rid of it. It is not an either-or. It is an inevitable function of
being raised in this culture. So in doing this work, I
hear the same narratives from white people on the
topic of racism over and over. I do have a rather rare job. For a living,
every single day, I am in front of
predominantly white groups, talking about racism. And as I listen, it's as
if somebody just handed us a script. And actually, they have
just handed us a script. It's called socialization. There's a reason these
narratives are so predictable. And so the image that came
to my mind as I listened was of a pier or a dock. And that signifies
for me how surface and superficial
these narratives are. And at the same time,
a pier or a dock looks as if it's just floating
on the surface of that water, but it's not. There's a whole structure and
foundation propping it up. And so I want us to
examine that structure underneath by doing
some critical discourse analysis of these narratives. So let's see if you
haven't heard these. "I was taught to treat
everyone the same." That's probably the number one. So I don't want to
set you up, but I'll tell you that I often will say
to a group, how many of you were taught to treat
everyone the same? And almost every hand goes up. And then I say, no, you weren't. Right? No one in this
room, or any room, was taught to treat
everyone the same, in the sense that you
could learn to do that. You could be told to do
it, and I'm sure you were. It's not humanly possible. And thank goodness we have
the research on implicit bias to show us that. So when I hear this from a white
person, the bubble over my head is, ooh, doesn't understand
basic socialization, doesn't understand culture, is
not particularly self-aware. "I see people as individuals. I don't care if you're
pink, purple, polka-dotted." Basically, don't ever say that. That's all I got to say. "Racism is in the past." "Everyone struggles,
but if you work hard." "My parents weren't racist,
that's why I'm not racist." "My parents were racist,
that's why I'm not racist." It doesn't matter
what comes first. What comes second must
be, "I am not racist." OK, and you know, so-and-so
"just happened to be black." But it has nothing
to do with the fact that no one in our office
gets along with her. So this is one-- oh, that
one touched a nerve, did it? OK. This is one-- I didn't get a chance
to super lay down the difference between prejudice
and discrimination, which everybody has, and racism. But we can remove
the word "reverse." There is no reverse
form of racism. It is by definition a system-- [APPLAUSE] Right? Thank you. Prejudice and discrimination--
everybody has that, so used in reverse there
is kind of nonsensical. And since I have a captive
audience, and just so you know, what I say to white
folks is, I would suggest that you
remove anything that begins with "just happens
to be," "regardless of," "but at the human level." Right? Because what we're
doing in that move is basically taking
race off the table and positioning some kind
of universal experience. And there is not a
universal experience, not in this culture. I might not know what race
has to do with the fact that no one in the office
seems to like this person, but I need to be willing
to look at how her race is shaping the way that I see her. And this is where the
research on implicit bias just says it is shaping it,
whether I'm conscious of it or not. So these are all
colorblind, right? These are all colorblind. They basically say, I don't
see it, and if I see it, it has no meaning. Probably the folks in this room
are beyond colorblind, right? You recognize it
wasn't realistic. It was quite a
clever co-optation of Martin Luther King's
work, and its function to deny and protect
white racism, basically. So what do those co-op
shopping types say? I'm going to get us. We say stuff like this. "Oh, I work in a very
diverse environment." "I have people of
color in my family." "Me? I'm not racist. I used to live in New York." [LAUGHTER] I really have heard this. And the bubble over my head is,
you walked by people of color and you didn't lose your shit? You are unbelievable! Like, clearly. Clearly. OK. I told you I like to make
fun of white progressives. How many of you,
in a conversation with a white person
on racism, have heard some version of these? Probably everybody, because
these are ours, right? So now let's do a little
discourse analysis here. A white person who invokes some
version of these narratives is basically giving you
their evidence, right? Here's my evidence. In my mind, what is
this my evidence of? What am I trying to make
sure you understand? Super simple question. I'm not racist, right? So if this is my evidence, what
is my definition of a racist? And it's so simple, and yet-- I mean, in terms
of the question, but it is so rarely ever
asked or interrogated by white people. So let's back around to it. Clearly, if this is my
evidence that I'm not racist, then a racist couldn't
do these things. Racists couldn't work
three cubicles down from a person of color. Folks of color in the
room, could a racist work three cubicles
down from you? [LAUGHTER] OK. Couldn't have people of
color in their family, and couldn't live in New York. And I could think of
