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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u2018Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack\u2019<\/strong> I should point out that this essay is available in a variety of flavours with considerable difference and omission but that the seven-page copy (found on the Racial Equity Tools website here) containing all fifty listed \u2018privileges\u2019 is the original. Some other lists (found on race studies departmental websites as \u2018study material\u2019) have been trimmed and some have even been reworded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such trimmings and rewordings are strangely un-referenced and unattributed, naturally. Anyhoo\u2026 let’s take the plunge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh begins with\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThrough work to bring materials from women\u2019s studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men\u2019s unwillingness to grant that they are over-privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women\u2019s status, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can\u2019t or won\u2019t support the idea of lessening men\u2019s. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women\u2019s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended. Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realised that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realised I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter I realised the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of colour that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don\u2019t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh concludes her introduction with\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-colour privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh then lists fifty \u2018Daily Effects of White Privilege.\u2019 I shall not list all fifty as the entire seven-page essay can be read via the link provided above but to give flavour, here are a few\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the list, McIntosh admits that<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI repeatedly forgot each of the realisations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one\u2019s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh then notes that<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted\u201d and that \u201cI see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a pattern of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh concludes with the following\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlthough systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So what are we to make of the argument, content and conclusions of this seminal essay on white privilege?<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh clearly engages in a series of anecdotes and thought-exercises that have no basis but in her own (incredibly wealth-privileged) opinion and world-view. There are no studies. There are no data. There are no facts or evidence. This, dear reader, will become a common refrain, I’m afraid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why does this matter? Without a solid, demonstrable and verifiable basis, McIntosh asserts opinion, only. Which she is perfectly entitled to do. However, mere opinion is insufficient cause for ‘white privilege’ to spread throughout academia and into mainstream culture such that it becomes accepted (let alone unassailable) canon. To accept any hypothesis so completely on the basis of speculation alone would be foolish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, McIntosh has not even asked a single friend or colleague if they have experienced ‘white privilege’ as she describes let alone involved a large dataset of individuals that do not share her ideological bent. It’s as though the entire concept of ‘white privilege’ descended upon her from the ether, prompting a Damascus Road Moment, and the rest of western culture instantly lauded the concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh’s entire essay is a bundle of highly-personalised and highly-specific assertions leading to an over-weaning assertion dressed as a conclusion. The assertions that McIntosh makes are entirely based on her own life, worldview, ideologically-based perceptions and oft-fleeting insular musings but are sufficiently vague as to seduce many readers (particularly those with a similar ideology open to confirmation bias) into making connection with her anecdotal observations via their own \u2018lived experience.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah yes, thinks the white reader upon reading the list\u2026 come to think of it, I have experienced the very same thing. Or something similar. Perhaps not all of them but certainly three or eight of them, perhaps even twenty. Therefore it must be true. Therefore I accept the assertions as fact. Therefore \u2018white privilege\u2019 is a thing. An evil, unconscious, systemic thing that infects every individual white life and all of white western culture and it must be expunged. And lo! It infects white me, too! How on earth could I not see this before? I thought I was a decent human but I have been so\u2026 so\u2026 complicit. I don\u2019t need to critically-analyse this or think further because that would be heresy. OMG! White privilege! Who\u2019d have thought it? I must act!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well\u2026 here\u2019s an unrelated personal experience relayed as an anecdote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I recall, in my youth, that on a hot, sunny day, I picked up a large ice-cube to add to my home-made lemonade. I was surprised to discover that at first touch, and for a few lingering seconds after, the sensation of skin against the ice-cube was not of intense cold but of almost searing heat. It felt hot. Very hot. Blister-inducing, almost. The shock of the burning sensation, which I had not expected almost made me drop the ice-cube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m sure many (perhaps even most) people are able to understand, connect to, and empathise with that anecdote. They may have experienced something similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet it is unsafe to assert from this that ice is hot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh begins her walk towards the light drawing upon her understandings of \u2018male privilege\u2019 after noticing that men are unwilling to grant that they are over-privileged; this she terms a \u2018phenomenon.