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Racism is not a simple matter of good people versus bad. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized. She also made a provocative claim: that white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of colour. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so.
Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over twenty-five years working as an antiracist educator, she moves the conversation forward. Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include rushing to prove that we are 'not racist'; downplaying white advantage; romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of colour; pretending white segregation 'just happens'; expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism; carefulness; and shame. She challenges the ideology of Individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment and accountability.
Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice, and offers people of colour an 'insider's' perspective which may be helpful for navigating whiteness.
About the author
Robin DiAngelo, PhD is an academic, lecturer, and author working in the fields of critical discourse
analysis and whiteness studies. She is an affiliate associate professor of education at the University of Washington. DiAngelo has been a consultant and educator for more than twenty years on issues of racial and social justice and is the author of the international bestseller
White Fragility
Summary
Racism is not a simple matter of good people versus bad. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized. She also made a provocative claim: that white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of colour. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so.
Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over twenty-five years working as an antiracist educator, she moves the conversation forward. Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include rushing to prove that we are 'not racist'; downplaying white advantage; romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of colour; pretending white segregation 'just happens'; expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism; carefulness; and shame. She challenges the ideology of Individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment and accountability.
Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice, and offers people of colour an 'insider's' perspective which may be helpful for navigating whiteness.
Report
Once again Robin DiAngelo brilliantly breaks it down, giving us the language and concepts to cut straight to the heart and expose the 'nicer' forms of racism. In this unflinching follow-up to her revelatory work White Fragility, she uses her insider status, over two decades studying and challenging progressive white people, and unwavering courage to take the conversation to the next level. With eloquence, clarity, and startling insight, she explains why white progressives cause the most daily harm to Black and other folks of color, and demands better. Personal transformation is an act of anti-racism, and DiAngelo has just given progressive white America the field guide Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times best-selling author
