• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Heart - Head - Hands logo

  • Home
  • About
    • Beth Godbee
    • Commitments
    • Publications
  • Blog
    • Contemplative Practices
    • Emotional Literacies
    • Everyday Feminism
    • Higher Education
    • Interviews
    • Racial Justice
    • Recipes
    • Why Vegan?
  • Work with Me
    • Coaching
    • Courses, Retreats, Workshops
    • Career Discernment
    • Pathways Through Burnout
    • Writing Groups
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Navigation Menu: Social Icons

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter

What Is White Fragility?

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Everyday Feminism, Racial Justice By Beth Godbee September 30, 2020 Leave a Comment

How can those of us who identify as white, who are conditioned into whiteness, and who have internalized white supremacy recognize and respond to emotions before they do harm?

How can we take accountability when they do?

And how can we recognize complicity with the long-standing harm and systems that prevent taking accountability?

These questions motivate the “40-Day Practice: Strengthening Emotional Stamina to Counter White Fragility”: a daily practice of emotional work, which begins this week.

In many ways, reckoning with white fragility begins with reckoning with whiteness, which is all around and in us—like the air we breathe. Here’s a definition from Robin DiAngelo’s 2011 article “White Fragility,” citing sociologist Ruth Frankenberg, who defined whiteness as multi-dimensional:

“Whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privilege. Second, it is a ‘standpoint,’ a place from which White people look at ourselves, at others, and at society. Third, ‘Whiteness’ refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed. (p.1)” (page 56, emphasis added)

These three components of whiteness—(1) structural advantage, (2) standpoint or perspective, and (3) cultural practices—add up to triple trouble. Particular ways of being and doing—and, therefore, people involved in this being and doing—are privileged over others. These three components reinforce and concretize dehumanization so that hierarchical power structures (including white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and interconnected oppressions) show up throughout everyday life. The work of unlearning whiteness is critical, and yet the unlearning process is messy, messy, messy.

Performances of white fragility come out especially through the unlearning process and in multiracial educational spaces, doing further harm and asking us to take seriously calls for white caucus spaces. The 40-day practice takes up these calls, acting on the YWCA’s goals for white caucuses to help with deepening self-reflection, commitment, and accountability among white folks.

By holding space for emotionally messy and imperfect work, the 40-day practice strives to shift habits, to facilitate learning + unlearning, and to build the critique for racial justice, hopefully in a form that lessens harm along the way.

So, what is white fragility?

From the same 2011 article, DiAngelo defines white fragility as: “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation” (page 54).

White fragility, therefore, is a description of emotional and behavioral responses when facing racial stress (matters of race and racism). Fragility itself is a myth that causes harm, invoking (implicitly or explicitly) a victim narrative that manifests through actions such as defensiveness, conflict avoidance, denial, unwillingness to see wrongdoing, and unwillingness to break from the idea that there are good and bad people.

The self-work or “shadow work” of countering white fragility involves recognizing that “fragility” is a socialized state and a functioning apparatus of oppression and, therefore, truly a myth—but a powerful myth that does harm. From this recognition, work toward investigating and divesting from white fragility can happen. And then it’s possible to create new emotional patterns.

To explain further, here are some patterns that DiAngelo identifies, quoting pages 68-69 of White Fragility:

Preference for racial segregation, and a lack of sense of loss about segregation

Lack of understanding about what racism is

Seeing ourselves as individuals, exempt from the forces of racial socialization

Failure to understand that we bring our group’s history with us, that history matters

Assuming everyone is having or can have our experience

Lack of racial humility, and unwillingness to listen

Dismissing what we don’t understand

Lack of authentic interest in the perspectives of people of color

Wanting to jump over the hard, personal work and get to “solutions”

Confusing disagreement with not understanding

Need to maintain white solidarity, to save face, to look good

Guilt that paralyzes or allows inaction

Defensiveness about any suggestion that we are connected to racism

A focus on intentions over impact.

Note that white fragility has multiple manifestations, takes different shapes, and functions in varied ways: from desiring a cocoon of comfort to outright bullying.

