White Fragility Research Articles

"Your Silence Will Not Protect You": Using Words and Action in the Fight Against Racism.

"Your Silence Will Not Protect You": Using Words and Action in the Fight Against Racism.

Encountering our own whiteness: An autoethnographic conversation on the experience of putting together a journal issue around mission, race and colonialism

ABSTRACT This article emerged out of a debrief as a result of putting together a journal issue on race, mission, and colonialism. We found this to be a challenging, confronting, and learning experience where we encountered our whiteness, sometimes in unexpected ways. We were able to uncover this by a series of conversations during which we discovered new and troubling insights about the process which had made us deeply uncomfortable. The autoethnographic conversations really did provide a place for moments of disclosure or epiphanic moments as we began to unpick and analyse our own reactions, responses, and unease. These began to provide insights around systemic racism, structures of whiteness, tools of whiteness, our own white fragility and complicity. Drawing on scholars such as Willie James Jennings, bell hooks, John Hull, and Anthony Reddie helped us to deepen our reflection and begin to understand how we are enmeshed in a system of whiteness for which we have to take responsibility. Jennings’ metaphor of mastery was particularly helpful and revealing as we found ourselves so often pushed in this direction. This personal story of putting together a journal became a larger canvas for us to reflect more widely on systemic injustice of which we are all a part and how we can become stuck in it. We learned that we need to own this and to be more intentional in our efforts to dismantle whiteness.

The United States at the Center of the Action

The United States at the Center of the Action

Exploring Tensions: A Self-Study of A Teacher Educator’s White Fragility in Mentoring Novice Teachers

ABSTRACT This article examines the tensions encountered and lessons learned when a White teacher mentor discovered white fragility in her mentoring practices with a Black novice teacher. It was the mentor’s first attempt to ‘wake up white’ and acknowledge her White identity in her mentoring actions. The mentor engaged a secondary English as a New Language teacher in six observation cycles to support the teacher with culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). The mentor discovered her restraint in conversations when the teacher reflected on teaching students about racism. Further, the mentor enacted white fragility when she avoided discussing the teacher’s critically conscious pedagogy, stifling opportunities for deep reflection. The mentor’s actions indicate that she had not engaged in necessary self-work before mentoring the teacher in CRP. Self-work that the mentor had missed includes exploring her White identity, privilege, and cultural competence. Implications for White teacher educators, mentors, and supervisors include the need to engage in ongoing self-work and professional development to explore White identity and privilege and develop racial literacy to engage in race talk.

Black Women and Social Justice Education: Legacies and Lessons by Stephanie Y. Evans, Andrea D. Domingue, and Tonia D. Mitchell

