White Fragility Blog Post Chapter 11

 

Garrett McLeod

Professor Heather Stewart-Steele

ENGL-1303

May 2, 2021

White Fragility Chapter 11 Blog Response

            The main purpose of this chapter is to point out a specific form of self-victimization that white women in particular seem to engage in on a fairly regularly basis, judging from her experience engaging with people in racial workshops. Playing the victim is something that men and women do equally but it is probably true that women, and in this case white women because they are the members of the oppressing group, tend to use tears in order to both gain sympathy and distract from the issue at hand while men would play the victim in a different way. It is important to never automatically dismiss the feelings of anyone, so caution must be used when trying to determine whether self-victimization is in fact what is going on, otherwise you might be taking the risk of alienating someone who was not in fact playing the victim.

            DiAngelo was approached by a black woman before a meeting that was centered around providing each other support after the shooting of another unarmed black man occurred. The woman said that she was “in no mood for white women’s tears today.”, effectively indicating that she has experienced the hijacking of conversations that were meant to be centered on issues affecting the black community specifically. Our preconceived notions can impact our emotions, a good example that DiAngelo gives is the perception that only bad people are racist being the cause oftentimes of an emotional outburst of white fragility. On the other hand the opposite could be possible if racism is perceived rightly as something that will inevitably be a part of all of us because of the culture we grew up in, but at the same time does not define our personality nor make us who we are so long as we acknowledge it when it manifests itself however that may be.

            Relating the current use of white women’s tears to the history of horrifying violence towards black men because of these tears shows that it is not a frivolous issue of simply being uncomfortable with white women hijacking a conversation by playing the victim, there have been serious consequences to this occurrence.

            DiAngelo discussed an instance where a white woman attempted to speak for a black man at a racial workshop and had her action pointed out as potentially racist, and then proceeded to burst into tears, effectively turning everyone’s attention towards her. Despite being on the same page with DiAngelo in terms of the validity of what she is pointing out, I do not agree with outright telling a white woman whether it is around the group or individually that she should not shed tears in a certain context because it is impossible to know for sure that she will not be alienated, which is important. The correct solution to the problem of self-victimization is unclear but I do not think that is the right answer. Overall though I agree with the points she is trying to make about white women's tears negatively impacting the dynamics of a racial conversation.