"Being seen racially is a common trigger of white fragility, and thus, to build our stamina, white people must face the first challenge: naming our race."
Why do white Americans, or white people in general, need to "name our race"? We do not. It is not necessary. Only white guilt liberal progressives like DiAngelo make it necessary for the sake of political correctness.
In this day and age, everyone regardless of their background knows exactly who and what they are and where they came from. No one needs to "name" their race. We know. They know. Everyone knows. The focus on race is evidence in and of itself of one's implicit racism.
"Yet our simplistic definition of racism - as intentional acts of racial discrimination committed by immoral individuals - engenders a confidence that we are not part of the problem and that our learning is thus complete."
"Many white people simply do not understand the process of socialization, and this is our next challenge."
Yet again DiAngelo gives us a factually inaccurate definition of racism. Close, but not on par with what it truly is. Nevertheless, whites and blacks alike can be equally racist. One of the finest current examples is Joy-Ann Reid. Long time examples are Al Sharpton, Jesse "Shakedown" Jackson, and even whites who claim to be black can be incredibly racist towards whites like fraud Jeffrey "Shaun" King.
All people, white, black, brown, yellow, etc. understand the process of socialization. There is no inherent challenge there. We learn it through social-psychology. It's called growing up, coming of age. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
Occasionally DiAngelo says something actually factually accurate, like the following:
"Individualism claims that there are no intrinsic barriers to individual success and that failure is not a consequence of social structures but comes from individual character."
"According to the ideology of individualism, race is irrelevant."
This is a truism. Individualism clearly establishes the fact that personal (individual) success is purely based on the initiative, drive, effort and conviction of the individual (character); and it has absolutely nothing to do with race or otherwise. One only gets out of life what they put into it.
The following passage found on page 11 is quite telling, and should have awoken DiAngelo to a truth other than the politically correct garbage she put forth after the fact.
"We gain our understanding of group meaning collectively through aspects of the society around us that are shared and unavoidable: television, movies, news items, song lyrics, magazines, textbooks, schools, religion, literature, stories, jokes, traditions and practices, history, and so on. These dimensions of our culture shape our identities."
"We come to understand who we are by understanding who we are not."
This is true, to a certain extent. Individuals still make their own individual choices (i.e. - free will) based on their character premised on their upbringing. That upbringing plays a very specific and direct role in how an individual turns out in life. And when you have a racial population with a 72% + out of wedlock birth rate (i.e. - fatherless homes), many young boys will become wards of the state via the criminal justice system. More than that, it also accounts for the longstanding epidemic of intraracial violence as well.
For those born without fathers and numerous siblings, and for many without mothers who abandon them to their grandmother or aunt, they have no male role model. Their upbringing is comprised of other female family members as the male members are in and out of correctional institutions; as a result, their male peers are their primary role models. Inspiration that is undoubtedly negative and counterproductive to a positive and prosperous lifestyle. Hence the high rates of incarceration and involvement with the criminal justice among black and brown males in America.
"We cannot understand modern forms of racism if we cannot or will not explore patterns of group behavior and their effects on individuals."
Does this go both ways, DiAngelo? As of late blacks have been making it a point as a group to self-segregate from whites. Why? Because it is what they have been conditioned to do through the divisive racist rhetoric you and your cohorts (white & black) espouse. It is also the very reason why these two young women went on a racist attack upon two white males in the multicultural center on the Arizona State University (ASU) campus. Fortunately for the integrity of the campus and educational environment of ASU, the administration staff saw the blatant reverse racism for what it was and found them guilty of said offense. Despite that just finding, the two women further lambasted ASU for their ruling. A ruling that needs to be upheld, and in all honesty, the girls should be expelled for their follow-up response.
Throughout the book DiAngelo makes some really bizarre statements that make absolutely no sense, like this one, for example:
"...tackling group identity also challenges our belief in objectivity. If group membership is relevant, then we don't see the world from the universal human perspective but from the perspective of a particular kind of human.... Thus, reflecting on our racial frames is particularly challenging for many white people, because we are taught that to have a racial viewpoint is to be biased."
In the previous cited example, it is clear that the two female ASU students' group identity was being challenged subjectively rather than objectively; and they both failed to see the world from the universal human perspective. That I get; but what I do not get is if people fail to see the world from that universal perspective, then they are left with "the perspective of a particular kind of human." What the hell does that mean? A... kind of human? This makes absolutely no sense. None whatsoever.
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