Reviewed by: Black Women and Social Justice Education: Legacies and Lessons by Stephanie Y. Evans, Andrea D. Domingue, and Tonia D. Mitchell Alicia Brunson (bio) Evans, Stephanie Y., Andrea D. Domingue, and Tonia D. Mitchell. Black Women and Social Justice Education: Legacies and Lessons. Albany, State University of New York Press, 2019. 398 pp. ISBN: 9781438472942. $35.95 Paperback. This book is well-needed, especially during tumultuous times like these. Black Women and Social Justice Education: Legacies and Lessons contextualizes the ways in which Black women survive and thrive in academia, community engagement, and nonprofit work. Organized into four sections, the readings center Black women's voices and experiences, theorizing and putting social justice education into practice. Liberatory consciousness, an essential component of social justice education, is incorporated within every section of the book. In the readings, not only is social justice explained, but readers are made privy to how the authors navigate their work and fields of activism to put into practice social justice education that often fails to take our identities or needs into consideration. As Black women have shown, the practice of putting social justice education into action leads to the transformation of institutions. The writers argue that the implementation of social justice education is effective because it values the knowledge and experiences of oppressed communities. In addition, those who engage in social justice education not only want social justice and community transformation, but also inner peace. Several of the pieces in this edition focus on how Black women learn to value themselves and their communities while doing this incredibly difficult work. Part 1 underscores the importance of theory and identity as key components of social justice theory in 6 chapters. This section of readings demonstrates that we not only have responsibility for our communities, but to ourselves when engaging in social justice work. Social justice is theorized as liberation for all people. Layli Maparyan's "Social Justice Education and Luxocracy" is particularly engaging because of the focus of the Divine nature in all of humanity. It is a call for to see everyone through the practice of Imago Dei even if people oppose the advances of social justice. Another key issue in this section's readings is the relevance of intersectionality. Diversity will mean nothing, and equality and equity are not likely to manifest without using an intersectional approach. On an individual level, using an intersectional perspective is helpful in examining individual identities and the function of privilege versus being marginalized. Understanding our identities, the writers assert, will provide a better ability to both survive in oppressive environments, but also thrive while dismantling systemic inequalities. Michele D. Smith and Maia Niguel Moore in "Black Feminist Thought: A Response to White Fragility" posit that Black women navigate and survive by being persistent, remaining knowledgeable about society, finding sisterhood with other Black women, and creating and maintaining a healthy image of oneself. Practicing [End Page 329] social justice education and thriving while doing so is not an individual feat. A community of supporters are needed. Part 2 includes 4 chapters and is a collection of narrative and historical accounts of Black women who contended for power, equality, and equity. The emphasis of Black women's voices that were often silenced in social justice movements is a theme in this section. In Ashley Robertson Preston's "A Seat at the Table: Mary McLeod Bethune's Call for the Inclusion of Black Women During World War II," we learn that Mary McLeod Bethune not only advocated for her own upward social mobility, but for many other Black women's ability to work during WWII. This chapter also illustrates that although this work is arduous, we should not give into despair and hopelessness. We learn in this chapter and others in the book that education can be used as a means of fighting for equality. Social justice does not only take place in the classroom and traditional forms of education. Modern forms of activism, such as students' protests are highlighted in Shennette Garrett-Scott and Dominique Garrett-Scott's "This Ain't Yo' Mama's Revolution--Or Maybe It is: #TakeBackTheFlag and the new Student Activism." An important point in this...

Time to Act: Confronting Systemic Racism in Communication Sciences and Disorders Academic Training Programs.

Purpose The intent of this tutorial is to radically shift engagement around the "types of questions" we ask around racism in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). We propose to move conversations away from diversity and inclusion and go deeper to look at the racist systems of oppression in higher education that have produced our predominantly White discipline. This low number of representations of racial minorities in CSD is extremely problematic and has deep, harmful, and far-reaching implications. The perpetuation of White production of knowledge and White culture harms minority students, faculty and clients, clinical service delivery, coursework content, and the research enterprise. Conclusions In this tutorial, we attempt to communicate the complexity of this issue as it relates to our profession and offer ideas that at least get the discussion started. In doing so, we (a) introduce the topic in the context of the history of racism in America and how White fragility makes this topic difficult to hear, (b) provide a problem statement specific to CSD, (c) introduce the concept of systems of oppression and how this concept can change how we face racism in CSD, and (d) provide future directions.

Counter-narratives in the First Person: Whiteness and the Limits of Diversity

This short article focuses on Sara’s experience as the first-ever student BAME department representative at a large post-secondary institution in the UK. Written as a first-person testimonial but grounded in a dialogic method of ethnographic recovery and remembrance, we argue that diversity initiatives that seek to create inclusion and representation, without a careful engagement with power, end up reproducing the university as a white public space that centres white fragility. The article highlights two key experiences during Sara’s tenure as BAME student representative in a department of anthropology that show how the limits of diversity in higher education are found in the refusal to engage with whiteness. 

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Robin DiAngelo

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Robin DiAngelo

The development and initial validation of the White Fragility Scale.

Over the last couple of years, the topic of White fragility has garnered a considerable degree of attention. White fragility is considered a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress can become intolerable and trigger a range of emotional and behavioral reactions intended to restore a sense of racial comfort (DiAngelo, White fragility: Why it's so hard for White people to talk about racism, 2018, Beacon Press). In effort to measure the expression of White fragility, we developed and evaluated the psychometric properties of the 21-item White Fragility Scale (WFS). Data consisted of two independent samples of White participants recruited from M-Turk (327) and a Midwest University's Psychpool (234). Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence for a bifactor model consisting of one general White fragility factor and three specific factors of Emotional Defensiveness, Accommodation of Safety, and Exceptionism. Ancillary bifactor indices supported treating the WFS as a unidimensional measure of White fragility yet also revealed meaningful utility of the Accommodation of Safety subscale. Concurrent validity evidence for the WFS was established through significant associations with modern racism, general and specific dimensions of colorblind racial attitudes, and social dominance orientation. In addition, nonsignificant, near-zero correlations with social desirability provided support for divergent validity. Recommendations for future research involving the WFS are provided as well as practical implications for professionals whose work requires a certain degree of racial stamina. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Shadow Self: Bringing White Supremacy Into the Light

