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" For a lot of white people, just suggesting that being white has meaning will trigger a deep, defensive response. And that defensiveness serves to maintain both our comfort and our positions in a racially inequitable society from which we benefit. "

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" Denying that race matters is irrational in the face of segregation and all of the other forms of obvious racial inequity in society... Maintaining this denial of reality takes tremendous emotional and psychic energy. "

Robin DiAngelo

Reality

Energy

Face

" Although racism does, of course, occur in individual acts, these acts are part of a larger system that we all participate in. The focus on individual incidences prevents the analysis that is necessary in order to challenge this larger system. "

" Whiteness is dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and on myriad levels. These processes and practices include basic rights, values, beliefs, perspectives and experiences purported to be commonly shared by all but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people. "

" White people are very wily when it comes to race. We will do everything that we can to get out from under the idea of race. "

" White fragility doesn't always manifest in overt ways; silence and withdrawal are also functions of fragility. "

" Many of us actively working to interrupt racism continually hear complaints about the 'gotcha' culture of white anti-racism. There is a stereotype that we are looking for every incident we can find so we can spring out, point our fingers, and shout, 'You're a racist!' "

" White consciousness is deeply anti-black, and that's for progressives and conservatives. "

" While everyone has racial bias, I reserve the word 'racist' to describe the bias that white people have - our collective bias is backed by institutional power. "

" What I do used to be called 'diversity training,' then 'cultural competency' and now, 'anti-racism.' These terms are really useful for periods of time, but then they get coopted, and people build all this baggage around them, and you have to come up with new terms, or else people won't engage. "

" As part of my work, I teach, lead and participate in affinity groups, facilitate workshops, and mentor other whites on recognizing and interrupting racism in our lives. "

" Most people, certainly faculty, believe that if they're for social justice, it's automatically integrated into whatever they do. "

" One cannot understand how racism functions in the U.S. today if one ignores group power relations. "

" The default of our society is the reproduction of racial inequality. I mean, that's what it does; that's what it's been doing for hundreds of years. "

" It became clear over time that white people have extremely low thresholds for enduring any discomfort associated with challenges to our racial worldviews. "

" White fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. "

" Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to racial prejudice and the personal actions that result. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced. "

" Racism has two primary functions: the oppression of people of color, which most people recognize, but also the simultaneous elevation of white people. You can't hold one group down without lifting the other up. "

" Until white people understand that racism is embedded in everything, including our consciousness and socialisation, then we cannot go forward. "

" The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people. "

" Whites often respond defensively when linked to other whites as a group or 'accused' of collectively benefiting from racism, because as individuals, each white person is 'different' from any other white person and expects to be seen as such. "

" I grew up poor and white. While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not. In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. "

" This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources - schools, textbooks, media - don't provide us with the multiple perspectives we need. "

" I do atypical work for a white person, which is that I lead primarily white audiences in discussions on race every day, in workshops all over the country. That has allowed me to observe very predictable patterns. And one of those patterns is this inability to tolerate any kind of challenge to our racial reality. "

" There's a lot of ways that white women undermine women of color, and black women in particular. "

" In aversive racism, the concept of racism is abhorrent to that person. But they're filled with racist conditioning and bias, as we all are. Because that conflicts with their identity as good people, they suppress it and are even more in denial about it. They are even more likely to erupt in defensiveness if it gets called out. "

" I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. "

" People of color understand what it means to be white more than I ever will. "

" You have to be in accountable relationships across race. Accountable means that they're authentic, they're sustained, and that you do talk about racism, and you are able to be given feedback. "

" There is no human objectivity. "

Robin DiAngelo

Objectivity

Human

" White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress. "