at least one person who lives in New York
who I think is racist. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] All right. So even an avowed, open,
"I support white supremacy" person can do all these things. You do realize that, right? Racists can do these things. So on that level, this
is not good evidence. But essentially, I think the
definition this rests on is a racist cannot tolerate the
sight of people of color. I mean, look at it. Look at this. This is our evidence
of our lack of racism. What other definition
of a racist could you hold, if this
is what you're invoking? They apparently couldn't walk by
them, couldn't work near them. A racist has conscious
dislike, or actually conscious virtual intolerance
of people of color. And so right there, we can
see it's a really problematic definition. It's not remotely accurate. It doesn't take into
account implicit bias. It doesn't take into
account institutional, structural racism. And the reason I
think, for me, it's been really important
to figure out how they're
constructing a racist is because then I know
where to go with them. So what do I need
to help them see? And I want to play
just for a minute with "I have people
of color my family." That's a little more sensitive. What I can tell you
is, for myself, one of the most powerful ways
I have worked to challenge my socialization
into this society has been to build a variety
of authentic, sustained, cross-racial relationships. Very little in my life set that
up to happen in any kind of way that would be natural or easy. And I'm not talking
"I work near people." I mean truly in my
life at my table. And yet, those relationships
are not free of racism. So let me just ask the
folks of color again, do you have any white
people in your life who've got some racism? Of course, right? And it comes out. It comes out in
all kinds of ways. And we seem to be able
to do this with gender. So how many of the people
in the room who identify-- I'm going to use
cisgender terms-- who identify as women have a
primary intimate partnership with someone who
identifies as a man? All right, so you've got a
man in your life, do you? [LAUGHTER] OK, so the day he
fell in love with you, all his sexism just
vanished, right? Yeah. [LAUGHTER] How could he possibly
have any sexism? He loves you. Oh, and if you're not sure
about your current partner, just think about your ex. You'll get right
in touch with it. And let me give a
shout out to the men. If you have a primary
relationship with a woman, are there any gender differences
you find frustrating? Of course, right? I'm clear that gender
is a deep construct, but it is a deep construct. And I have been socialized
into my gender role, and it manifests across gender. And it will for
the rest of my life and rest of my relationship. We would never say-- I would never say, oh,
I'm married to a man, so I have a gender-free life. Au contraire, right? We understand this. But I want you to just notice
how we do it with race. When it comes to race,
if there is fond regard, all race, racism, and
significance of race disappears. There's something so specific
in the white consciousness to distance ourselves from race. OK. "Children are so
much more open." This is a cherished narrative. Sadly, I think most
people in the room probably understand that the
research shows by age three to four, all
children who grow up here understand that
it's better to be white. That's hard to say, but no
child misses the message, and not a single
person in the room miss the message it's
better to be white. And it's not an
isolated message. It's relentless. I'll show you some images
of that coming up shortly. So when we project this
romanticized innocence, racial innocence,
onto children, we leave them unattended
to the message, with no way to resist it. Parents of color understand
that and are much less likely to leave them unattended,
because the consequences for their children are very
different than the consequences for mine, who are white,
when I let them just internalize white superiority. "What do I know? I'm just a white guy." I added that one. I'm not really sure if
it's like a colorblind or a color progressive, but
have you ever heard that move? Kind of looks like they're aware
that they have white privilege, and yet it still positions the
person as racially innocent and not to be held accountable. I think it's problematic. "I already know all this." Yeah, I mean, I've been
to Costa Rica, people. So-- spent a week there. The people are so incredible. OK. This one-- you know,
when people say to me, you're speaking to the choir,
I mean, I'm going to be honest. It's like, I'll be
the judge of that. I actually don't
think the choir-- I mean, I am the
least qualified person to assess how well I'm
doing or how far along I am. And so the arrogance of this,
I'll just have to be blunt. The lack of humility
is incredible to me. And so when white people
just feel like they already know everything
there is to know, I think that's very
problematic, and I don't think convincing to people of color. "We don't like how white
our neighborhood is, but we had to move
here for the schools." OK. We could do a whole
session on that. I'm just going to say, I