Shadow Self: Bringing White Supremacy Into the Light

Rocking the Boat: A Call for Asian American and Pacific Islander Counselors to Make Waves

Rocking the Boat: A Call for Asian American and Pacific Islander Counselors to Make Waves

Decolonization in a higher education STEMM institution – is ‘epistemic fragility’ a barrier?

Central to the decolonial debate is how high-income countries (HICs) have systematically negated ways of knowing from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and yet the paucity of empirical decolonization studies leaves educators relatively unsupported as to whether, and how, to address privilege in higher education. Particularly in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) institutions, there are few published examples of attempts to engage faculty in these debates. In 2018–19, we invited faculty on a master’s in public health course to engage with the decolonization debate by providing: (1) descriptive reading list analyses to all 16 module leads in the master’s programme to invite discussion about the geographic representation of readings; (2) an implicit association test adapted to examine bias towards or against research from LMICs; (3) faculty workshops exploring geographic bias in the curriculum; and (4) interviews to discuss decolonization of curricula and current debates. These initiatives stimulated debate and reflection around the source of readings for the master’s course, a programme with a strong STEMM focus, and the possibility of systemic barriers to the inclusion of literature from universities in LMICs. We propose the notion of epistemic fragility, invoking DiAngelo’s (2011) ‘white fragility’, because some of the responses appeared to result from the challenge to perceived meritocracy, centrality, authority, individuality and objectivity of the HIC episteme that this initiative invites. We posit that the effortful reinstatement of a status quo regarding knowledge hierarchies in the global context, although not a representative reaction, can lead to a significant impact on the initiative in general. Efforts to decolonize curricula require actions at both the individual and organizational levels and, in particular, a managed process of careful engagement so that fragility reactions, if and where they occur, are given the time and space to be navigated in the open. Based on our experiences, we offer recommendations for policy and practice for those engaged in this movement and potential research questions to explore epistemic fragility in higher education.

Conversations about structural racism are uncomfortable. That’s the point.

Conversations about structural racism are uncomfortable. That’s the point.

Regular White People Things: The Presence of White Fragility in Interracial Families

ObjectiveTo better understand how biracial/multiracial millennials make meaning of their multiple identities and racial socialization messages within their interracial families.BackgroundA small body of research suggests that the content of parents' race messages to their biracial/multiracial children may have profound social and psychological ramifications. Changing American demographics, including the growth of biracial/multiracial populations, have created a demand for careful examination of this group's racialized experiences.MethodTo examine the racial socialization experiences of biracial/multiracial participants (n = 30), this qualitative substudy used thematic analysis, an intersectional theoretical framework, and a phenomenological approach in analyzing open‐ended responses.ResultsWe found that interracial families employed a number of racial socialization messages, including those that extol mainstream cultural values as well as communications that fuel race‐related stress and identity politics.ConclusionFindings highlight the prevalence of dominant Western cultural values and racial silence in the socialization messages within interracial families and the reality of racism and racial awareness among individuals identifying as biracial/multiracial.ImplicationsThe findings in this study suggest a need to examine racial socialization as a function of parents' salient identities, including gender, race, and immigration status.

“I had to call them out on a very tight rope:” exercising voice with k-12 education colleagues to confront racial injustice

ABSTRACT This paper examines how educators in the U.S. public education system speak to their colleagues about racially oppressive beliefs and practices. Limited research exists that examines the experiences of educators who exercise voice to challenge and engage co-workers and supervisors around issues of racism in their schools. Using data from semi-structured interviews with 25 educators and a flexible coding approach, the authors found that participants described using cautious, covert, and indirect approaches with their White colleagues to increase the likelihood that their messages would be received and to decrease the personal and professional consequences they might face for openly challenging their colleagues’ racist beliefs or actions. This cautious approach serves to reinforce the dominance of Whiteness and White fragility in the context of anti-oppressive practice. Examples of an alternative to a cautious approach are presented and recommendations are made for future research and teacher education.