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking personally, I have not noticed such unwillingness as a de-facto unassailable generalisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of us are more than willing and capable of understanding and articulating the advantages we have as (for example) a person of particular skin colour, height, physical ability, size, gender, sexual-orientation, muscular development, cognition, education, clothing-size, hair-colour, language, culture, town, country, species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would grant that many of us do not meander through our day continually reminding ourselves of these \u2018privileges\u2019 but that this is surely unsurprising and certainly not indicative of \u2018unconscious\u2019 or \u2018systemic\u2019 anything or even \u2018complicitness\u2019 in our individual or cultural oppression of anyone of a different skin colour, height, education, language, nationality, or species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh asserts that in her work to \u2018reveal male privilege\u2019 (because that\u2019s a definite thing, across all societies and cultures throughout time and in every circumstance) she came to understand that \u2018much of their oppressiveness was unconscious\u2019<\/em> to which she adds the \u2018frequent charges from women of colour that white women whom they encounter are oppressive\u2019<\/em> to neatly enable two and two to make fifty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People of white skin are privileged oppressors in both a conscious and (conveniently) unconscious sense. Done. Sorted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No thought or mention of black cultures or nations on the African continent, or of Asian cultures in China or Japan, of cultures across India, South America or Indonesia (say) or of any indigenous culture or society across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is as though the only culture required to demonstrate that white privilege and white oppression is a thing is\u2026 wait for it\u2026 countries that are predominantly white or cultures that are \u2018western.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet even then, McIntosh fails to consider differences in \u2018privilege\u2019 and \u2018oppression\u2019 across the USA (or any other western society) by state, region, town, city or neighbourhood. Or differences across time, for example. Nope. Nary a thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If this ‘privilege’ permeates non-white cultures, then it cannot be termed ‘white’ privilege at all\u2026 and McIntosh must think further. Or abandon the hypothesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most tellingly though\u2026 McIntosh fails to consider privilege and oppression in terms of wealth inequality, which I would argue is the unattributed singularity around which all privilege and oppression rotate – around which all privilege and oppression has always rotated – and which is tangible, of global reach, cross-cultural irrespective of race or gender, and demonstrably real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wealth inequality is something our societies could actually solve and soon. Doing so would confer immeasurable beneficial impact to all groups suffering from any form of oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But no. McIntosh is motivated only by the unseen, invisible, and the unconscious. Ditto DiAngelo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh casually mentions the \u2018myth\u2019 of meritocracy and that it seems to her that \u201cobliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all\u201d<\/em> as though meritocracy has itself been thoroughly accepted to be an actual myth\u2026 in the same sense as the antics of Zeus, or the existence of a gingerbread house inhabited by a witch, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is without irony that McIntosh proposes that she has \u2018noticed\u2019 an \u2018unconscious phenomenon\u2019 called \u2018white privilege\u2019 while occupying a position of merit (at Wellesley and as a published scholar).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meritocracy is mythical but conjuring up a phenomenon is all fine and dandy, evidently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meritocracy, for McIntosh, untethered from any association to competence, is merely a mythical story we tell ourselves to hide an obnoxious, unseen and cruel reality\u2026 an hypothesis silently and conveniently abandoned when self-interest kicks in and the world requires solace from\u2026 oh I don\u2019t know\u2026 Covid-19, say\u2026 or a visit is required to the emergency room to have a broken leg set\u2026 or a lawyer sought to argue a case against unfair dismissal, perhaps\u2026 or even if we need to argue the benefits of (or even invent) the concept of democracy itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whenever necessity insists, meritocracy suddenly ceases to be a myth\u2026 but until then, McIntosh can inhabit an hypothetical version of reality where it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Might I suggest, Peggy (may I call you Peggy?) that we send this one down to Winston in the MiniTrue RecDep and get him to append the definition of the word Meritocracy to include the word ‘myth.’ So much easier. Don’t mention it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My final observation concerns the \u2018systemic\u2019 nature of white privilege. Please bear with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh uses the word \u2018systemic\u2019 on three occasions\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.\u201d McIntosh fails to provide or cite any research, evidence or study findings that her anecdotal experiences and groundless hypotheses have truly uncovered privilege that can be described as \u2018systemic\u2019 in nature. It is merely stated and inferred without foundation; it is yet another mere assertion and one which the reader is led to assume and accept as fact in much the same way as ice is hot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am not arguing here that racism itself cannot be or isn’t systemic. System-wide inequities (perceived and real) exist for many distinct groups (and sub-groups), including those that can be categorised by race. McIntosh refers to this as \u2018systemic racism.\u2019 No argument there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet McIntosh is concerned with \u2018white privilege\u2019 which she fails to equate directly to the state of being \u2018systemic.