Prüfungsleistung [Teresa Krems]

 

Diangelo, Robin (2018): White Fragility. Why it´s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston: Beacon Press. S. 39-50

 

Dieses Kapitel des englisch-sprachigen Buches ist bereits in Abschnitte aufgeteilt, weswegen ich mich bei dem folgendem Allgemeinen Exzerpt daran orientiert habe. Wichtige Begriffe sind kursiv geschrieben und Anmerkungen, die nicht aus dem Buch stammen, mit *…* gekennzeichnet.

 

CHAPTER 3: RACISM AFTER THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

 

New racism shows how racism has adapted with time and that the racial outcome through modern norms, policies and practices is the same as in the past, while it seems to be not explicitly racist. Even though everybody says he/she is not or they are not racist, “racism still exist“ (S. 40). This is because racism is extremly adaptive and therefore we have to be able “to identify how it changes over time“ (S. 40). Racial inequality is still existing, while all white people are exempted from any involvement or benefit. “All systems of oppression are adaptive“ (S. 40), have really deep roots and cannot be defeated by a passage of legislation.

 

COLOR-BLIND RACISM

Color-blind racism is an example for the ability of racism to adapt to the cultural changes. A line of Dr. Martin Luther Kings “I Have a Dream“-speech in 1963 produced the idea that if you do not notice race, there cannot be racism. Back then it was more acceptable in a society to accept racial prejudices and white racial superiority as a white person. It became less socially acceptable after white people saw the kind of violence black human beings experienced while fighting for the civil rights. The white population did not want to be associated with these violent acts. The Civil Rights Act that bans any discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin or religion passed in 1964. After hearing the line “that one day he might be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin“ (S. 41) white people thought when saying they see no race or it does not matter to them, racism would end. Another common statement regarding color blindness is that it is racist to say that race matters. But dennying to notice blackness is not helpful and does not challenge racism in our society. It is refusing the reality of black people and their life experiences through projecting the white reality onto them. Imagine an iceberg. At the tip is the conscious awareness of racism, meaning the ´good´ intentions and the supposed acknowledgement of racism which is extremly small. But when you look under the surface you see the depth of the racism happening in our society: “messages, beliefs, images, associations, internalized superiority and entitlement, perceptions, and emotions“ (S. 42). And through the belief in color blindness it gets difficult to address the lower part of this iceberg. This color-blind ideology helps to hold racism in place. Furthermore it is difficult to challenge racial bias because they are mostly unconscious and uncomfortable to admit. So people react with the for white fragility typical defensivness. But something that you refuse to see cannot be changed.

 

AVERSIVE RACISM

Aversive racism refers to human beings with the self-image that they are educated and progressive. They enact racism, while still having a positive image about themselves. Typical is  the use of “racially coded terms such as urban, underprivileged, diverse, sketchy, and good neighborhoods“ (S.43), naming other causes than racism for inequality or indirectly creating boundaries with the use of ´us´ and ´them´. Therefore exchanges represent the black population in a negative and stereotypical way without directly naming race. Thus racial disdain is expressed, but it is not admitted, because it does not fit the self-image nor the beliefs. But what if the neighborhood with mostly black people is really more dangerous? Adressing this danger is a sign of racism, because research shows that race influences how you perceive criminal activity. The term race talk describes the everyday use of racial symbols and signs only to put African American at the lowest level in the racial hierarchy. For example by refering to ´us´ and ´them´. Once again this type of racism only protects the whole, because something we do not admit cannot be challenged.

 

CULTURAL RACISM

Reasearch shows that white children already start developing a sense of white superiority in preschool, because society expresses constantly that it is better to be white than a POC. Millennials often say that racism ended with Barack Obamas election. But Donald Trumps presidency showed the opposite of a postracial situation.

*Millennials are people born from 1980 until 2000. (Duden)*

The sociologists L. Picca and J. Feagin did a study with 626 white people, who are visiting twenty-eight different colleges across the US. Their task was to document and observe every element of racism in their daily life for six to eight weeks. More than seventy-five hundred comments and actions were written down. One shown dynamic is how high the expose to racism and participation in racism of young people is. Another is the false belief that a ´good´ person cannot be a racist. When a POC was present [called front-stage setting] white students acted like the following: overly nice, no use of racial terms and labels, negative code words about POC, avoiding any contact, sometimes violent towards POCs. When the room was only filled with white people [called backstage setting] humor was often used. Picca and Feagin name “to create white solidarity and to reinforce the ideology of white and male supremacy“ (S. 49) as the purpose for this behavior through which racism does not stop circulating. One norm of todays culture is hiding, denying and not challenging our racism. The latter is actually socially penalized.

 

These adaptations of racism are more threatening than for example Jim Crow.

*Jim Crow Laws legalized racial segregation in the US and existed until 1968. They denied African Americans the right to vote, have jobs, get an education and other opportunities. https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws *

These adaptations have the same outcome, but the dominant white society puts them in place. This intransigence of not willing or cannot admiting its beliefs is a part of white fragility: the refusal to know.