Quotes from Robin DiAngelo

In the U.S., while individual whites might be against racism, they still benefit from their group's control. Yes, an individual person of color can sit at the tables of power, but the overwhelming majority of decision-makers will be white. Yes, white people can have problems and face barriers, but systematic racism won't be one of them.

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.

I have found that the only way to give feedback without triggering white fragility is not to give it at all.

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 fragility doesn't always manifest in overt ways; silence and withdrawal are also functions of fragility.

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.

While everyone has racial bias, I reserve the word 'racist' to describe the bias that white people have - our collective bias is backed by institutional power.

Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to racial prejudice and the personal actions that result. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced.

The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people.

I do atypical work for a white person, which is that I lead primarily white audiences in discussions on race every day, in workshops all over the country. That has allowed me to observe very predictable patterns. And one of those patterns is this inability to tolerate any kind of challenge to our racial reality.

As part of my work, I teach, lead and participate in affinity groups, facilitate workshops, and mentor other whites on recognizing and interrupting racism in our lives.

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.

One cannot understand how racism functions in the U.S. today if one ignores group power relations.

The default of our society is the reproduction of racial inequality. I mean, that's what it does; that's what it's been doing for hundreds of years.

For white people, their identities rest on the idea of racism as about good or bad people, about moral or immoral singular acts, and if we're good, moral people, we can't be racist - we don't engage in those acts.

We have always policed the bodies of people of color, and black people in particular. The Jim Crow South is a classic example. White flight in the North. School segregation. Gerrymandering.

Denying that race matters is irrational in the face of segregation and all of the other forms of obvious racial inequity in society... Maintaining this denial of reality takes tremendous emotional and psychic energy.

I think our everyday coded language around 'good neighborhoods' and 'bad neighborhoods' is what allows for tremendous violence to happen... When you label a neighborhood 'bad' and avoid it, then you don't know and don't see what goes on there. And there's no human face to interrupt that narrative.

For a lot of white people, just suggesting that being white has meaning will trigger a deep, defensive response. And that defensiveness serves to maintain both our comfort and our positions in a racially inequitable society from which we benefit.

Most people, certainly faculty, believe that if they're for social justice, it's automatically integrated into whatever they do.

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.

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.

Many of us actively working to interrupt racism continually hear complaints about the 'gotcha' culture of white anti-racism. There is a stereotype that we are looking for every incident we can find so we can spring out, point our fingers, and shout, 'You're a racist!'

There is no human objectivity.