\u2019 In other words, \u2018systemic white privilege\u2019 is simply not mentioned by McIntosh. Anywhere. It is left as a hanging inference that elicits the conclusion. Nifty footwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh does specifically refer to \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019 <\/em>as being \u2018systemic\u2019 directly and without inference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n White privilege therefore, is assumed not to be a mere adjunct of systemic racism but rather a foundational and inescapable requisite of systemic racism itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why is this important? Well, for me, this sleight of hand deftly introduces, conveniently unsaid (for 1988), the notion that a black person, privileged or not, simply cannot be racist; that racist privilege itself is a conscious or unconscious aspect of systemic racism only when applicable to a white person. Only white people can be racist. Neat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh refers to \u2018systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019<\/em> without evidence. We are merely encouraged to agree ‘cos obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, I am not arguing here that \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019 wasn\u2019t a thing, historically, or isn\u2019t a thing, today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, post-1960 western societies exhibit far less \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019<\/em> than western societies pre-1960, or during the 19th century or during the middle ages, or in antiquity. Surely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This should be, arguably, considered progress. Why might this be? Perhaps, once your rather giggly but occasionally racist (etc) grandparents pass away, they take both the giggles and the racism with them. Most grandchildren will remember the giggles fondly and forget the racism. Progress. And without the need for McIntosh\/DiAngelo. I am not advocating that we leave ‘progress’ to such passive and time-consuming measures, merely mentioning it. Much ‘progress’ in ‘the west’ since 1960 has occurred thanks to more active measures. Still\u2026 the curve has been – and still is – towards less \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That there are modern societies in 2020 that exhibit \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019<\/em> is also certainly true, and to a far greater degree than found in the US or UK or Canada or Australia or Germany, say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Study a \u2018non-western society\u2019 anywhere (Haiti, anyone?) in the world for an hour or so and come to your own conclusion as to the current degree of \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019<\/em> to be found. While you are at it, consider the state of racism (Haiti?) in whatever \u2018non-western society\u2019 you’ve looked at\u2026 or even slavery (Haiti?) itself\u2026 and if you still think McIntosh has a valid point, ask yourself if your ideological lens might be less surgical and precise than you think and perhaps more cracked and kaleidoscopic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, none of this is mentioned by McIntosh, yet it is vital to understand how societies develop over time and with respect to differences in culture, systemically, even\u2026 which itself is vital to understanding where along the curve of \u2018unearned male advantage and conferred dominance\u2019<\/em> we now stand in our \u2018western\u2019 culture\u2026 and, as a consequence, whether we should be unduly concerned about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ditto \u2018systemic racism.\u2019 Ditto \u2018white privilege.\u2019 Ditto \u2018white fragility.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n So having failed to put forward a coherent and infallible case for \u2018white privilege\u2019 just what \u2018systemic change\u2019 does McIntosh specify in order to counter white privilege or even systemic racism itself? She doesn\u2019t say. Which is not to say she doesn\u2019t say anything. Oh no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well there you have it. Thanks to McIntosh and armed with such advice, activists can be assured they have a coherent game-plan and weapons with which to combat white privilege and systemic racism. \/sarcasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McIntosh has presented a weak, flimsy and completely unconvincing essay. How on earth this masterpiece is considered ‘foundational’ is beyond me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we need to consider how McIntosh’s ‘insight’ into white privilege and systemic racism has been turned from a watery essay into a best-selling book whose concepts and tenets are considered the truetrue, such that if you dare to disagree, you put yourself at high risk of villification, cancellation, social shunning, or loss of employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘White Fragility’<\/strong> With a foreword by Michael Eric Dyson, no less\u2026 who, like DiAngelo, has made a living race-baiting via a thoroughly racist word-salad and frequent mention of Beyonc\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plusungood startwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we delve into DiAngelo proper\u2026 let’s take a peek at what Michael Eric thinks\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n DiAngelo brilliantly names a whiteness that doesn\u2019t want to be named, disrobes a whiteness that dresses in camouflage as humanity, unmasks a whiteness costumed as American, and fetches to center stage a whiteness that would rather hide in visible invisibility. Par for the tub-thumping Michael Eric course, then. And yes, he did mention Beyonc\u00e9, as ever. Keyser S\u00f6ze, too. But that’s enough Michael Eric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Surprisingly, given it’s quasi-religious pre-eminence, the seminal book ‘White Fragility’ contains even less of an evidenced argument than McIntosh’s essay. It is opinion followed by assertion interspersed with assumption and inference and a lot more assertion. True snake-oil lathered over logical fallacies aplenty shifted around in a shell game of at times impenetrable gobbledegook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DiAngelo utilises an almost unintelligible and benign-sounding Orwellian Newspeak to posit her unsubstantiated hypothesis and singularly doom the ‘white race’ to a future of permanent and continuous racial-bias seminar-attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And guess who is available, at $12,000 per 2-hour session, to deliver the seminar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s DiAngelo’s core hypothesis. Ready?