Robin Diangelo, the author of "White Fragility," has made quite a name for herself writing a book that purports to address the difficulties in discussing matters of racism, targeting specifically white people as being the sole source of the problem. A problem she calls "The Devil. Racism. Another metaphor. Same difference."
The foreword, written by Michael Eric Dyson, remarked that "white fragility...is an idea that registers the hurt feelings, shattered egos, fraught spirits, vexed bodies, and taxed emotions of white folk." As if Dyson couldn't be more bigoted with that statement alone, he went on further to erroneously claim the following:
"In truth, their suffering comes from recognizing that they are white - that their whiteness has given them a big leg up in life while crushing other's dreams, that their whiteness is the dearest example of the identity politics they claim is harmful to the nation, and that their whiteness has shielded them from growing up as quickly as they might have done had they not so heavily leaned on it to make it through life."
As of late, Dyson has become one of the most outspoken critics of white people putting him in the top five of racist bigots on television, with Joy-Ann Reid being #1. The previous comment(s) demonstrate nothing short of Dyson's psychological projection. One, well rather two of the most critical deficiencies in many, if not most of the rhetorical responses of black apologists is the fact that they never, ever hold their own accountable, personally or otherwise. There just simply is no personal responsibility or accountability within a certain segment of the black community.
Despite Robin Diangelo and Michael Eric Dyson, among other white guilt liberals and black apologists, the fact remains that there is neither "white privilege" nor "white fragility." White people simply do not like talking about any subject matter that involves race simply because most blacks and other people of color (POC) are easily "offended" due to their emotive denial of both factually accurate world and American history.
Moreover, the only privilege in this world is what an individual makes for themselves and their family. Nothing is handed to any normal person in America on a silver platter. That is reserved for the elitists who decry their struggles that make their life hard, while blaming those less fortunate than they for said struggles.
Much of the premise behind this poorly written let alone incredibly unsubstantiated book by Diangelo rests on the following statement within the author's note (xiiii):
"American wealth was built on the labor of kidnapped and enslaved Africans and their descendants."
This spurious claim is entirely factually inaccurate.
First and foremost, Africans put upon vessels to cross the Atlantic were not kidnapped by the owner(s) of those vessels, they were purchased. Purchased from African tribal lords who were the ones who actually kidnapped those enslaved and sold to the Dutch and Spaniards that brought them to the "New World." A world that included not only North America, but South America and the Caribbean islands where the vast majority of Africans were taken for slave labor. Less than 335,000 Africans were taken to the shores of North America. The remaining 10.7 million Africans that survived the Atlantic journey were taken to the latter locations.
Of all the places Africans were taken worldwide for slave labor, there is no place, no country, where Africans and their descendants have had it best than in North America. And yet it is also the only place, the only country, where blacks scream the loudest about their past and wrongs done to them. Which is precisely why there is a large segment of the black population in North America that lags behind other black populations in other countries, to include Africa itself. Case in point, Africans who emigrate to the United States do far better 1st and 2nd (and so forth) generations than those Africans/blacks that are native born. Why is that? The answer will come in subsequent essays written and posted to this website.
Please keep reading and learning from the information I intend to share here starting with the preposterous assertions put forth in "White Fragility" by Robin Diangelo.
As time goes on, I will be reviewing other books and submitting essays on other subject matter related to the black American experience(s) in the United States.