Measuring White Fragility

ABSTRACTObjectiveWe propose and develop novel survey questions and quantitative summary indices of White fragility.MethodsThe data come from the 2018 Survey of White Fragility, a longitudinal convenience sample of 279 non‐Hispanic white undergraduate students aged 18 and over taking courses at two large public universities in the southeastern and southwestern United States.ResultsFactor analyses revealed two latent factors. The first factor—Remorse Fragility—was defined by feeling sad, guilty, and, to a lesser extent, angry in the context of discussions related to racism, race‐based discrimination, and white privilege. The second factor—Depletion Fragility—was defined by feeling drained, exhausted, unsafe, and, to a lesser extent, attacked and confused in the same contexts. Additional analyses supported the reliability and validity of our indices.ConclusionMore research is needed to establish measures of White Fragility to inform interventions that support critical discussions of whiteness and the racist structures of society.

Struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation

ABSTRACT Increasingly, institutions are amplifying work on race equality, in order to engage with movements for Black lives and decolonising. This brings universities into relations with individual and communal issues of whiteness, white fragility and privilege, double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching. Inside formal structures, built upon cultures and practices that have historical and material legitimacy, engaging with such issues is challenging. The tendency is to engage in formal accreditation, managed through engagement with established methodologies, risk management practices and data reporting. However, this article argues that the dominant articulation of the institution, which has its own inertia, which reinforces whiteness and dissipates radical energy, needs to be re-addressed in projects of decolonising. This situates the communal work of the institution against the development of authentic relationships as a movement of dignity.

“I Quit!”: White Privilege, White Fragility, and White-Hot Rage: A Poetic Response in Five Acts

This work consists of five narrative poems that correspond to five moments, Acts, related to a lesson about institutional racism and White privilege, presented to preservice teachers, via Zoom. That White privilege, White fragility, and institutional racism exist is well established, as is the necessity of commitment to preparing preservice teachers for cultural competence and responsiveness. Therefore, the poetry is presented without a literature review, in an effort to highlight the layered tensions of the author’s lived experience, the precarious positionality of tenure-track faculty, and the potential consequences of choices made, to teach (or not) controversial content.

Ongoing Challenges for White Educators Teaching White Students About Whiteness

This paper critically examines some of the challenges that white educators who interrogate whiteness with white students encounter. Two specific dilemmas are addressed: Is one supporting white students’ learning when one tries to teach from the place “where the student is” and/or is one colluding with whiteness by appeasing white discomfort and protecting white fragility, one’s students as well as one’s own? Does one interpret what white students say as a query to be responded to or as a white distancing strategy that requires disruption? Each pedagogical challenge is described and debates around these issues are explored. Emphasis is given to the effects on students of color when white educators fail to respond appropriately. Implications for white progressive educators are drawn out. Two recommendations are discussed: Being willing to rock the boat and cultivating white double consciousness.

“It’s a sea-change”: Understanding the role the racial and socio-political climate play on the role-shift of the American college presidency

This inquiry is part of a larger study focused on whether white male presidents in higher education can respond to racism. In the initial study, the author concluded that while presidents were responsive, their responses were not void of privilege, and highlighted the need to further address white Fragility amongst this group. In an effort to advance our understanding of the American college presidency, particularly how the racial and socio-political climate has shaped their leadership, in the current study, the author analyzed data using the perspective offered by the presidents – higher education is in a sea-change, which was also a finding, as well as specific facets of Astin and Astin’ (2000) and Buller’s (2015) respective frames of change. The analysis yielded the importance of naming that higher education is in a sea-change, grappled with the reality of power within the presidency, and articulated the value of being willing over being ready to incite change. In light of these findings, these leaders recognized that not only is higher education due for a change, but so is the postsecondary presidency. Such an understanding expands both the organizational leadership and diversity in higher education literature, respectively.