It’s time to bring out the cake and blow out the candle! Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility has spent one full year on the New York Times Best Seller List! This has been an incredible year for DiAngelo, her book, and Beacon. White Fragility is only a year old and has been a bestseller since it went on sale!

The book has been spotlighted on independent bookstore bestseller lists, too! For twenty-nine weeks, it’s been on the Indie Bestsellers List (it’s currently #9), and for most of the year has popped up on nine regional lists, such as New England, the Pacific Northwest, Southern, New Atlantic—just to name a few.

What does this amazing year mean to Robin DiAngelo? “While I knew there was interest in developing the concept, I could not have expected this level,” she said. “Having language to describe a very familiar experience (white emotional irrationality, ignorance, arrogance and resistance on issues of racism) has been incredibly important for people of color and helped counter the white denial and gaslighting. It has also been important for white people to have these patterns named and challenged, making it harder to engage in them without accountability. Making it harder to engage in white fragility interrupts a key way that racism is protected and minimizes the pain we inflict on people of color. While racism is a highly adaptive system, right now I do feel some hope about that!” Doing the work of confronting white fragility is the way forward if we want to make the just society we want a reality. Because as DiAngelo wrote in her Guardian essay, “niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off.”

Our director, Helene Atwan, is just as thrilled with the success. “All of us at Beacon feel very lucky, as well as very proud, to have published Robin DiAngelo’s culture-rocking book. It’s not only thrilling to have a book on the New York Times Best Seller list, almost all 52 weeks in the top 5, but to have a book which has so much to offer readers, and so many correctives for addressing our white supremacist culture. I would say we’ve all learned from the book, and we’ve heard from hundreds of readers who have valued it as well. Finally, the book has contributed to the strengthening of the press in immeasurable ways.”

Rachael Marks, the book’s editor, reflected on what working on it and readers’ interactions with it have meant to her. “I learned a great deal about myself from editing White Fragility, and it’s been rewarding and heartening to see readers have similarly illuminating experiences. This is a challenging book that demands to be wrestled with, and we’ve seen readers do just that. I’ve particularly enjoyed seeing readers post pictures of their copies on social media. Their well-loved books—replete with notes in the margins, highlighted text, Post-it Notes on various pages—are a testament to how readers are engaging with the ideas in the book.”

During its first year in print, the very term DiAngelo coined, “white fragility,” was officially added as an entry on Dictionary.com. “Dictionaries catalog new words that reflect the national conversation,” DiAngelo said in USA Today. Naming and defining “white fragility” helps increase the public’s understanding of systemic racism and disrupts the way it’s upheld.

Now that we have the language to talk about it, more people want to know how to dismantle it, and that requires guided and constructive discussion. Guides developed for the book are available on our website and will help facilitate these discussions for various audiences. One audience is educators. In a school system in which the teaching population remains primarily white and the student population continues to become more racially diverse, it’s necessary for them to develop skills to engage in conversations about bias, race, and racism—especially their own. Our discussion guide for educators is designed to help them work through these conversations. For Unitarian Universalists who want to disrupt racism in their communities, we have a discussion guide that opens paths for white participants coming to terms with their own and others’ fragile, defensive, and coded responses when a conversation turns to race. Other groups can download our guide for readers with questions that will deepen reflection and understanding of the chapters and constructively inform responses to white fragility. This guide makes recommendations for group size, group composition, how to monitor the group, and more.

Guess who else is seeking her book to face white fragility head on? Organizations! Many have reached out to us and to DiAngelo to make copies of it available as a resource to their staff. We’ve heard from Google, Amazon, The Seattle Times, Teach for America, MIT Press, Teaching Tolerance, and sixty more, including schools and other companies.

There’s another way to check your white fragility. Remember the quiz we posted on our website? Since launching it last year, it has received over 20,000 responses. If you still haven’t taken it, you can celebrate the book’s anniversary by doing so!

