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

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key plot points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Author’s Note-Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. What are the two key ideas that provide the framework for DiAngelo’s text, as described in the Author’s Note?

2. Who coined the term “white fragility”?

3. What is one way DiAngelo suggests that white people can learn to see themselves “in racial terms”?

Short-Answer

Answer each of the following questions in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In 1-2 sentences, describe how DiAngelo defines “white fragility.”

2. What advice does DiAngelo give to white readers who may feel uncomfortable while reading White Fragility?

3. What group of people is DiAngelo speaking to in White Fragility, and why is it important?

Paired Resource

“How ‘white fragility’ reinforces racism”

• In this video from Guardian News, the author herself provides an overview of her concept “white fragility.”
• How does defensiveness contribute to white people’s tendency to resist talking about race? This connects to one of the book’s major themes of how Resistance to Thinking and Talking about Race Leads to Complicity in Systemic Racism.

Dr. Eddie Moore’s 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge

• DiAngelo recommends participating in Dr. Moore’s 21-Day challenge in the video above for white viewers who want to take action.
• The challenge’s core goal is to “[f]or 21 days, do one action to further your understanding of power, privilege, supremacy, oppression, and equity.”
• What is the value of prioritizing incremental change in dismantling Discomfort as a Trigger?

Chapters 2-4

Reading Check

1. The definition of “race” constantly shifts meaning to perpetuate what system?

2. What is the word for the kind of action prejudice often leads to?

3. What are the 3 types of racism that DiAngelo discusses in Chapter 3?

4. What are the two major precepts of critical race theory that undergird DiAngelo’s analysis, particularly in this section?

Short-Answer

Answer each of the following questions in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is one consequence of white people’s tendency to assume they are exempt from having to think or talk about racial identity, as discussed in Chapter 2?

2. How does DiAngelo define color-blind racism, as opposed to aversive racism?

3. What is DiAngelo’s concept of “racial innocence” and why is it problematic?

4. What is an example of the adaptive nature of racism?

Paired Resource

“Aversive Racism”

• In this video from University of Queensland’s Introduction to Social Psychology course, the professor explores the concept of “aversive racism.”
• How is aversive racism a particularly insidious tool in Children’s Socialization in a Racist Society?

"Why Americans are so divided over teaching critical race theory"

• This PBS NewsHour clip gives an overview of the debate about teaching a critical race theory curriculum.
• DiAngelo’s analysis in White Fragility relies on the tenets of critical race theory, insofar as it helps us understand why white people’s Resistance to Thinking and Talking about Race Leads to Complicity in Systemic Racism
• How does this clip demonstrate the general public’s misunderstanding of the ideas undergirding critical race theory?

Chapters 5-7

Reading Check

1. What is one example of a common argument that white people will make to illustrate that they are not racist?

2. What is one example of anti-Blackness in contemporary American culture?

3. What is the definition of “habitus”?

Short-Answer

Answer each of the following questions in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the new social binary that emerged in the wake of the civil rights movement, and what is this binary’s defining features?

2. What are some of the root causes of white fragility DiAngelo cites in this section?

3. Why is the concept of Blackness inextricable from the creation of white identity, according to DiAngelo?

Paired Resource

“Anti-Black racism is making us sick”

• Lydia-Joi Marshall, a Toronto-based researcher and President of the Black Health Alliance, talks about how being Black amid anti-Blackness affects a person’s experience of the healthcare system.
• How does Marshall say that white people’s Discomfort as a Trigger is affecting Black people’s health?

Chapters 8-11

Reading Check

1. DiAngelo sees white fragility as a deep-rooted conflict that affects most white people in the United States, especially for those who identify as belonging to what political group?

2. What is the only way that true anti-racist work can begin, according to DiAngelo in Chapter 8?

3. What is one example of the range of emotions white people might express when they feel challenged about whiteness and racism?

4. What does DiAngelo recommend white people foster in themselves in order to deeply examine their own participation in racist beliefs and patterns of behavior?

Short-Answer

Answer each of the following questions in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does white people’s moral objection to racism, combined with their being socialized into America’s culture of white superiority, lead them to deny any complicity with white supremacy?

2. In what way are “white women’s tears” a common visible manifestation of white fragility?

3. What are some of the ways in which white fragility “distort[s] reality,” according to DiAngelo?

4. Explain why it is problematic when a white person responds to an accusation of racism with something like “I just said one little innocent thing” (119).

Paired Resource

“Amy Cooper Charged: Why White Women Privilege Must Be Dismantled”

• In this sociological discussion about Amy Cooper, the white woman who falsely accused a Black birdwatcher in Central Park, the concept of “white women privilege” serves to further strengthen and support DiAngelo’s concept about “white women’s tears”
• How does white women’s Discomfort as a Trigger play a special role in maintaining white supremacy in American culture?

Chapter 12

Reading Check

1. In DiAngelo’s alternative paradigm for how white people can respond to feedback about racism, what are some of the emotions that could come up instead of defensiveness, fear, and anger?

2. DiAngelo instructs white people they should remind themselves of what fact to reduce their feelings of guilt for perpetuating racism?

Short-Answer

Answer each of the following questions in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does DiAngelo conclude there is no such thing as a positive white racial identity?

2. What are some common features of the alternate paradigm DiAngelo recommends that white people use to combat racism?

Recommended Next Reads

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

• This #1 New York Times bestselling book explores racism—and antiracism—in America
• Built on the premise that race is a social construct, Stamped helps young readers understand systemic racism and Children’s Socialization in a Racist Society
• Stamped on SuperSummary

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

• Recommended reading by DiAngelo, Layla F. Saad’s bestselling nonfiction book and workbook published in 2020 is structured around a 28-day antiracism journaling challenge
• In asking white readers to participate in this challenge, it challenges them to examine their Discomfort as a Trigger and explore their Complicity in Systemic Racism.
• Me and White Supremacy on SuperSummary