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

DiAngelo explains that many people believe that race is the result of biological or genetic differences, but this is not the case. The concept of race was the result of pseudoscientific efforts to justify the economic practices of slavery in the United States and global colonization. These efforts established a hierarchy based on false categories of racial difference. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the idea of race evolved to continue “legitimiz[ing] racial inequality and protect[ing] white advantage” (17) in the United States.

Race is a social construct that constantly shifts meanings to perpetuate white superiority. The definition of whiteness and what it means to be a white person changed over time. Although there are class differences between white haves and have-nots, this doesn’t exempt poor and working-class white people from receiving some race-based privileges.

DiAngelo distinguishes racism from prejudice. All people have prejudice, which is not necessarily a bad thing—it is a natural consequence of being human. Prejudice can lead to discrimination, or “action based on prejudice” (20). Racism is a specific kind of discrimination—“a racial group’s collective prejudice […] backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control” (20).