White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo says the question white people should be asking themselves is not have I been shaped by race, but how have I been shaped by race? Above, protesters demonstrate in New York on June 1. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images 
White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo says the question white people should be asking themselves is not have I been shaped by race, but how have I been shaped by race? Above, protesters demonstrate in New York on June 1.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
For white people who have just recently recognized their own complicity in America's racist systems and are looking to "fix" that — it's not going to happen overnight.
"It's a little bit like saying 'I want to be in shape tomorrow' . " says author Robin DiAngelo. "This is going to be a process."
DiAngelo is the author of White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. The book came out in 2018 and is back on the bestseller lists as streets fill with protesters calling for an end to police violence against black people.
Sponsor MessageThe status quo in the United States is racism, DiAngelo says, and "it is comfortable for me, as a white person, to live in a racist society."
To sustain the momentum of these protests, DiAngelo says, it must become uncomfortable for white people to continue to benefit from racist systems.
"We've got to start making it uncomfortable and figuring out what supports we're going to put in place to help us continue to be uncomfortable," she says. "Because the forces of comfort are quite seductive."
On encouraging white people to reflect on how race has shaped their lives
This [work] will be lifelong: really thinking deeply about what it means to be white, how your race shapes your life. We live in a society that turns race over to people of color. They have a race. We're just people. And so we see ourselves as outside of race. And that's problematic for many reasons. But there's so much potentially rich insight that we can gain from deeply reflecting on our own racial experiences.
On how white people can be complicit in racist systems without recognizing their own racism
Nice, white people who really aren't doing anything other than being nice people are racist. We are complicit with that system. There is no neutral place.
Racism is what happens when you back one group's racial bias with legal authority and institutional control. . When you back one group's collective bias with that kind of power, it is transformed into a far-reaching system. It becomes the default. It's automatic. It's not dependent on your agreement or belief or approval. It's circulating 24/7, 365.
Racism is the foundation of the society we are in. And to simply carry on with absolutely no active interruption of that system is to be complicit with it. And in that way, we can say that nice, white people who really aren't doing anything other than being nice people are racist. We are complicit with that system. There is no neutral place.
On challenging definitions
We've been taught to think about a racist as someone who consciously and intentionally seeks to hurt people based on race. And if that's what you think it means to be racist, then of course it's offensive that I would say you were racist. That's not what I mean by that. . All of the racism I've perpetrated in my life was neither conscious nor intentional, but harmful to other people nonetheless.
