The goal of my work is to make visible the inevitable racist assumptions held, and patterns displayed, by white people conditioned from living in a white supremacist culture.
Robin DiangeloRead
One of the things I try to work with white people on is letting go of our criteria about how people of color give us feedback. We have to build our stamina to just be humble and bear witness to the pain we've caused.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of humility and understanding in conversations about race and the experiences of marginalized communities.
Robin DiAngelo's quote highlights the necessity for individuals, particularly those from privileged backgrounds, to approach feedback from people of color with humility and openness. It suggests that instead of imposing personal standards on how feedback is given, one must learn to listen and acknowledge the pain caused by systemic injustices, fostering a more empathetic and constructive dialogue around race.
In practice
This quote can be used in a diversity training workshop to encourage participants to listen more effectively.
The goal of my work is to make visible the inevitable racist assumptions held, and patterns displayed, by white people conditioned from living in a white supremacist culture.
Whites often respond defensively when linked to other whites as a group or 'accused' of collectively benefiting from racism, because as individuals, each white person is 'different' from any other white person and expects to be seen as such.
One of the most important misunderstandings for white people to get over to move forward is this idea that racism is a good-bad proposition - that if we're good we can't be part of it, that being uncomfortable means you're a terrible person. We have to let go of that and understand it as a system we all live in.
You have to be in accountable relationships across race. Accountable means that they're authentic, they're sustained, and that you do talk about racism, and you are able to be given feedback.
This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources - schools, textbooks, media - don't provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.
White consciousness is deeply anti-black, and that's for progressives and conservatives.
No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you. The community can let you experience the fact that, beyond your anguish, there are human hands that hold you and show you God's faithful love.
Every child needs to have for itself not only its loving parents and siblings and friends of its own age, but a grown-up friend.
Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation.
The great secret of a successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters.
I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.
If you treat every person you meet as if he or she were the most important person in the world, you'll communicate that he or she is somebody - to you.
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