think it's disingenuous. So these are the white
progressive narratives. The first set was the kind
of "I don't see color." And these ones are "I
celebrate and love diversity." Right? They both function the same way. They both function to
take race off the table, to take racism off the
table, and to basically say, I am exempt from this. And that's the
question that I always use when I'm trying to
figure out something in terms of a narrative or pattern. How does it function? This does not function
for us to keep going. All right, this is a kind
of "nothing to see here." So we want to go under
there and figure out what is allowing us to
say such things in such a separate and unequal society. So I'm going to
give you a chance-- I'm going to give you
only a couple minutes. So I would go just to
one person next to you, if you can do it, depending
on how many are at your table. Which of these narratives
have you heard, or have you used, if you're white? Let's be honest. A white person who hasn't
used one of these narratives, I don't know if they would
have been a functioning member of this society. So which ones have you
used, if you're white? And which ones, if
you're a person of color, do you hear white people use
to deny the impact of race on their lives? So just-- I'm giving you
a minute to connect to it. OK. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Just keep saying it. Welcome back, everybody. Yes, yes, welcome back. Hey, everybody, welcome back! Welcome back. Welcome. OK, we're going to get started. If you can see me,
raise your hand. If you can see me,
raise your hand. If you can see me,
raise your hand. Thank you. That's a teacher trick. These are the last conversations
I ever want to interrupt, but I am on a time crunch,
so we're going to keep going. And there's a couple
of key questions that I often have white
folks think about. I'll just talk you through them. The first one is to think
about how racially diverse our neighborhoods
were growing up and the messages we've
gotten about race from our neighborhoods. The majority of
white people grow up in primarily white
neighborhoods. And the messages are one, that
it is normal to live apart, maybe even natural
to live apart. And I think at a
deeper level, righteous to live apart, when you
think about the way we talk about white neighborhoods
versus neighborhoods that we associate with
black and brown people. Right, so a white
neighborhood tends to be good, safe, sheltered,
clean, abundant, hardworking people who deserve
what they have. Those are powerful messages. And we get discouraged
from knowing or exploring black and brown space. We get warned. So we internalize a
sense of ourselves, a deep sense of
ourselves, as good people, as deserving people. This shapes our
identity, and I'm doing it to move white
people past this idea, again, that as long as I'm
friendly to people of color, I have not
internalized anything. The next thing I ask
white folks to think about is, when is the first time they
had a teacher of the same race as they are? And when's the
first time they had a teacher of a different race? And how often did that happen? And of course, that's a
question that people of color also answer, and generally the
answer is, if you're white, from the time you began. And you could get
through graduate school, rarely if ever in
your entire life, looking up and not
seeing yourself reflected at the
front of the room. And if you're a person
of color, your answer is likely to be rarely
if ever in my life have I looked up and
seen myself reflected. Right, that's the
overall pattern. There's exceptions
to every pattern. So most of us basically get
taught by white people who've been taught by
white people who've been taught by white
people who've been taught by white people who've been
taught by white people, using textbooks written for,
by, and about white people. So that white worldview
is very, very deep-- white as authority,
white as role model, white as holder of knowledge. And white teachers answer these
questions really similarly. And so where are we
getting our information? Very, very problematic sources. And I think I'll just
cut to the chase. We see this in the
school-to-prison pipeline. And this has been
empirically shown, that these decisions are
made with racial disparity. So I just have an
image that for me sums this up really powerfully. This is from last year's College
Champion Jeopardy! playoffs. Those our best
and our brightest. And that is literally the board
at the end of their round, and there's one category
not one of them touched. Obviously the hardest
category, and nobody wanted to risk losing. [LAUGHTER] And I don't feel
that I can do justice to the profundity
of this disconnect, this incredible disconnect
from our history, because you know what's
under that category is civil war and
civil rights, always, as if that happened in a vacuum
and it's outside of my history, or that it isn't the
history of this country. OK so Joe Feagin has the concept
of the white racial frame, and it's the
academic articulation of what I think of as
the pillars propping up the dock, so the deeply
internalized framework through which whites
make racial meaning. And it includes images,
interpretations, perceptions, et cetera-- talking about segregated white