Other ace-level public figures have taken notice of the book, too. Actor and comedian John Roberts, famous for his role as Linda Belcher on the animated series Bob’s Burgers, added it on his summer reading list. Actor Matt McGorry from Orange Is the New Black and How to Get Away with Murder shared with his followers on Instagram that he was reading the book. Comedian and actor DL Hughley regrammed a post featuring the book. Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts added it to her Introduction to Activism reading list.

And to add to the confetti, let’s run through some of the incredible media coverage she’s received since publication date! It all started with a Q&A from USA Today, The New Yorker’s in-depth review, and an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition. One topic from the book that received a lot of attention was the role of white women in systemic racism, and pieces from Elle and Harper’s Bazaar explored that issue in detail. DiAngelo’s op-ed with NBC.com's Think discussed racial illiteracy in white people, while her Q&A on Slate focused on why progressives find it so hard to confront their own contributions to racism in America. The book has also received extensive coverage in other outlets: Weekend Edition, Pacific Standard, Sojourners, Washington Post, Vox, the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, MPR News, and The Record on KUOW Seattle. Michel Martin interviewed DiAngelo to ask her what she recognized as her own unconscious bias on PBS’s Amanpour & Company. She spoke in featured video pieces on Refinery29's online program Strong Opinions Loosely Held, The Big Think, and NBC.com. And Teaching Tolerance had a Q&A with her to discuss why working against one’s own fragility is a necessary part of white anti-racist work. Whew!

So, what’s coming up next? We’re expecting to see White Fragility make an appearance this fall on Chelsea Handler’s upcoming docuseries Chelsea Does, which will follow Handler’s journey of understanding white supremacy and privilege. We’re publishing DiAngelo’s next book, which is about the need for white people to break with white solidarity in order to better support efforts toward racial equality. It’s tentatively scheduled for release in late fall 2020 or spring 2021. And, of course, DiAngelo’s work is never done. She remains as busy as ever, touring with the book and giving workshops around the country and abroad.

Happy anniversary to Robin DiAngelo and her culture-rocking book!

Author photo: Gabriel Solis

We’ve reached another milestone with Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, celebrating thirty-three weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List! It’s climbed as high as number two in the listing. And now, we’re excited to announce that we’re signing a second book with DiAngelo that will build on the conversation that started with White Fragility. The follow-up book will explore the need for white people to break with white solidarity in order to better support efforts toward racial equality. It is tentatively scheduled for release in late fall 2020 or spring 2021.

“We did not imagine that this book would become the fastest selling book in Beacon’s history,” our director Helene Atwan said. “It says so much about this moment in our nation, where we’ve heard repeatedly about a surge in white supremacist movements, that a book like Robin’s can serve as such a powerful counter to those ideologies and make such an impact. It gives me renewed hope that the arch of history is bending toward justice, no matter what we’ve witnessed in the last two years.”

DiAngelo has worked in the field of racial justice as an associate professor, sociologist, and educator for more than two decades. After coining the term “White Fragility” in 2011, she has become one of the most sought-after voices in the public conversation about whiteness and white reactions to the topic of race. Editor Rachael Marks notes that the book’s success makes clear that readers connected with the idea that white people need to start taking responsibility for their role in systemic racism, despite how difficult the task may seem. “The response has been incredible and heartening, because this isn’t an easy book, especially for white progressives,” she said. “Robin doesn’t peddle in white guilt or shame, but at the same time she doesn’t hold back any punches. It’s been incredible to see white readers acknowledge discomforting truths about the damage we often unintentionally inflict on people of color. Many report that they put down this book more prepared to upset the status quo, to come out of our racial comfort zones and do the hard work of looking in the mirror and begin chipping away at white supremacy.”