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The universal human experience simply doesn’t exist. Such things as individuality (of character and personality) also don’t exist. Our personal ethical and moral choices are meaningless. Race\u2026 is all there is. All of us are exclusively and inescapably defined by our racial category and skin colour. White people more than others because they invented all racism. And when white people react – in any way – should you call them racist, well\u2026 they be fragile\u2026 which circles back to them being racist. And around and around. Forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If this isn’t racism, I’m not entirely sure what is. Racismist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We live in a culture that circulates relentless messages of white superiority. These messages exist simultaneously with relentless messages of black inferiority. But anti-blackness goes deeper than the negative stereotypes all of us have absorbed; anti-blackness is foundational to our very identities as white people. Whiteness has always been predicated on blackness.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “There was no concept of race or a white race before the need to justify the enslavement of Africans. Creating a separate and inferior black race simultaneously created the \u201csuperior\u201d white race: one concept could not exist without the other. In this sense, whites need black people; blackness is essential to the creation of white identity.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n How uninformed and clueless do you have to be to see merit in this bullshit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to DiAngelo’s assault on reality\u2026 prepare for newspeak\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n “When there is disequilibrium in the habitus\u2014when social cues are unfamiliar and\/or when they challenge our capital\u2014we use strategies to regain our balance. Habitus maintains our social comfort and helps us regain it when those around us do not act in familiar and acceptable ways. We don\u2019t respond consciously to disequilibrium in the habitus; we respond unconsciously. Bourdieu explains that \u201chabitus is neither a result of free will, nor determined by structures, but created by a kind of interplay between the two over time: dispositions that are both shaped by past events and structures, and that shape current practices and structures and also, importantly, that condition our very perceptions of these.\u201d In this sense, habitus is created and reproduced \u201cwithout any deliberate pursuit of coherence . . . without any conscious concentration.\u201d In the rare situation in which the white position is challenged, disequilibrium results.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, white fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress in the habitus 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. These behaviors, in turn, reinstate white racial equilibrium.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you understand that? Not really? Never fear\u2026 let me steal from Orwell and translate\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is bellyfeel blackwhite and doubleplusgood rectification. Pureplussimplewise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bellyfeel. Blind acceptance. Blackwhite. Belief regardless of fact. Doubleplusgood. Fantastic. Rectification. Manipulation of history. Pureplussimplewise. Fo sho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I particularly liked the ‘leaving the stress-inducing situation’<\/em> thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meaning\u2026 walk away. FFS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is more doublespeak, than newspeak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what is ‘White Fragility?’ Robin? Can I call you Robin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “White fragility may be conceptualized as a response or \u201ccondition\u201d produced and reproduced by the continual social and material advantages of whiteness. When disequilibrium occurs\u2014when there is an interruption to that which is familiar and taken for granted\u2014white fragility restores equilibrium and returns the capital \u201clost\u201d via the challenge. This capital includes self-image, control, and white solidarity. Anger toward the trigger, shutting down and\/or tuning out, indulgence in emotional incapacitation such as guilt or \u201churt feelings,\u201d exiting, or a combination of these responses results. Again, these strategies are reflexive and seldom conscious, but that does not make them benign.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Basically, any mostly-unconscious response a white person might possibly exhibit uponst being called a bigot or a racist, then. Equals ‘white fragility.’ So if I’m white, any conceivable form of a response, whether conscious or no\u2026 is\u2026 evidence of my\u2026 white fragility. Righto. How much are you charging for this oil, exactly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m curious, Robin\u2026 what do you think of Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech, delivered in 1963?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One line of King\u2019s speech in particular\u2014that one day he might be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin\u2014was seized upon by the white public because the words were seen to provide a simple and immediate solution to racial tensions: pretend that we don\u2019t see race, and racism will end. Color blindness was now promoted as the remedy for racism, with white people insisting that they didn\u2019t see race or, if they did, that it had no meaning to them.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Note that – according to DiAngelo – white people from 1963 to present – failed to hear King’s actual words but instead inserted ‘pretend we don’t see race and racism will end’ into their brainpans. Unconsciously, I assume. But then, what about the subtitles and transcripts and printings and reprintings? Continuous and mass unconsciousness coupled with white fragility and deliberate, racist, misunderstanding, I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what about the black public? Did they not ‘seize upon’ King’s words?