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
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote discusses how a lack of exposure to racial stress shapes white people's expectations and comfort levels regarding race.
Robin Diangelo highlights how white individuals in North America are often sheltered from the realities of racial stress due to their social environment. This insulation not only fosters expectations of comfort in racial interactions but also diminishes their capacity to deal with racial tension when it arises, thus suggesting that privilege can lead to an inability to engage with important social issues.
Themes
RacePrivilegeComfortStressExpectations
In practice
Example use cases
During a diversity training seminar, this quote can be used to illustrate the concept of racial privilege.
More from Robin Diangelo
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Robin DiangeloRead
White consciousness is deeply anti-black, and that's for progressives and conservatives.
Robin DiangeloRead
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