While on tour discussing her life’s work, DiAngelo draws in tens of thousands of people to events across the country, and more recently, across the globe. Having recently returned from a series of successful events in Australia earlier this winter, and with forthcoming stops planned in Canada and the UK, the message of White Fragility continues to inspire readers to reassess their role in their communities, workplaces, and society as a whole. Resources that will help readers understand and utilize the book more fully are also available. You can download our discussion guide and also one developed specifically for Unitarian Universalist communities. A guide for K-12 educators is also in development.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive response, there is still much work to be done. Not everyone has been open to the challenging message about learning to understand and overcome one’s own inherent racism. Negative reviews and hate mail continue to come through from readers who are offended by the book’s content. Meanwhile, our bus ads promoting the book were rejected by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (whose people in charge of approving ads may not have liked the cover and title—an example of peak white fragility if you ask us!) and by the Washington (DC) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. But we did get to see them in Atlanta buses!

What is there to do until DiAngelo comes out with her next book? If you’re white and reading this post, continue to confront and challenge your white fragility. As she writes in her op-ed in the Guardian, that entails “acknowledging ourselves as racial beings with a particular and limited perspective on race.” This demands courage and constant work, and our discussion guide provides the structure for these difficult yet necessary conversations. If you’re looking for additional resources, DiAngelo has a selection listed on her website. Dismantling white supremacy starts here.

By Linda Schlossberg

Like many white Americans, I read To Kill a Mockingbird in junior high and loved it. Published in 1960, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel is told from the point of view of young Scout, whose father, the lawyer Atticus Finch, defends a black man falsely accused of rape. Scout’s innocent and appealing voice is an accessible vehicle for discussing race relations, and the novel has become a staple of school curricula. Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Atticus in the 1962 film. The novel’s previously unpublished and controversial sequel, Go Set A Watchman, hit bestseller lists a few years ago. And Aaron Sorkin’s highly-anticipated Broadway adaptation, produced by Scott Rudin and starring Jeff Daniels, is certain to sell out. It’s no wonder that Mockingbird, published almost sixty years ago, emerged the winner of PBS’s The Great American Read television series, where viewers could vote, American Idol style, for their favorite novel.

But there’s a reason Mockingbird is assigned to thirteen-year-olds. The moral message of the novel is a simplistic one: Racism is bad. Very, very bad.  Also, bad people are racists. Good people, the reader is assured, are not racists.

The novel tells us very clearly which side we’re on. As readers, we are aligned with Scout and by extension Atticus, who embodies rational, educated “racial tolerance,” in sharp contrast to the novel’s depiction of an angry, ignorant, racist mob. Everything in the reading experience of the novel—our easy alliance with Scout, our comfortable sense of right and wrong—confirms a white reader’s sense of herself as open-minded, tolerant, woke. “If I lived in 1930s Alabama, I would never do that,” the white reader thinks. “I am one of the good white people.”

The results of the The Great American Read series is certain to put Mockingbird back on bestseller lists across the nation, where it will sit in uneasy proximity to sociologist Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. White Fragility—currently holding the #5 spot on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list—is not directed at the angry, ignorant mob. It is directed instead at white, educated PBS-watching liberals. 

DiAngelo (herself white) argues that progressive white Americans, confident in their stated ideals of racial tolerance and equality, can’t bear to acknowledge the material, social, and emotional benefits they derive from living in a culture based on systemic racism. To protect themselves from that painful truth, they expend enormous energy performing their tolerance. As she writes, “I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. I define a white progressive as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist, or is less racist, or in the ‘choir,’ or already ‘gets it.’ White progressives can be the most difficult for people of color because, to the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us as having arrived.” People of color are left to negotiate and dance around the fragile egos of progressive whites, who must always be protected from the divisive charge of racism and of protecting racial inequality.

Which brings us back to Mockingbird. White people are brought up to see their lives reflected in dominant cultural narratives and to see their stories of internal struggle and moral awakening—like the journey undergone by Scout—as universal and timeless. To suggest otherwise—to point out that racism is a daily lived reality for many people and not just part of a lesson plan—is to suggest that white people’s experiences are not universal, but specific. Worse, it implies that in loving a novel like Mockingbird, the reader herself is racist—an unbearable accusation. The book, like so many stories of white heroism, must be defended at all costs.

Somehow, being named “racist” has, for white people, become less tolerable, more of an affront, than the practice of racism itself.

