White Fragility, Chapter 10

 

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Garrett McLeod

Professor Heather Stewart-Steele

ENGL-1303

April 18, 2021

WF Ch. 10 Blog Response

            The point of this chapter is to list and discuss the rules of engagement from the perspective of someone with white fragility, and how these unwritten rules are used to obscure the central racial issue that is being addressed. I found myself agreeing to an extent with some of these rules of engagement, because I think that learning and mastering these rules of engagement and using this mastery to help overcome white fragility is how DiAngelo has achieved the recognition that she has. Not many people can use these rules of engagement to their advantage, from what I have picked up in the book it seems like DiAngelo is doing exactly that and I think it is commendable. Even if she may be listing them as derogatory and contributing to racism, once again I cannot help but think that some of the rules can be used as a tool. I do however understand DiAngelo’s fundamental point that these rules of engagement are on the whole perpetuating racism.

            An example of a rule of engagement that DiAngelo uses consistently throughout the conversations and even heated confrontations she talks about from the racial workshops is the use of a proper tone, whatever proper means for that particular moment in time. Whether it was the German woman claiming to have not picked up any form of racism because of her birthplace,

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or the woman who took up the emotional real estate which was meant for a black person, either of these could easily have warranted an insulting tone, but being the professional that she is, DiAngelo did not dismiss the use of a proper tone just because it may be giving into one of the white fragility rules of engagement. Another one is the idea that the relationship must be issue-free, this can clearly be manipulated because someone with white fragility could just keep claiming that there is an unresolved issue until they themselves are off the hook because the moment has passed. It is true though I think that an elephant in the room can make it hard to focus on the issue at hand, so it must be dealt with if only for practical purposes. The rule about being indirect is something that I think DiAngelo herself followed at times, she never directly calls anyone a racist, it is only the implications of her indirect wording that made some people not want to return to her workshops, so I can only imagine the lack of effectiveness when being more direct about it.

 There is one rule of engagement which I have talked about a lot in this class that I actually do not think that DiAngelo has focused enough on, which is the forms of oppression that many people within a group of oppressors themselves feel. To me this concept of the ability of someone to be both an oppressor and oppressed is absolutely crucial to making ground in defeating any form of oppression. Black Americans are without a doubt the most oppressed of any sub-group in America, however, is there no truth to the fact that focusing on one form of oppression to the detriment of all other forms could be counterproductive for all oppressed groups, even the group that is being prioritized to the detriment of others?