neighborhoods as good and safe is an example-- that position
whites as superior, and that are reinforced and
passed down across society. And I'll just start showing
you some images that surround us all every
day that I think capture. This is on a science
website right now. What would a scientifically
perfect face look like? This is an ad that I was on
a Delta flight last year, and this ad was in the
in-flight magazine. Just look at the racial
hierarchy in this ad. Look at the Asian women in
the middle wearing yellow, and the black women in
the back wearing brown. And then notice that this
is an ad for a purse. Look at the hands
of the black women. Again, you just
look for a second, but it's this constant message
of status and hierarchy in relationship to resources. Their hands are empty. They don't have the purse. This ad is a little bit older. I think it's incredible. It's for Intel. "Multiply computing
performance and maximize the power of your employees." Six shirtless brown men kneeling
at this white man's feet. Look at the body language. This is a newer example of that. This is from The Blind Side. I was looking at CNN and they
have those little side stories that get your attention, and
this one is "Most Beautiful Women from Around the World." And representing South Africa,
which is 92% black country-- and I'm just going to use the
term now, white supremacy. This, for me, is such a cogent
example of white supremacy. And when I use the
term, I mean it in a sociological sense,
which is white as superior, as ideal, as the
norm for humanity, and everyone else as a
deviation from that norm. So we often talk
about the struggles that students of color
have, and we also need to look at
what white people-- faculty, staff, and
students-- have internalized about themselves, because
there's a relationship, and it's the end of the
relationship we rarely examine. So just quickly, how
has race shaped my life? Everything I'm about to say,
every other white person in the room can say. No person of color
in the room can say. So I was born into a
culture in which I belong in virtually any situation
deemed normal, neutral, or valuable-- that faculty meeting, that
church service, block party, dealing with my daughter's
teachers, her camp counselors, that wedding. How many of you have
been to a wedding? If it wasn't all white,
it was pretty close. Maybe your own. Just rarely ever me that
carries that psychic weight. Represented in the government. We know what the
presidency, vice presidency has looked like. House of Representatives. I'm going to show you
a series of photos now of the halls
of power in the US, and where you see a yellow
border around the picture, those are the people
of color in the group. These are our US senators. These are the leaders of
the largest US companies. US Supreme Court. US governors. US top military advisors. People who decide
which TV shows we see. People who choose
which movies get made. People with the most influence
over which books we read. People who decide which
music gets produced. People who decide
what news is covered. Owners of men's pro
basketball teams. Owners of men's
pro football teams. Owners of men's
pro baseball teams. Presidents of Ivy
League universities. [LAUGHTER] So you're just going
to have to trust me that I wasn't attached
to whether this was a Republican or a Democrat
or whatever my feelings are about Paul Ryan. It's that when I saw
this picture, I was like, this is what it
means to be white. This is Paul Ryan and his
incoming group of interns. To be white is to be
included, to belong, to have advantage, opportunity,
networking, systems of support, to be separate. And now label this
with any other group of people who will
be at the tables to make decisions to affect
other people's lives. Imagine now these are not
just our future politicians, but the medical researchers,
the professors, the teachers. I was raised Catholic. I don't know that there's a
more powerful image than God. And even God was
white, or is white. Jesus and Mary. Constant messages that
it's better to be white. I'm pulling from these magazines
because they surround us. We have Halle Berry
under "best hair," but we can see what
her hair looks like. 2015's world's most
beautiful woman. 2016's world's most
beautiful woman. I was racially affirmed
throughout my childhood. I'll just give you
one picture that I think sums it up from today. And these are the top five
Miss Teen USA runners-up, and yes, they are
different girls. [LAUGHTER] And again, take it in. Just-- Miss Teen USA, right? Of course, of
course, we can look at what this does to
young girls of color, but I also want white girls
to look at what it does to us. And here's the group
they were drawn from. And you know, this is how
it usually-- there's one. And knowing my people,
I'm going to tell you that probably all those white
girls are going to tell you they're not racist because
she was their best friend and she was in the group. Right, and that
just shows that it's this very simplistic
reduction to fond regard. So these are shows many
of us grew up with. They're all about
ideal friendship. They take place