A culture is made up of the stories it tells itself about itself. The selection of Mockingbird as “America’s best-loved novel” reminds us that as a nation we have a long way to go in telling the story of American racism and American whiteness.

About the Author 

Linda Schlossberg serves as Assistant Director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Harvard University, where she teaches courses in literature and creative writing. She is the author of the novel Life in Miniature and the co-editor of Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, and her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including McSweeney’s, Conduit, and Post Road. Schlossberg was the recipient of the 2016 Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Writer's Center and is currently completing a feminist dystopian novel.

Number 3 and twelve weeks on the New York Times best sellers list . . . and still going strong! The success of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism continues to prove that Robin DiAngelo is dropping the truth bombs white people need to realize how they’re sustaining racism without realizing it. It’s an uncomfortable reckoning, but sorely needed nonetheless.

In a time when we see numerous incidents of Living While Black reported on the news, DiAngelo offers the hard-hitting insight as to how white people uphold systemic racism. Remember the calls to the police and 911 on the black child who mowed part of the wrong yard? On the black woman using the private pool in her gated community? On the trio of black filmmakers staying in an Airbnb? “These incidents have always happened,” DiAngelo said in Vox’s piece about the criminalization of blackness, “but white people do not always believe it because it doesn’t happen to us. The only real difference we have now is that we are able to record it in a way that makes it undeniable.” But when the white people present at these incidents were asked about what happened, they got defensive and denied that race played a role in the encounter. They didn’t want to see that what they’d done was racist. It’s an example of what DiAngelo calls the “good-bad binary,” the idea that racism is an intentional act done exclusively by bad people. “It exempts virtually all white people from the system that we’re in,” she said. “As long as we think nice people can’t be racist, we’re going to protect the system.”

What further fuels the “good-bad binary” is the fact that white people are still raised to be racially illiterate, meaning that they do not learn what it means to be white. Racial illiteracy reinforces a simplistic definition of a racist as a bad person and exempts white progressives from such behavior. As DiAngelo wrote in her NBC News THINK op-ed, “the mainstream definition of a racist set me up beautifully to not only deny any impact of racial socialization, but to receive any suggestion of racially problematic behavior as a personal blow—a questioning of my very moral character . . . this is what I term white fragility.” DiAngelo’s book, thankfully, lays out the steps to take to become racially literate. And as fellow Beacon author Lori Tharps wrote, “If we want to make progress in dismantling [white supremacy], we all need to understand how it all fits together. Reading White Fragility will help us in that fight.”

DiAngelo has been busy exposing the many sides of white fragility and unpacking its long-term effects. Check out her Q&A with Slate about why white liberals are unwilling to recognize their own racism. She discusses why white women are terrified of being called racist in her Q&A with Elle Magazine. In her interview on NPR Weekend Edition, she explains why white people being nice doesn’t address the issue of system racism. She had a book event at King’s Books in Tacoma, WA, and you can watch it here. And here’s her interview with Michel Martin on Amanpour & Co.

White Fragility has even caught the eyes of a few celebrities! Actor and comedian John Roberts, famous for his role as Linda Belcher on the animated series Bob’s Burgers, included it on his summer reading list. Actor Matt McGorry, known for his roles in Orange Is the New Black and How to Get Away with Murder, shared with his followers on Instagram that he was reading the book. And comedian and actor DL Hughley regrammed a post featuring the book.

So take a cue from John, Matt, and DL: If you haven’t read White Fragility yet, get to a bookstore now and grab a copy! And if you haven’t taken our white fragility quiz yet, now’s the time!

We have a New York Times best seller! Hailed by Michael Eric Dyson as “a vital, necessary, and beautiful book,” Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism ranked number 8 on their list of bestselling Paperback Nonfiction within its first week of going on sale!