Against a dark orange background appears the following quote: “It’s important to name that white fragility can manifest in aggression. Or, when not outright aggression, then as defensiveness, which peace studies scholars describe as the first step of offensiveness.”

It’s important to name that white fragility can manifest in aggression. Or, when not outright aggression, then as defensiveness, which peace studies scholars describe as the first step of offensiveness. I believe this is what Bettina L. Love speaks to in “There’s Nothing Fragile about Racism” and why reckoning with these manifestations (these power abuses) is essential work. There’s much to do toward disrupting harm and taking greater accountability for harms done.

To learn more, explore the resources on DiAngelo’s website, Love’s important article, DiAngelo’s short piece “White People Assume Niceness Is the Answer to Racial Inequality. It’s Not,” and Anna Kegler’s related critique “The Sugarcoated Language of White Fragility.”

Book cover of Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands.

Also, if I could highlight one book to read as a companion text to the 40-day practice, it would be Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2017, Central Recovery Press).

I keep returning to this book not only for explanations of racialized trauma (what underlies white fragility) but especially for the range of embodied and contemplative practices recommended. Menekem also offers a 5-day “Free Racialized Trauma Course by the Cultural Somatics Institute,” which I recommend.

Truly, there’s much to learn and to unlearn, which is why I’m embarking again on this practice.

With courage, curiosity, and commitment,

Beth <3

—
This post is written by
Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands.com. If you’re interested in learning more, check out the 40-day practice registration page and commitment statement.

Become a subscriber via Patreon to receive ongoing support for your efforts of striving to live for justice (social, racial, and environmental justice). And consider subscribing to the newsletter for additional resources and announcements. Thanks!

Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Pocket

Tagged with: accountability, antiracism, commitments, courage, emotional literacies, habits, learning, practices, racial justice, resources, social justice, systemic oppression, understanding injustice, white fragility, whiteness

Support the Work

subscribe to posts:

Previous Post: « Career Discernment for a Purposeful Career Path
Next Post: Invitation to Join Upcoming Theatre of the Oppressed Workshops »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

About This Site

Embodied knowledge matters. So do commitments. And especially acting on commitments as part of everyday life, BIG and small. This website—a mix of blog posts and research writing, courses and offerings—shares ongoing efforts toward everyday living (feeling, thinking, and doing) for justice.

Subscribe via Patreon

This button from Patreon says “Become a Patron” in white font against a bright orange background.

Subscribe to Newsletter

featured offerings

This e-course announcement shows a yellow sunflower and blue sky. It includes a textbox with the following information: “E-COURSE AVAILABLE NOW! Career Discernment for Academics: Aligning Career with Commitments. Self-paced study, exercises, coaching, and more ...”

This ad reads: “Time to write! Writing Retreats. Learn more @ Heart-Head-Hands.com.” A white coffee mug and table appear in the foreground, with golden chairs and walls in the background.

This image shows writing tools (phone, keyboard, journal, pencil, and pen) along with the event information: “Online Writing Groups. Tuesday afternoons & Friday mornings. Come Write Together: Heart-Head-Hands.com.”

This image shows a blazing campfire in a mountain setting at dusk. It shares workshop information: “Practices for Navigating Burnout. Interactive Small-Group Workshops. Offered by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. & Candace Epps-Robertson, Ph.D.”This image shows a scene of wrapped packages, a pine cone, and evergreen branches. A white text box shares the circular logo for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice, and another text box reads: “gift cards available.”

Categories

  • Contemplative Practices (61)
  • Emotional Literacies (85)
  • Everyday Feminism (106)
  • Higher Education (52)
  • Interviews (10)
  • Racial Justice (64)
  • Recipes (22)
  • Why Vegan? (12)

Footer

bethgodbee

Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Bu Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Burnout: A Cohort Experience”:

For the past year, Candace and I have been listening to requests for an offering around burnout (or, more precisely, being burned up), and we launched a new cohort experience August 1st. We are deeply grateful for the range of responses we’ve received since then, and we’ve been prioritizing time to listen and discern what people want and need.

Through a lot of conversation and reflection, we’ve decided to slow down further and to reshape the offering. 

We’ll continue offering interactive workshops on practices for navigating burnout—with new dates announced for November 3rd and December 15th (and more to come in 2024). 