across the decades. Seinfeld, the '80s. Sex and the City in the '90s. Friends in the 2000s. That's Gossip Girl. There's Girls. Every one of these shows
takes place in New York City. So even amongst diversity,
the relentless message to white people is there's no
inherent value in an integrated life. So I think perhaps the most
powerful way that my life has been shaped by my race is
that I could be born into, I could learn, I could play, I
could worship, I could study, I could love, I could
work, and I could die in racial segregation. And not one single
person in my life who's ever guided or
mentored me has ever conveyed to me that I've lost anything. I'm going to say this a
couple times in a couple ways, because I think it's the
deepest message of new racism. I could go to my grave-- that could be my funeral. My wedding looked
a lot like that. I could go to my grave
without really knowing-- just few, if any, authentic
cross-racial relationships. And no one has suggested any
loss whatsoever to my life. In fact, white people measure
the value of our lives by the absence of
people of color. I know what a good
school is, and I know what a good neighborhood is. And we communicate this. So what I'm working on here
is pushing white folks way past this idea about
individual intentions to look at the deep foundation
of internalized superiority that comes out of our pores. My psychosocial development
was inculcated in the water of white supremacy. Left unchecked, it's
coming out of my pores. And I'm going to trust that
the people of color in the room see it coming out of our pores. And so it's not a
matter of good or bad or guilt. But it is a
matter of inevitability and then taking responsibility. So if we go back
to the tropes, I think this is what
props up racism today, what Bonilla Silva calls
racism without racists. Nobody's racist anymore, and
yet we have the same inequitable outcomes we've always had. So this sets up some really
common patterns in white folks. And just being
conscious of the time, I'm just going to kind
of move through these, and you can download this. But when any of this
gets challenged, when our entitlement, when our
sense of identity, when this sense that we are individuals,
even me saying what I'm saying, generalizing about
white people, will get a lot of white
people's backs up. How can you know anything about
me just because I'm white? Right? We don't like that. So we react when any of
this kind of deep insulation and entitlement is challenged. And it's not weakness. The word "fragility"
might sound weak. It's fragile in that I can't
tolerate the challenge. But the way I will get the
challenge off of me actually, I think, functions as
a form of bullying. I'm going to make it
so miserable for you to challenge me, you're just
not going to do it anymore. OK, and so if I need
to cry, I'll cry. If I need to get my back up
and go get a bunch of people to go into an agreement
with me, I'll do that. And in that way, I think
white fragility functions as a form of everyday
white racial control. So I'm not the 1%, but this
can keep the people of color in my orbit in their place. Can you relate to how
many times you've just let it go because
it isn't worth it? So it functions
quite powerfully. OK. So what I'm thinking is,
should we have people at tables talk about how-- so I want you to think
about, how do you see this in higher education? And let me give you an
example of a hiring committee. So you know how hiring
committees work. The description is written,
the people are picked. A little bit into
it, they realize there's nobody of color
on the hiring committee, so they go find somebody. It's the same
person who's always getting tapped but not
getting paid any more money. Am I making this up? OK, and so there you
are on this committee, and they ask that person to
write the diversity question. It's called that. You do the diversity question. And then when you're assessing
the answers to the diversity question, what this person
seeks as a good answer, none of the white people-- right, they disagree on
what a good answer is. And so eventually,
the person of color relents and just says, OK, fine. And then, whew,
everybody is relieved. And they finally choose their
final candidate based on fit and who will hit
the ground running. So at your tables,
talk through how whiteness, white
fragility, and racism is manifesting on that committee. What are the dynamics? And what might happen
if this person actually shares what they were supposedly
asked to be on the committee to share? OK, so just kind of how
you-- you could use that as a model about how you've seen
whiteness and white fragility function in terms of hiring. OK? All right, I'm going
to call you back. Welcome back. [TAPPING ON GLASS]
Oh, that's good. Welcome back. Thank you. I want to have an opportunity
for people to ask questions. So I want to leave you with
an image of what I believe would radically transform this,
if this was under the dock rather than what's
under there now. I don't believe we can get there
from the dominant paradigm. It functions really
beautifully to protect the present racial order. And if you like this
image, by the way, because I saw some
folks taking pictures, you can download a handout
that has all this on it from my website. So I believe that if whites were