“We’re so excited to be publishing it,” says our editor Rachael Marks, “and it’s been heartening to see how hungry people are for the book! In a time where more and more white people feel emboldened to act on their privilege to uphold systemic prejudice and inequality, her book couldn’t be more timely. Robin challenges readers, particularly those of us who identify as politically progressive and therefore immune to racism, to reflect on how we’ve been socialized to understand racism as something only ‘bad’ people intentionally participate in. The reality, however, is more complex, and Robin shows that racism is deeply embedded in society. The book helps white people confront the role they play in perpetuating racism (whether they’re aware of it or not), address their own white fragility, and engage more constructively in conversations about racism.”

The buzz around DiAngelo’s groundbreaking book attests to the urgent need for dialogue on contemporary race issues. As Claudia Rankine says, “This is a necessary book for all people invested in societal change through productive social and intimate relationships.” Bitch listed it in their “30 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018” roundup. They wrote that it “should be taught in courses about whiteness” and that it “offers a framework for understanding how privilege informs white people’s lack of engagement with race.” It’s on Mashable’s list of the best books that deconstruct racism in America. And on their list of “Must-Read Race and Culture Books of the Summer,” Colorlines wrote that White Fragility “introduces a constructive way for organizers to respond to White people whose discomfort prevents them from understanding and addressing racism.”

So if you’re the type that “doesn’t see color” or simply isn’t racist, and certainly not part of White Supremacist culture, it’s time to check your white fragility at the door and pick up a copy of DiAngelo’s book. You can also catch up with Robin DiAngelo by checking out her USA Today Q&A about Starbucks’ implicit bias training. In her Seattle Times profile piece, she explains why it’s important for white people to see color: “If I have no idea how my race shapes me, I am probably not going to be open to any feedback about how your race shapes you. And so we [white people] end up minimizing and invalidating [people of color].” And if you weren’t able to attend her talk at the Seattle Public Library, you can watch it here.

Congratulations to Robin DiAngelo! White Fragility will be an enduring resource in the ongoing mission to dismantle white supremacy.

Think you don’t have white fragility? Take our white fragility quiz to find out!

Bookstores interested in purchasing copies can contact Penguin Random House. Visit our website for more information.

By Robin DiAngelo

Robin DiAngelo

The United States was founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Yet the nation began with the attempted genocide of Indigenous people and the theft of their land. American wealth was built on the labor of kidnapped and enslaved Africans and their descendants. Women were denied the right to vote until 1920, and black women were denied access to that right until 1964. The term identity politics refers to the focus on the barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality. We have yet to achieve our founding principle, but any gains we have made thus far have come through identity politics.

The identities of those sitting at the tables of power in this country have remained remarkably similar: white, male, middle- and upper-class, able-bodied. Acknowledging this fact may be dismissed as political correctness, but it is still a fact. The decisions made at those tables affect the lives of those not at the tables. Exclusion by those at the table doesn’t depend on willful intent; we don’t have to intend to exclude for the results of our actions to be exclusion. While implicit bias is always at play because all humans have bias, inequity can occur simply through homogeneity; if I am not aware of the barriers you face, then I won’t see them, much less be motivated to remove them. Nor will I be motivated to remove the barriers if they provide an advantage to which I feel entitled.

All progress we have made in the realm of civil rights has been accomplished through identity politics: women’s suffrage, the American with Disabilities Act, Title 9, federal recognition of same-sex marriage. A key issue in the 2016 presidential election was the white working class. These are all manifestations of identity politics.