Starting in January, we’ll hold a few one-day retreats with time for art, play, contemplative practice, conversation, and coaching. We hope the retreat will feel like something that’s possible now (with so many pushes and pulls on time and attention).

All of this is leading to a 12-week version of the cohort experience: a season of connection to match a season in life. We’ll reopen applications in the spring and hope that a small group forms well ahead of our start date in September 2024.

The details of all of these experiences—and an invitation to join the workshops in Nov and Dec—are shared online here: https://heart-head-hands.com/pathways-through-burnout/ 
✨✨link in bio✨✨

And we continue to appreciate all sorts of feedback (questions, suggestions, affirmations), so please reach out anytime. <3

[Image says: “Pathways Through Burnout / Practice Workshops / One-Day Retreats / Cohort Forming for Fall 2024” and shows photos of the two of us—Candace and Beth—side by side.]

With @dr._candace_epps_robertson_ #burnout #update #practice #contemplative #meditation #writing #art #retreat
I am slow to edit and share photos, but I want to I am slow to edit and share photos, but I want to share these from the Beyond Granite public art exhibit that just left the National Mall here in DC. I wish this installation was staying long-term. How I struggle with visiting the Mall in the best of conditions. And how these pieces helped me appreciate what could instead be done in this space. 

Also, Jonathan and I got really lucky that the night we visited was the most spectacular sunset! Scroll through for photos of how "America's Playground" appears against an orange sky (no filter).
In case you missed it, here again is the new inter In case you missed it, here again is the new interview with Candace Epps-Robertson @dr._candace_epps_robertson_ :
https://heart-head-hands.com/qa-with-candace-epps-robertson/
✨✨link in bio✨✨
 
This photo shows Candace at a BTS concert, Permission To Dance LA, December 2021.
 
Among the wide-ranging subjects Candace addresses are her experience with #BTSARMY fandom and her current work with museums.
 
Read to the end, where Candace talks about the importance of listening for pursing justice. :-)
New blog post (this one has been a long time comin New blog post (this one has been a long time coming)!
 
It’s an interview with Candace Epps-Robertson -- “On Seasons of Life, Writing, and Career” -- https://heart-head-hands.com/qa-with-candace-epps-robertson/
✨✨link in bio✨✨
@dr._candace_epps_robertson_ 
 
I am incredibly excited about this interview because Candace speaks to a wide range and depth of curiosities. Her related work ranges from reflecting on her journey as part of the BTS global fandom ARMY to curating museum exhibits to teaching writing with visual art and music to caring holistically for ourselves as writers and to navigating burnout. Candace describes the underlying motivations—the deep why—behind the range of questions she asks about social justice, cultural rhetorics, literacy, and writing. It’s clear that this range speaks to the importance of everyday, integrated living for justice: for striving toward justice in all ways of showing up and being in the world—relating, listening, and living.
 
[IMAGE: Photo shows a close-up of Candace Epps-Robertson, Ph.D. with head tilted to the side and smiling.]

#writing #writingcommunity #interview #blogpost #highered #highereducation #literacy #literacyeducation #rhetcomp #writingstudies #bts #btsarmy #museums #art #rest #burnout #socialjustice #socialjusticeeducation #culturalrhetorics #questions #curiosity #listening #everydaylife
If you (like me) feel like you can't keep up with If you (like me) feel like you can't keep up with the posted speed, consider joining this Saturday's writing retreat. There will be guided meditations, time to connect in small-group and one-with-one, and time to write or journal or create on your own. Retreats are certainly one way to claim "me time."

Here's the link (with multiple registration options): https://heart-head-hands.com/product/writing-retreats/
🏕️🏕️link in bio🏕️🏕️

And this photo is of my partner playing around on a path in Shenandoah that we always find hilarious. The posted speed limit of 20 miles/hour feels very at odds with navigating vegetation on foot. :-)

#writing #writer #hiking #hiker #metime #slowingdown #writingretreat #retreat
Load More... Follow on Instagram

About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former writing studies professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

This image shows books alongside the words: courses, coaching, consulting. learning + unlearning.

Copyright © 2023