really coming from this place, not only would our interpersonal
relationships change, but so would our
institutions, because we would see to it that they changed. So this understanding that being
good or bad is not relevant. It's a system infused
in everything. Whites have blind
spots on racism. I have blind spots on racism. Racism is complex. I don't have to understand it
in order for it to be valid. White comfort maintains
the status quo. So discomfort is
necessary and important. We're not going to get there
from a place of white comfort. But I must not confuse
that with safety. I am perfectly safe. What I like to ask
white people is, what does it mean
to need to feel safe from a position of historical
social institutional cultural power and privilege? [LAUGHTER] All right. I guess that's all I had to ask. I bring my group's
history with me. History matters. It's a history of harm. And no, I won't be
automatically granted the benefit of the doubt. I need to earn it. The question is not if, but how. Dominic Coulter's question
is, was or wasn't that racism? And as soon as you put an
either-or, you'll never agree. My question is, how was racism
manifested in that situation? It's in the water. All whites are
unconsciously invested in this system, including me. And most of that is implicit. I need to do a lot
of work if I'm going to be able to identify that. Good intentions and
self-image are not enough. Feedback from people of
color indicates trust. They're taking incredible
risk across power to give you that feedback,
given the history of harm. So let go of how you get it. It takes courage to break
with white solidarity. So how do I support
other white folks who are trying to break
with white solidarity, rather than punish them? Given socialization,
it's more likely that I'm the one that doesn't
understand what's going on. Can you imagine if white people
were coming from that place? White males, I would love to
have come from that place also. But when it comes to racism,
the way society is set up, I get to be the determiner. From all that I've showed
you, all that socialization, we're the ones
that are unbiased, and we're the ones who get
to decide whether it's real or not. So finally, racism hurts, even
kills, people of color 24/7. Interrupting it is more
important than my ego, my self-image, my feelings. And I really believe that if
we were coming from this place, we would be in a very
different situation. And so when white people
ask me what do I do? I just say, whatever it
takes to internalize this so that it's real for you. So that's what I
will leave you with, and then I'll open the floor to
questions, comments, et cetera. [APPLAUSE] I don't think it's on. And I'm hard of hearing, so. And while she's
fussing with it-- whew. SPEAKER 1: Is that on now? OK, thanks. I can't tell how loud it is. So thank you so much
for the talk, which was both incredibly
informative and wildly interesting and entertaining
and fun to listen to, which I really appreciate,
because it's not an easy thing. And I need some
advice on how to deal with the universalist arguments,
because what I am finding is that people are coming up
with really intellectually highfalutin, but they think
robust, responses to diversity efforts and their
implementation on campuses by saying things like, identity
politics is really divisive. It feeds a politics
of resentment. You can have rational
communication across difference that focuses on commonality and
doesn't emphasize grievance. It's not just kind of
complainy universalism, it's backed up with Hegel
and Habermas and [INAUDIBLE] and all these kind of
high theory approaches to understanding
dynamics of power, post-Enlightenment thinking, how
that informs political theory and democratic processes. And so it's not your
kind of run-of-the-mill, why don't we all just get along? And other than saying you
require an incredible degree of hubris to imagine that
the human experience is only understandable through
these German philosophers, I am struggling with coming up
with a convincing response that doesn't just indict
people, but maybe-- I don't know. Maybe it just needs
to be indicted. But that's something I've been
thinking about a lot lately. ROBIN DIANGELO: And it's the
million-dollar question, right? Basically, how do you
move forward white people who hold the power? And to be honest,
people of color certainly can collude
with their own oppression, and so they can be
used in those ways. But let's focus on the majority
is going to be white people. And when people of color
collude with racism, it still holds up
white supremacy, right? So none of that is
accounting for power. Power, I mean, that's
the bottom line, right? So if you could try
the question of, so how do you see that
functioning in-- you know, how do you
see it function? How does it function to
not do identity politics? Where have we not done it and
what has been the outcome? So maybe if you could just
keep moving people towards, what is the outcome of
what we've been doing? And what would shift if we tried
a different theoretical lens? Sometimes I use a Marxist
theory analysis, so I'll say-- analogy-- how many of you
ever take Marxist theory? And maybe five people