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh Robin, your mask might be slipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Might this be a convenient straw man that DiAngelo can shoot at and destroy. You see, I have a sneaking suspicion that white and black people heard the actual words that King spoke and completely understood his aspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another by-product of this sleight of hand is that Robin doesn’t have to address the ‘content of character’ bit mentioned by King as the eminent desirable facet by which a human should be judged. Or perhaps this simply doesn’t register to DiAngelo. Race. Skin Colour. Is. All And Everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slightly shocking to see that of all people, Robin manages to mis-quote King, who actually said that he had a dream that his ‘four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.’<\/em> A more contextually-hopeful message for a not-far-off future, from King, I think\u2026 and one that DiAngelo instantly dashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving on\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Robin, do you not feel even slightly guilty for being unconsciously complicit in the perpetuation of white-invented concepts of race, for engaging in anti-black racism since birth, and for inhabiting such a privileged position, with an influential voice and truly marvellous hair?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don\u2019t see my efforts to uncover how race shapes my life as a matter of guilt. I know that because I was socialized as white in a racism-based society, I have a racist worldview, deep racial bias, racist patterns, and investments in the racist system that has elevated me. Still, I don\u2019t feel guilty about racism. I didn\u2019t chose this socialization, and it could not be avoided. But I am responsible for my role in it. To the degree that I have done my best in each moment to interrupt my participation, I can rest with a clearer conscience. But that clear conscience is not achieved by complacency or a sense that I have arrived.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike heavy feelings such as guilt, the continuous work of identifying my internalized superiority and how it may be manifesting itself is incredibly liberating. When I start from the premise that of course I have been thoroughly socialized into the racist culture in which I was born, I no longer need to expend energy denying that fact. I am eager\u2014even excited\u2014to identify my inevitable collusion so that I can figure out how to stop colluding! Denial and the defensiveness that is needed to maintain it is exhausting.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So\u2026 slightly fragile then, with a zesty twist of excited and a faint slap of exhausted\u2026 but not guilty. Gotcha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OK, Robin\u2026 how does all of this translate into action? What can a white person do to make society better and combat the scourge of visibly-invisible, conscious-unconscious systemic racism? How can a white person actually, truly – and by that I mean materially, pragmatically and substantively – assist black people to attain\u2026 erm\u2026 somesuch goodness of whatever hue?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There are many approaches to antiracist work; one of them is to try to develop a positive white identity. Those who promote this approach often suggest we develop this positive identity by reclaiming the cultural heritage that was lost during assimilation into whiteness for European ethnics. However, a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy. This does not mean that we should stop identifying as white and start claiming only to be Italian or Irish. To do so is to deny the reality of racism in the here and now, and this denial would simply be color-blind racism. Rather, I strive to be \u201cless white.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not not-white just less-white. Umerm. Glad I don’t have to become Irish. That’s a load off, right there. But hang on\u2026 I could try to develop a positive white identity that is\u2026 let me see\u2026 what did you call it\u2026 oh yes\u2026 an impossible goal? Oh and one sec\u2026 I’m a little confused when you said ‘inevitable collusion’ back there. That would tend to suggest that there’s not a helluva lot you can do about your collusioning, right? I mean, have you figured out how you can stop colluding yet? It being inevitable that you collude, and all. Sorry to press you but I think I’m getting a headache. It sounds like distant but swiftly approaching horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “To be less white is to be less racially oppressive. This requires me to be more racially aware, to be better educated about racism, and to continually challenge racial certitude and arrogance. To be less white is to be open to, interested in, and compassionate toward the racial realities of people of color. I can build a wide range of authentic and sustained relationships across race and accept that I have racist patterns. And rather than be defensive about those patterns, I can be interested in seeing them more clearly so that I might ameliorate them. To be\u2026”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry for interrupting you while you were in full flow\u2026 only\u2026 how might you ameliorate (nice word btw) your racist patterns? What do you mean by this? I thought you said whiteness was, in effect, unamelioratabubble? Never mind, I’ll just nip and grab an absinthe\u2026 drums, drums in the deep\u2026 please continue\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n “\u2026 less white is to break with white silence and white solidarity, to stop privileging the comfort of white people over the pain of racism for people of color, to move past guilt and into action. These less oppressive patterns are active, not passive. Ultimately, I strive for a less white identity for my own liberation and sense of justice, not to save people of color.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So I can be ‘less’ racially oppressive by becoming ‘less’ white but I can’t aim to be entirely free from being racially-oppressive because I can never be not<\/em><\/strong>-white? Ooookay\u2026 but how does that help black people? Also, you use the word ‘action’ but what do you mean by it and do I need to fetch a cloth? I think I need a tincture or unguent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you aren’t offended if I stop quoting you because I have a throbbing migraine and you are clearly spouting shite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least McIntosh was more succinct\u2026 if similarly vague and inane\u2026 when she stated\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Also shite, but much less newspeak. Have a housepoint, Peggy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the search for an actual solution remains\u2026 a solution that will help the racially-oppressed and materially-improve their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let’s have one final try\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n OK, so let’s assume that I’ve seen the light (thanks to Peggy and Robin) and I thoroughly accept that I am burstingwise full of racistism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look, white person\u2026 if you float, you are a witch. Deal with it. Stop complaining and step aside. Be quiet and be vocal simultaneously. Strive to be ‘less white.’ Tackle those that admit their racism because hello\u2026 they’re racist. Tackle those that deny they are racist because any denial IS racism. Tackle those that remain silent because all silence IS the most severe example of violent racism imaginable in modern society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And give her a call if you’ve got $$ to spare and Robin will jet to your corporate rescue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh and by tackle, I mean shun, point at, remove, sack, report, shout at, fist-shakingly label as bigot and racist, and scowlingly disengageful backturnwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And keep trying to be less white, failingwise. Don’t forget that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an insane Kafka Trap. And a surefire recipe for ever more ‘othering.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paraphrasing King – accurately, I believe – we should work on our character to ensure it is noble, fair, ethical and just\u2026 and then strive to act in accordance with that character\u2026 with the ultimate aim to be judged by the content of that character alone and never by one, single, immutable characteristic, that of the colour of our skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n King said it far better than that\u2026 but I felt I had to paraphrase because\u2026 DiAngelo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, to me at least (if not to Robin) this remains a true, powerful and non-divisive anti-racist goal for everyone, of whatever skin colour. A goal which, I believe, has been impactful and ameliorating. Such ‘colour-blindness,’ Robin, is not racist\u2026 and certainly not just because you say so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Robin, none of us white folk (\u2122Eric Micheal) will ever be judged by our individual character or actions or moral choices (no matter how beneficial such action or moral choice is to a non-white) and nothing we can do beyond a heartfelt and soulful – and pointless – acceptance of a permanent stain gifted to us by DiAngelo and her ilk can ever help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And here’s the truly execreble part\u2026 DiAngelo’s ‘White Fragility’ plays upon the emotion, care, concern, and compassion of every white person that not only wants to be seen to help but to truly and materially help the marginalised and oppressed\u2026 and it stains their very soul with an inescapable, original sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whites are now being exhorted to continually self-flagellate and proclaim their ‘whiteness’ before the altar of anti-racistism, with no respite or salvation in an eternal sisyphean endeavour to become ‘less white.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to Robin, you need no longer single out a white person for actually being ‘a racist’ but now you can single out a white person merely for being ‘white’ even if they have never had a racist thought or committed a racist anything, ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, white-equals-racist. Is this truly ‘progress?’ Does this help anyone? Apart from being complete bollocks, this does not offer a solution to racial oppression or discrimination\u2026 it merely adds to both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This book is the antithesis of a solution to racism. It promotes racism. It tele-evangelises racism and proclaims it eternal. In asserting an intent to combat systemic racism it actually implants and embeds racism into our very hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DiAngelo’s racist hypothesis goes far beyond that contained in ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ (there is no such thing as a good Jew free of sin) in that it seeks to raise the spectre of ‘whiteness’ (which includes privilege, fragility, colonialism, and every of-the-father sin imaginable) as the solitary defining characteristic of an entire skin-colour of people, forever\u2026 generation after generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the handbook of a racist belief system that promotes and pedestalises bigotry more than every holy book I am aware of (and I am aware of a good few). This book is dangerous. These ideas are dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is racist towards whites and non-whites. In case you missed that, this includes blacks. White privilege and systemic racism is incessant and intrusive and inescapable\u2026 for all races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DiAngelo – by advocating and championing such an obscene concept of ‘anti-racism’ – removes any agency or autonomy from black people, whom she silently curses to be subject to the never-ending influence of ‘white privilege.’ Black people are as trapped in this loop of oppressive ‘whiteness’ as white people are, with the distinction of being cast as the perpetual, if thoroughly innocent, victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I dread to read DiAngelo’s next installment, wherein she breaks down the constituent pre-requisites for delineating full-black, mostly-black, half-black, somewhat-black and semi-black with a side-order of black-passing\u2026 so that members of the full-whiteness to white-passing oppressor fraternity can more easily understand their own white privilege and finally see the degrees of white fragility they exhibit\u2026 fully-illustrated with skin-tonal charts, pastel-tinted graphs and with a handy cut-out white star to affix for ease of identification for societal-finger-point-shun purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ve been here before, Robin\u2026 and it is as ugly now as it was in the past. Stop it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find DiAngelo’s hypothesis truly disgusting and of absolutely no benefit to any human of whatever skin colour and under any circumstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Racism 2.0. That’s all this is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, everything I’ve just written merely proves Robin’s (Kafka Trap) point. Ich bin Fragile. Obviously. Where’s the duck pond and witches stool?