White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-book review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. What does “saliency” mean in the discussion of racial identities?

A) Black people’s greater visibility than white people’s in the educational system

B) The comparative importance and visibility of different identities in different contexts

C) Ways in which different identities, especially those involving race, shift over time

D) Ways in which Black people must “code switch” to assimilate in certain contexts

2. Fill in the blanks with the words closest to DiAngelo’s argument in Chapter 2: Race is a ______ construct that shifts ____________.

A) Biological; as evolution changes biology over time

B) Genetic; if your family is multi-racial

C) Social; meanings to perpetuate white supremacy

D) Reversible; to a new identity, if the individual so chooses

3. According to DiAngelo, which example of racism existed in the United States before the arrival of European colonizers?

A) Racism between the Navajo and Apache tribes

B) Racism between Eastern and Western Indigenous tribal nations

C) Racism between Indigenous tribes in the continental United States and Canada

D) None of the above

4. How does DiAngelo define “whiteness”?

A) It is a racial category devoid of any real genetic or biological markers

B) It is an American-centric term meant to describe non-Black individuals

C) It is the group of people who have their origins in the Caucasus mountain region

D) It is a racial category that refers to a global community of individuals who descended from Ireland

5. What is the primary purpose of DiAngelo’s personal anecdote about having been born in a hospital that was organized by race?

A) It emphasizes the myriad of ways that white privilege functions in individual lives

B) It shows how she overcame racism, despite being born into a racist society

C) It tells us her parents were civil rights activists who regretted that she wasn’t born in a racially progressive hospital

D) It describes the first time her family witnessed the way that Black children were treated

6. Why does DiAngelo see white solidarity as one of the most important social aspects of white identity?

A) Because it allows white people to avoid confronting racism

B) Because it allows white people to have a sense of racial identity

C) Because it gives white people a sense of shared community

D) Because it gives white people a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives

7. In her discussion in Chapter 5 about white people perceiving racism as an act, not a system of beliefs, DiAngelo says: “For most whites, however, racism is like ____: the concept exists, but someone has to commit it in order for it to happen” (72). Fill in the blank.

A) Assault

B) Theft

C) Murder

D) Vandalism

8. What movie does DiAngelo analyze in Chapter 6 to demonstrate how anti-Blackness allows white people to deflect and project their own negative emotions onto Black subjects?

A) Dangerous Minds

B) Coach Carter

C) Freedom Writers

D) The Blind Side

9. What is the root identity at the heart of “white equilibrium,” according to DiAngelo?

A) That whiteness is equal to all races

B) That white people are superior to Black people

C) That white people are American, first and foremost

D) That white people are good people, free of racism

10. Which answer best describes how white fragility prevents white people from truly becoming anti-racist, as described in Chapter 9?

A) It silences otherwise productive discussions about racism, denies racism as a problem, and maintains white solidarity

B) It makes white people feel regretful rather than angry about systemic racism

C) It gives white people a negatively distorted view of the issues associated with institutional racism

D) It saps the energy white people would need to truly comprehend and confront racial oppression

11. How does DiAngelo define “white equilibrium”?

A) A state when Black and whites will be equal in society

B) A cultural moment when “white fragility” is balanced out by “white stamina”

C) A state of racial comfort rooted in the identity of being good people free of racism

D) A historical moment when white people became the majority in the United States

12. For DiAngelo, white identity is inherently what?

A) Racist

B) Bad

C) Flawed

D) Fragile

13. At the end of the book, DiAngelo emphasizes that white people must break the silence about race by discussing it with whom?

A) Their kids

B) Other white people

C) Black people

D) The government

Long-Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. How do white fragility and white people’s tendency to feel “racially comfortable” relate to one another, according to DiAngelo?

2. When DiAngelo asks the poignant question “How have we managed not to know, when the information is all around us?” in Chapter 12, what is she referring to?