raise their hands. Did you pass? You know, yeah. Did you become Marxists? No. So you weren't required to be
a Marxist to pass the class. OK, but you were required to
grapple with Marxist theory, achieve some degree of mastery,
and probably your final project was, apply a Marxist
analysis to this situation. Whether you agree or
disagree with Marxism, not really relevant. A Marxist analysis
is going to generate different questions, and
therefore different responses. We have not yet applied
an anti-racist analysis. Let's try it. And then they can just let go. It's not brainwashing. You don't have to-- OK. OK. Yeah. SPEAKER 2: Hi. Thank you so much for the talk. So as I was listening
to you, what kind of came to mind,
and currently something that I've been having
some conversations about, is these ideas of safe
spaces and trigger words in university campuses. And I think on this
campus, there's been, as far as I know, two
big lectures on freedom of speech at the university. And so what I've
been thinking about is that there's this confusion
of the academic debate in a classroom setting,
where the professor is quite aware of what the intentionality
is there, but then this idea of safe
spaces and trigger words are conflated with
that, and thinking that, like, oh, that's
going to prevent that kind of academic,
scholarly work from happening. And I really feel like it
comes from this place of not interrupting that
white-dominated space. And so I wondered if you
had kind of a response to that, of folks
who are telling-- you know, who are speaking about
safe spaces should not exist. That's not productive. And trigger words are counter
to the university's mission, for example. ROBIN DIANGELO: So these
tend to be white people kind of using it as
a way to say, look, we can't have these difficult
conversations, because it can trigger some white
students, and they'll feel bad. SPEAKER 2: No, no, no. So safe spaces and
triggers have been some, I think, forms of
trying to recognize the fact that students of color
often feel put to the side or unsafe in different
spaces around the university. But the fact that safe spaces
or trigger words would exist are actually being presented
as counter to freedom of speech at the university. ROBIN DIANGELO: Yeah. Well, one, I don't think you
can ever create a safe space, and certainly not that's mixed,
right, because the very things that will feel safe
for one set of people is going to be exactly what
doesn't feel safe for another, right? So for white people,
what feels safe is no conflict, no challenge. And that's exactly what will
feel inauthentic, often, to students of color. So this very idea
that you could create a safe space that's
universal, we're back to not accounting for power. Where I go to, I
remember back when, you know, you can't
talk about LGBT issues, because you have to respect
people's religious backgrounds, all of that. You do have a mission
to create an environment where everyone can learn. I mean, you can
fall back to that. And a hostile classroom
climate is not a space where everyone can learn. And there's a deep history of
harm around these expressions. And I think the key is, can you
get people to examine what they think and believe, as opposed to
just state it as if it's fact? And, you know, it takes faculty
having the skills, and can I just say it? Most faculty are white-- am I right?-- and do
not have the skills. And it's kind of a, if
I'm for social justice, I automatically
do social justice. We don't need to
have a class on that. It's integrated in everything
because we're all good people that are for social justice. This is usually how it goes. So there's also the piece of
faculty not having those skills and still being seen as
competent and qualified. I actually don't think
you're competent or qualified if you don't have those skills. These are, again, really
going to be heavily resisted, but those are just some
avenues in that I think about. I saw a hand right there with
a response to what I said. OK, go ahead. Yeah, I think it-- I think-- yeah. Go ahead. SPEAKER 3: [INAUDIBLE]
If you want to live in a more
integrated community, how do you do that without also
contributing to gentrification and displacement? Do those go hand in hand? Like, if a white
family wants to move into a more diverse community,
are you contributing to that? ROBIN DIANGELO: Those are really
hard, deep, complex issues, right? But often, there are ways to
move into environments that certainly minimize that
impact, but that's not usually what happens. And it's not really
authentically, I don't believe, why white families are moving
into those neighborhoods, other than the cultural capital of
saying "I live with diversity." But are they actually
building relationships? Are they supporting
small businesses that are owned by people of color? Are their children going
to the local schools? Usually not. So I don't think the only way
to have a more integrated life is just where you live. It's also, what are
you involved in? How do you get yourself
out of your comfort zone? But if you move into
a neighborhood that's predominantly people of
color, how are you doing that? And there's some
really good writing and kind of ideas