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I briefly mentioned, none of this crap deals with the most-pervasive and destructive force in all western societies\u2026 that of wealth inequality, which arguably if not demonstrably lies at the root of all negative effects on every group, whatever method of categorisation you deploy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tackle wealth-inequality and by default you tackle all forms of oppression, disempowerment and discrimination simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But but but white fragility. Superplusgood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s no wonder that all we hear are teary-eyed salutations to \u2018end racism\u2019 and truly solutionless chants of \u2018no justice, no peace\u2019 from the devotees of McIntosh and DiAngelo. No clue, no answers. No purpose, no solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And no wonder our politicians, media, celebs, influencers (!), and activist body rush to cover their social-media presence with solid black squares in a gesture of solidarity with Black Lives Matter and exhort anyone within sight to truly consider their unearned white privilege and tackle systemic racism; it\u2019s easy. Thoughtless. Simple. Virtuous-seeming. Also pointless and meaningless. Solutionless. Oh I said that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s perhaps why Black Lives Matter themselves have gained such traction as they at least \u2018seem\u2019 to know what they\u2019re doing – and are clearly, visibly, taking action – which is far more than the black-square-social-media-crowd do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the protesting we have seen has been benign, peaceful and sincere but one thing we do know for sure\u2026 BLM are creating division, fear, chaos and anarchy on the coat-tails of legitimate outrage in order to sweep aside western culture and society and replace it with yet another anti-capitalist Marxist mirror of Stalinism and Maoism. They’ve been very clear about that in many interviews over the past five years. Their website espouses post-modern intersectionalism and they have a self-admitted ‘trained marxist’ leadership cadre. Their goals are not limited to the fair and just treatment of black lives or associated reforms within the criminal justice system, and\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf this country doesn\u2019t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It\u2019s a matter of interpretation.\u201d<\/em> Which beggars the question why BLM have been gifted millions from wealthy global corporations that are worth trillions. Really\u2026 ask yourself why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And why almost every western media outlet continues to ignore the massive number of black lives that have been lost since the ‘peaceful protests’ began. Black lives matter\u2026 but only when taken by a white person. The hypocrisy burns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the looting, fire-starting, smashing, daubing, destroying, and murderous thuggery of recent weeks you could hear – if you listened carefully and ignored the gunshots – shouts of ‘white privilege’ and ‘white fragility’ in amongst chants of ‘all cops are bastards’ and ‘kill all whites.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks, Peggy. Thanks, Robin. These expressions of hatred and violence are the result of the licence you have granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just how ‘radical’ are you when global super-corporations donate millions to your cause? With some hindsight, one might almost think we’re being divided and fractured as a distraction from the supremely-relevant question of ‘wealth-inequality.’ But that’s just me being cynical, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what can we do about racial injustice? McIntosh and DiAngelo have no valid suggestions\u2026 so\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Be good to your fellow humans. Be honest and honorable. Do not judge others by the color of their skin, or by any other immutable characteristic. Be kind, be grateful, be generous. And do not apologize for sins that you did not commit.”<\/em> Thanks Heather, it’s appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speak up. Be courageous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accept that western societies are less than perfect and that we are on a journey, together. Recognise that this journey began in the distant past and that the past contains good, bad, beautiful and ugly aspects which now exist as history and from which we can learn and build, make informed choices and true progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accept that racism exists, alongside many forms of prejudice and bias. Do not tolerate prejudice and counter it if and when and as you can\u2026 as an individual and part of the voting collective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accept that there are bastards out there\u2026 immoral, unethical, cruel and hateful bastards that actively seek to harm others. Like naive and reactive, brakeless children, these bastards hook themselves into whatever difference they see, whether difference by gender, race, culture, sexual orientation and preference – any difference, real or imagined – in order to spew and spout their hateful intolerance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dealing with such people requires a weapon. That weapon can only ever be the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accept that most people are not bastards and do not treat them as bastards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accept that there are incredible, tolerant, caring, kind, generous, understanding and nurturing people and that such characteristics are not dependent upon skin colour, or gender, or any immutable difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such people require not a weapon but a shield. That shield can only ever be the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the tenets of critical race theory as espoused by McIntosh and DiAngelo\u2026 white privilege and white fragility?