New Book, “White Fragility” Causes Ruckus

Posted by Jack

Normally I’m not one to be quoting the New York Post, but this book review on “White Fragility” caught my attention.   It’s a best seller among liberals because it fits so well with the BLM BS. However, if you are a normal person, I won’t even go so far as to say conservative, if you merely normal, you would find this book alarming. Not just because it reads like a new version of Mein Kampf, but because it is embraced so eagerly by the left, by leftist teachers and sadly by young minds under the influence of said teachers.

“As for Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Marco Rubio, Barack Obama? “They support the status quo,” DiAngelo writes, “and do not challenge racism in any way significant enough to be threatening.”

To cite other prominent, influential black leaders who dominate American politics and culture — from Michelle Obama (the most admired woman in America in 2019, according to Gallup) to LeBron James to Beyoncé to Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, Serena Williams, Susan Rice, Condoleezza Rice, Chris Rock, Rihanna, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ryan Coogler, Stacey Abrams, Tiger Woods, Virgil Abloh, Spike Lee, Chadwick Boseman, Colson Whitehead, Pharrell, Stephen Curry, Donald Glover, Issa Rae, Janet Mock, Bryant Gumbel, Tiffany Haddish, Simone Biles, Dave Chappelle, Kanye West, Jacqueline Woodson, Colin Kaepernick, Viola Davis, Lester Holt, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Meghan Markle, Samuel L. Jackson (highest-grossing actor ever), the late Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, both subjects of deep national mourning — would negate DiAngelo’s dangerous, bulls—t thesis that America values only whiteness in thought, leadership and culture.

“To put it bluntly,” she writes, “I believe that the white collective fundamentally hates blackness for what it reminds us of: that we are capable and guilty of perpetrating immeasurable harm and that our gains come through the subjugation of others. We have a particular hatred for ‘uppity’ blacks, those who dare step out of their place and look us in the eye as equals.”

In DiAngelo’s uncompromising opinion, America has an incurable birth defect. And you fevered white liberals rending your garments, taking her workshops, launching deep internal investigations into your own racism — DiAngelo considers you, her customers and cult members, the worst offenders of all. Part of the white liberal motive in attending her seminars, she told the New York Times, was so “they can say they heard Robin DiAngelo speak.”

Wow.

Let me say it again: If anyone is racist here, it’s Robin DiAngelo. She peddles the kind of sophomoric, solipsistic, illogical crap on par with “The Secret,” another pop-culture phenomenon brought to us by Oprah and one positing that getting what you want is a matter of wishing hard enough.

Consider that DiAngelo promotes the idea, taught by other racial-sensitivity groups and outlined on the African-American History Museum’s website, that traits such as self-reliance, independence, hard work, rational thinking, planning for the future and delaying gratification, being on time, having a love for the written tradition, proper use of language and politeness all belong to white culture and are used to keep black Americans down.

While reading “White Fragility,” I also came across a reprint of a 2003 profile of the late author Toni Morrison in The New Yorker. “Being a black woman writer is not a shallow place but a rich place to write from,” Morrison said. “It doesn’t limit my imagination; it expands it. It’s richer than being a white male writer because I know more and I’ve experienced more.”

DiAngelo would no doubt have told Morrison — a genius, an American original, Pulitzer winner for fiction and Nobel Prize Winner for Literature — that she was delusional. After all, DiAngelo’s philosophy would tar Morrison as a traitor to her race for embodying such inherently white values, ones that don’t come easily to blacks and therefore keep them at sociocultural, legal and economic disadvantages. Now that’s a theory David Duke could love.

One of my favorite metrics for how out-of-touch The New York Times has become is their reader comments section. It’s amazing to see their paying readership grow increasingly apostate, especially in response to a recent and lengthy profile of DiAngelo.

Of 1,125 comments, here’s reader favorite No. 1, from someone named Itunu:

“I’m a Nigerian living in Senegal, and I suppose living in a place where everyone looks like me is a privilege in itself. So perhaps my critique is colored by this privilege, but I must admit that I’m deeply offended by some of the claims of her training. Rationality and writing are ‘white values’? Is anyone else seeing how condescending and disempowering it is to be told that our fate as black people rests in white people finally deciding to change their ways? Jackie Robinson was ‘allowed’ to play. What about: Jackie Robinson fought and won his struggle to play. Let’s fight for greater equality without upholding and rehashing racist tropes and stereotypes.”