Take women’s suffrage. If being a woman denies you the right to vote, you ipso facto cannot grant it to yourself. And you certainly cannot vote for your right to vote. If men control all the mechanisms that exclude women from voting as well as the mechanisms that can reverse that exclusion, women must call on men for justice. You could not have had a conversation about women’s right to vote and men’s need to grant it without naming women and men. Not naming the groups that face barriers only serves those who already have access; the assumption is that the access enjoyed by the controlling group is universal. For example, although we are taught that women were granted suffrage in 1920, we ignore the fact that it was white women who received full access or that it was white men who granted it. Not until the 1960s, through the Voting Rights Act, were all women—regardless of race—granted full access to suffrage. Naming who has access and who doesn’t guides our efforts in challenging injustice.

~~~

My book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, is unapologetically rooted in identity politics. I am white and am addressing a common white dynamic. I am mainly writing to a white audience; when I use the terms us and we, I am referring to the white collective. This usage may be jarring to white readers because we are so rarely asked to think about ourselves or fellow whites in racial terms. But rather than retreat in the face of that discomfort, we can practice building our stamina for the critical examination of white identity—a necessary antidote to white fragility. This raises another issue rooted in identity politics: in speaking as a white person to a primarily white audience, I am yet again centering white people and the white voice. I have not found a way around this dilemma, for as an insider I can speak to the white experience in ways that may be harder to deny. So, though I am centering the white voice, I am also using my insider status to challenge racism. To not use my position this way is to uphold racism, and that is unacceptable; it is a “both/and” that I must live with. I would never suggest that mine is the only voice that should be heard, only that it is one of the many pieces needed to solve the overall puzzle.

People who do not identify as white may also find this book helpful for understanding why it is so often difficult to talk to white people about racism. People of color cannot avoid understanding white consciousness to some degree if they are to be successful in this society, yet nothing in dominant culture affirms their understanding or validates their frustrations when they interact with white people. I hope that this exploration affirms the cross-racial experiences of people of color and provides some useful insight.

White Fragility looks at the United States and the general context of the West (United States, Canada, and Europe). It does not address nuances and variations within other sociopolitical settings. However, these patterns have also been observed in white people in other white settler societies such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Throughout White Fragility, I argue that racism is deeply complex and nuanced, and given this, we can never consider our learning to be complete or finished. One example of this complexity is in the very use of the racial categories “white” and “people of color.” I use the terms white and people of color to indicate the two macro-level, socially recognized divisions of the racial hierarchy. Yet in using these terms, I am collapsing a great deal of variation. And though I believe that temporarily suspending individuality to focus on group identity is healthy for white people, doing so has very different impacts on people of color. For multiracial people in particular, these binary categories leave them in a frustrating “middle.”

Multiracial people, because they challenge racial constructs and boundaries, face unique challenges in a society in which racial categories have profound meaning. The dominant society will assign them the racial identity they most physically resemble, but their own internal racial identity may not align with the assigned identity. For example, though the musician Bob Marley was multiracial, society perceived him as black and thus responded to him as if he were black. When multiracial people’s racial identity is ambiguous, they will face constant pressure to explain themselves and “choose a side.” Racial identity for multiracial people is further complicated by the racial identity of their parents and the racial demographics of the community in which they are raised. For example, though a child may look black and be treated as black, she may be raised primarily by a white parent and thus identify more strongly as white.

The dynamics of what is termed “passing”—being perceived as white—will also shape a multiracial person’s identity, as passing will grant him or her society’s rewards of whiteness. However, people of mixed racial heritage who pass as white may also experience resentment and isolation from people of color who cannot pass. Multiracial people may not be seen as “real” people of color or “real” whites. (It is worth noting that though the term “passing” refers to the ability to blend in as a white person, there is no corresponding term for the ability to pass as a person of color. This highlights the fact that, in a racist society, the desired direction is always toward whiteness and away from being perceived as a person of color.)

I will not be able to do justice to the complexity of multiracial identity. But for the purposes of grappling with white fragility, I offer multiracial people the concept of saliency. We all occupy multiple and intersecting social positionalities. I am white, but I am also a cisgender woman, able-bodied, and middle-aged. These identities don’t cancel out one another; each is more or less salient in different contexts. For example, in a group in which I am the only woman, gender will likely be very salient for me. When I am in a group that is all white except for one person of color, race will likely be my most salient identity. As you read my book, it will be for you to decide what speaks to your experience and what doesn’t, and in what contexts. My hope is that you may gain insight into why people who identify as white are so difficult in conversations regarding race and/or gain insight into your own racial responses as you navigate the roiling racial waters of daily life.

About the Author 

Robin DiAngelo is an academic, lecturer, and author and has been a consultant and trainer on issues of racial and social justice for more than twenty years. She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University.