about how to do that in a much more conscious way. SPEAKER 4: I think
we only have time for maybe one more question. I better defer it. I was going to ask it,
but I'll happily defer. SPEAKER 5: Hello. Thank you so much. I work with Native
American students, and I have this
question, as I've looked at racial equity models. And I'm interested
to know how you would look at this,
that sometimes when you're asked, as
a person of color-- I'm going to speak
from Native students-- to educate all the time
non-Native, so as a student and in the academy,
you're constantly educating your professors,
your classmates, all the time. And is this a
subordinate position, to be educating non-Natives--
or whites, in this instance-- all the time? And if it is a
subordinate position, and my idea is that
I'm constantly giving, I'm giving you my knowledge, my
patience, my time, my energy, and you're absorbing it,
especially the progressive-- you know, progressive people,
they're taking it in-- but what do I get out of that? And is it that there should be
a co-teaching or a co-learning? And then the kind
of the follow-up is, as people of
color, are we supposed to be learning from white
people in this process, or is that not my job to do? Is that for you to sit with? So it's the, am I taking
a subordinate position by constantly educating
when you're not doing the work that you need
to, even if you're progressive? And then, am I supposed
to be learning something alongside you? ROBIN DIANGELO: OK,
so my sense, and I saw [INAUDIBLE]
look disappointed, and you had a reaction
to what she said. And I'm happy to
have you, if you wanted to speak
to that question, and then I have my thoughts. I just wanted to-- SPEAKER 6: That's
a great question, and the answer to that is no. People need to do
their own homework. Your life force and
energy, you decide. Every time you give it
away like that, you're not able to give it to
family, friends, and to yourself for self-care. That's really, really important. And I just wanted to add,
I think it would be-- because you are a
white person speaking about this, so of
course that puts you in a position of authority. And I enjoy your work, so
is it not about your work. But it's really important
to constantly remind people that if yours was a black
face or a Latina face, this would have been experienced
completely differently by the people in the room. And so really making it clear
that because I'm white standing here, that's also part of the
whole systems of oppression, I think is important. ROBIN DIANGELO: Thank you. SPEAKER 7: And I just want
to make a quick comment, because the white-black frame
for me, what's the loss that I hear in your presentation is
the loss of the individual truth when you're white, when
black folks show up. Because you're not white until
there's black people there. When there are no
black people there, you are Cheryl or
Johnny or James or the grandfather's
descendant, whatever. When black people show
up, then you're white. And I just make a comment of
sitting in a doctoral program at Harvard with a white-- only
black woman, two black men-- a white woman who said, there's
no racism in my community. We don't have any
black people there. So my last question-- Harvard doctoral-- so
here's my question, just not for you to necessarily
answer it but for all of us to contemplate that. How do you deal with
those two paradoxes? You're only white
when I'm there, and I'm struggling with
being Cheryl, rather than the first black, the only
black, the exceptional black, the typical black, the no-good
black, because I am defined by being black in some context. And the second piece
is, how do you, in a dispassionate research
university, deal with content that is emotionally
charged off the chain, and we never talk
about the application of emotional intelligence
and strategies? And then lastly, my
best friend is white that helped raise my kid. So we have these conflicts
about our generalizations across the lines. ROBIN DIANGELO:
My sense is that-- I mean, those were
powerful points that you both made that
I don't necessarily feel that I have to
respond to, other than maybe the way I try to
get white people to understand that race is profound from
the moment they're born is in those kinds of questions,
looking at our neighborhoods. And I hope I modelled-- I mean, it was a relatively
short period of time, but model how I keep
trying to move them away from this sense of
it's about individuals, and it's really about from
the time we open our eyes, and even where we open our
eyes and how we got there and who owns the
hospital we're opening our eyes in and on and on
and on, we're being shaped. So a huge commitment of
mine is to get white people to understand that. And yes, the way I'm heard--
and this is that master's tools dilemma, right-- as I stand in the
front of the room, I am reinforcing the
authority of the white voice. And because white folks will
hear it more openly from me, to not do that-- for me, to not
use this position to challenge racism is to really be white. And you know, so
it's a both-and. And so I acknowledge that
and I thank you very much. And everybody else,
thank you so much. TRICIA ROSE: Thank you, Robin. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]