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I reject them. Vehemently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I refuse to submit to any creed or dogma that comes between me and my love for any other human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if, after reading this, you believe me to be a racist bigot suffering from whiteness or white privilege and evidencing white fragility, then you can take your arrogance – that you know my heart more than I do – with you as you leave for your unattainable nirvana, safe in the knowledge that there will be a hug waiting for you should you ever decide to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Medusian. July 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty Four (1949)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some semi-related thoughts\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder if the best solution to ‘systemic racism’ is to adopt the model of Robin DiAngelo’s brain\u2026 given that she admits that she herself is racist in the classic, pre-DiAngelo sense\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I have made this assumption [of servitude] myself when I have been unable to hide my surprise that the black man is the school principal or when I ask a Latinx woman kneeling in her garden if this is her home.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Human societies confer privilege upon those individuals and groups within their society. To be a member of any group is to inhabit a position of privilege in comparison to non-members. In western, democratised human societies, such intentional privileges elicit or confer benefit by conceptual intent and stem from commonalities of taxation, voting, wellbeing, security, access to amenities and opportunity (amongst others).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Modern western societies are ordered and conceived such that benefit is attributed and accrued to all members\/citizens\u2026 and that societal ordering draws legislative power and authority from the voting process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Plato pointed out, the core system of democracy has many flaws and cannot be considered perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plato\u2019s critical observations were predominantly concerned with populism and the populist\u2019s tendency towards being unable to act swiftly at need and without the consent of the populace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Plato, the benefits of a \u2018philosopher-king\u2019 who was trained in leadership, educated and knowledgeable in all important matters, self-sacrificing, empathic and sympathetic to his subjects and who would (crucially) do what is right for the people irrespective of their whims and desires, were obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is tyranny, enlightened or no. It’s been tried. As has marxism. Read ‘Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China<\/em> by Robert Jay Lifton.’ Read ‘The Gulag Archipelago<\/em> by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within a democracy, hierarchies of competence and (non-mythical) merit (upon which virtually all human societal inter-relationships are based) can suffer from corruption which can accurately be described as a tyranny (often of power), whether within a family, community, work-place or nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such tyrannies cannot and do not last as they are oppressive, inefficient, and uncompetitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not to say that some tyrannies cannot be long-lived, or have an immense influence, or take effort and struggle to dismantle\u2026 or even that such a struggle does not take years, decades, or millennia before a state of uncorrupted hierarchy operating on principles of justice, fairness or equality is reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This process \u2013 of an accelerated struggle towards justice, fairness and equality of wellbeing and opportunity for all societal individuals \u2013 can be understood through the development of any western society from Graeco-Roman influences, through the enlightenment, to modern times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n History \u2013 no matter the pitfalls of the process \u2013 is vital to any understanding of the thing (society) that requires redesigning in light of actual injustice, unfairness, and lack of equality of wellbeing and opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attempts to redesign society in ignorance of history can only lead us to meander pointlessly down avenues already trod; avenues that have led to incalculable suffering and the deaths of millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attempts to redesign society based upon virtuous displays of compassion and emotion towards groups ideologically-perceived to be oppressed have resulted in genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n History is the only lens through which we can look at 20,000 years of human existence in an attempt to understand our mistakes and successes in order to ensure a steady accumulation of benefit (privilege) upon future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of us should aim and work to be privileged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ===<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1988 by Peggy McIntosh (Wellesley College Centres for Women).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance.\u201d
\u201cAlthough systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/medusian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/002.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
‘Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.’
2018 by Robin DiAngelo (Professor, Author, Lecturer)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
DiAngelo knows that what she is saying to white folk in this book is what so many black folks have thought and believed and said over the years but couldn\u2019t be heard because white ears were too sensitive, white souls too fragile.
DiAngelo joins the front ranks of white antiracist thinkers with a stirring call to conscience and, most important, consciousness in her white brothers and sisters.
Robin DiAngelo kicks all the crutches to the side and demands that white folk finally mature and face the world they\u2019ve made while seeking to help remake it for those who have neither their privilege nor their protection.
DiAngelo bravely challenges the collapse of whiteness into national identity.
Robin DiAngelo is the new racial sheriff in town. She is bringing a different law and order to bear upon the racial proceedings. Instead of covering up for a whiteness that refused to face up to its benefits and advantages, its errors and faults, she has sought to uphold the humanity of the unjustly maligned while exposing the offenses of the undeservedly celebrated.
White fragility is an idea whose time has come.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hawk Newsome (President of Greater New York BLM)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heather Heying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n