Review of "White fragility : why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism" on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I’m torn on this one. She mentions early on that it’s meant to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, in terms of actually ending or putting a dent in the racist status quo.
But then she offers again and again the prescription of raising awareness and/or whites accepting criticism from POC.
Her description of the phenomena of fragility is unbelievably clear-eyed; any POC will immediately recognize everything she points out. I want to give 5 stars based on this alone, but it seems like a misguided book in terms of actually addressing the problem considering the material conditions of racialized, autocratic institutions that control life in the US today.
Is simply trying to get whites to understand the substance of racism going to get them to renege their material benefits in the zero-sum game of power in these inegalitarian institutions? I feel like they’ll just revert back to overt racism. Power …
I’m torn on this one. She mentions early on that it’s meant to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, in terms of actually ending or putting a dent in the racist status quo.
But then she offers again and again the prescription of raising awareness and/or whites accepting criticism from POC.
Her description of the phenomena of fragility is unbelievably clear-eyed; any POC will immediately recognize everything she points out. I want to give 5 stars based on this alone, but it seems like a misguided book in terms of actually addressing the problem considering the material conditions of racialized, autocratic institutions that control life in the US today.
Is simply trying to get whites to understand the substance of racism going to get them to renege their material benefits in the zero-sum game of power in these inegalitarian institutions? I feel like they’ll just revert back to overt racism. Power needs to be taken from the racist elites by force with mass, cooperative action.