80 pages • 2 hours read
Robin DiAngeloWhite Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Introduction
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
- Genre: Nonfiction; racial and social justice
- Originally Published: 2018
- Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
- Structure/Length: 12 chapters with introduction and resources; approx. 192 pages; approx. 6 hours, 21 minutes on audio
- Central Concern: DiAngelo explores how white people should address racism, challenge its entrenched forms, and escape racist assumptions.
- Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racism and white supremacy; race relations; the role gender plays in racism and race relations
Robin DiAngelo, Author
- Bio: American academic, lecturer, author; consultant and trainer; former professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University; an Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington; coined the term “white fragility” in a 2011 academic essay in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy
- Other Works: Is Everybody Really Equal? (with Özlem Sensoy; 2012); What Does it Mean to Be White? (2012); Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm (2021)
- Awards: Starred review from Publishers Weekly (2018)
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
- How White Resistance to Thinking and Talking About Race Leads to Complicity in Systemic Racism
- Discomfort as a Trigger
- Children’s Socialization in a Racist Society
STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:
