Robin DiAngelo

Robin J. DiAngelo (born September 8, 1956)[1] is an American academic, lecturer, and author working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies.[2][3] She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University and is currently an Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is known for her work pertaining to white fragility, a term which she coined in 2011.

Robin J. DiAngelo
DiAngelo appears for the Unitarian Universalist Association in 2020
Born
Robin J. DiAngelo

(1956-09-08) September 8, 1956
San Francisco, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
OccupationProfessor, Author, Lecturer
Known forWhite Fragility
Spouse(s)Jason Toews
Academic background
EducationUniversity of Washington
Alma materUniversity of Washington
Academic work
InstitutionsWestfield State University,
University of Washington
Notable ideasWhite fragility

Born to an Italian American family, DiAngelo received a PhD in multicultural education from the University of Washington in 2004; her thesis constituted a discourse analysis of whiteness. Becoming a professional academic, she taught at Westfield State University, where she became a tenured professor. In a 2011 academic paper she put forward the concept of white fragility, the notion that the tendency for white people to become defensive when confronted with potential racial advantage functions to protect and maintain that advantage.

Education and career

DiAngelo received her Ph.D. in multicultural education from the University of Washington in 2004, with a dissertation entitled "Whiteness in racial dialogue: a discourse analysis".[4] Her Ph.D. committee was chaired by James A. Banks.[3] In 2007, she joined the faculty of Westfield State University,[5] where she was named a tenured professor of multicultural education in 2014. She later resigned from her position at Westfield.[3] She now holds the position of Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington.[6] She holds two Honorary Doctoral degrees from Starr King Seminary (2019) and Lewis & Clark University (2017).[7] She frequently gives seminars discussing racism, which she argues is embedded throughout America's political systems and culture.[2]

Work

DiAngelo has been published extensively in peer reviewed academic articles and written several books. Her first book, co-written with Ozlem Sensoy, Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Critical Social Justice Education won both the American Educational Research Association's Critics' Choice Book Award (2012) and the Society of Professors of Education Book Award (2018).[8][9]

DiAngelo is known for her work regarding "white fragility", a term she coined in a 2011 peer-reviewed paper.[10][11][12] She has defined the concept of white fragility as "a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves." In the paper, she argues that, “White people in the U.S. and other white settler colonialist societies live in a racially insular social environment. This insulation builds our expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering our stamina for enduring racial stress. I term this lack of racial stamina White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimal challenge to the white position becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves including: argumentation, invalidation, silence, withdrawal and claims of being attacked and misunderstood. These moves function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and maintain control.” As of 2016, she regularly gives workshops on the topic.[13][14]

In June of 2018, DiAngelo published the book White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.[15]

Reception
See also: White Fragility § Reception

In a 2019 article for The New Yorker, the columnist Kelefa Sanneh characterized DiAngelo as "perhaps the country's most visible expert in anti-bias training, a practice that is also an industry, and from all appearances a prospering one".[16]

The economist and journalist Jonathan Church has published multiple articles appraising her "white fragility" thesis as a fallacy of reification brigaded by faulty science.[17][18]

In her book Diversity, Inc: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business, NYU journalism professor Pamela Newkirk criticises the diversity industry in the United States, including the type of diversity training programmes conducted by DiAngelo. Newkirk argues that such trainings do not work because they do not address the country's larger historical context of racial discrimination and violence, and in practice mainly aim at protecting businesses from costly discrimination lawsuits. New Republic journalist J.C. Pan argues that DiAngelo's and Newkirk's approaches to racial inequality are actually quite similar and both fail because they focus on raising consciences instead of tackling society-wide economic inequality, which could help disproportionately poor and deprived ethnic minorities.[19]

Bibliography
  • DiAngelo, R. (2012). What Does it Mean to be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy. Counterpoints (New York, N.Y.). Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-1116-7.
  • DiAngelo, R. (2018). White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-4741-5.
  • Sensoy, O.; DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education, Second Edition. Multicultural Education Series. Teachers College Press. ISBN 978-0-8077-5861-8.

References
  1. "Robin J. DiAngelo". Library of Congress.
  2. Demby, Gene (23 November 2016). "Is It Racist To Call Someone 'Racist'?". NPR.
  3. "About Me". Robindiangelo.com.
  4. DiAngelo, Robin (2004). Whiteness in racial dialogue: a discourse analysis (Ph.D. thesis). University of Washington.
  5. "Education Faculty & Staff". Westfield State University. Archived from the original on 2014-11-24.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  6. Devore, Molly (2 April 2019). "Author of 'White Fragility' discusses dangerous impacts of internalized white superiority". The Badger Herald.
  7. "Highlights: 2019 UUA General Assembly". Starr King School for the Ministry. 2 July 2019.
  8. "Critics' Choice Book Awards". American Educational Research Association.
  9. "Society of Professors of Education Book Award".
  10. DiAngelo, Robin (2011). "White Fragility". The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy. University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 3 (3).
  11. Adler-Bell, Sam. "Why White People Freak Out When They're Called Out About Race". Alternet.
  12. Bouie, Jamelle (13 March 2016). "How Trump Happened". Slate.
  13. Springer, Dan (17 August 2016). "Seattle offers classes on 'white fragility,' to explain roots of guilt". FoxNews.com.
  14. Hanchard, Jenna (28 July 2016). "Local workshop explores 'white fragility'". King5.
  15. Waldman, Katy (23 July 2018). "A Sociologist Examines the "White Fragility" That Prevents White Americans from Confronting Racism". New Yorker.
  16. Sanneh, Kelefa (August 12, 2019). "The Fight to Redefine Racism". The New Yorker. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  17. Church, Jonathan (24 August 2018). "The Problem with 'White Fragility' Theory". Quillette. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  18. Church, Jonathan (21 December 2018). "The Epistemological Problem of White Fragility Theory". areomagazine.com. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  19. Pan, J. C. (2020-01-07). "Why Diversity Training Isn't Enough". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2020-06-27.
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