White fragility, a term coined by Robin DiAngelo (2018), refers to a form of discomfort and defensiveness that White individuals tend to show when confronted with discussions about race and racism. This kind of defensiveness includes feelings of anger, fear, and guilt which typically arise from a low tolerance for racial stress and racial tension. In order to ease these feelings, White people react with anger, guilt, withdrawal, emotional incapacitation, by arguing, becoming silent or leaving a stressful situation (Hamacher, 2024; DiAngelo, 2006). The following elaboration of the term will use examples of racism and discrimination based on ethnicity and race, as well as structures of social injustice.
Framing & Perspectives
Many White individuals experience low tolerance for racial stress, particularly because they are not accustomed to living in diverse environments and White peoples’ resulting ignorance and lack of contact with BIPOC people (DiAngelo, 2018, 2006). Important aspects of White fragility are demonstrated through White individuals protecting their privilege, avoiding confronting structural racism or reverse experiences of structural racism happening to them in predominantly and culturally Black environments (Jayakumar, Grummert, & Adamian, 2024). For example, White students at historically Black colleges and universities tend to center their identity and experiences while framing them as “minorities”, reflecting the White fragility framework (e.g., Mobley et al., 2022; Peterson & Hamrick, 2009).
The concept of White fragility tends to portray violence without perpetrators and neglect possible accountability (Jayakumar, Grummert, & Adamian, 2024). The notion of fragility implies the idea of White victimization and policing BIPOC experiences, false empathy and care. Moving away from a White fragility framework stresses the agentic nature of White defense and further includes an understanding of defensive behavior, performances, and affect in relation to how to challenge justice and liberation. Perceiving an existential threat to whiteness can lead White individuals to the perceptions of a White collective identity that is attacked and even oppressed by Black existence and consciousness (Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017; Leonardo, 2020; Leonardo & Dixon-Román, 2020). The consequences of such false-reverse perception for BIPOC people and their connected White defense responses can produce educational, emotional, physical, and/or social harm and even death (threat) (Jayakumar, Grummert, & Adamian, 2024).
Relevance
White Fragility often impedes meaningful conversation about racial biases and inequalities by shifting the attention from the issue at hand and focusing on the emotional responses experienced by White individuals (DiAngelo, 2018). Not only does this shut down any further conversations about racism, but it also discourages others from voicing their thoughts, as they may fear that it will create tensions (Sue et al., 2007). Perceiving White fragility as an act of power related to a larger framework responsible for norms, rules, and structures deeply embedded in White supremacy (Applebaum, 2017; Brown, 2020). White defensiveness is an affective response to whiteness being threatened, as Ahmed (2007, p.158) states: “[…] we might only notice comfort as an affect when we lose it, when we become uncomfortable.” The systemic protection of White bodies legitimizes defensiveness and White fragility by utilizing language, violence, and/or behavior in the name of “self-defense”. Acknowledging White defensiveness responses can oppose racial ideologies and strategies of whiteness. Therefore, it is important to deepen the understanding of active roles in racialized structures.
Keywords: Racism, Social Injustice, Racial Inequality, Racial Stress, White Supremacy
Connected terms: Microaggressions, Microinterventions, Ethnocentrism, Representation, White Defensiveness, White Guilt, Whitewashing, White Silence, Tone Policing (also Tone Argument)
References
Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8(2), 149-168.
Applebaum, B. (2017). Comforting discomfort as complicity: White fragility and the pursuit of invulnerability. Hypatia, 32(4), 862-875.
Brown, S. (2020, January 23). White fragility? Naw, it’s White hostility. Medium. https://medium.com/@shelaghbrown/white-fragility-naw-its-white-hostility8dbe8b08b5c8.
DiAngelo, R. J. (2006). White fragility in racial dialogues. Inclusion in urban educational environments: Addressing issues of diversity, equity, and social justice, 2(1), 213.
DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for White people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.
Hamacher, C. (2024). Resistance against White resistance: Addressing White fragility and defense mechanisms in relation to racism. International Journal For Psychotherapy In Africa, 9(1).
Jayakumar, U. M., & Adamian, A. S. (2017). The fifth frame of colorblind ideology: Maintaining the comforts of colorblindness in the context of white fragility. Sociological Perspectives, 60(5), 912-936.
Jayakumar, U.M., Grummert, S.E., & Adamian, A.S. (2024). The Whiteness Protection Program: A typology of agentic White defense. Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity, 10(2)
Leonardo, Z. (2020). The Trump presidency, post-colorblindness, and the reconstruction of public race speech. In O. Obasogie (Ed)., Trumpism and its discontents, (pp.18-37).
Leonardo, Z., & Dixon-Román, E. (2020). Post-colorblindness; Or, racialized speech after symbolic racism. In M. Peters, M. Tesar, L. Jackson, & T. Besley (Eds.), What comes after postmodernism in educational theory? (pp. 90-91). Routledge.
Mobley Jr, S. D., Johnson, J. M., & Drezner, N. D. (2022). “Why aren’t all the White kids sitting together in the cafeteria?”: An exploration of White student experiences at a public HBCU. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(3), 300.
Peterson, R. D., & Hamrick, F. A. (2009). White, male, and “minority”: Racial consciousness among White male undergraduates attending a historically Black university. The Journal of Higher Education, 80(1), 34-58.
Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice. American psychologist, 62(4), 271.
