It seems like the whole world is talking about race and racism and racial reconciliation. Here in 2020 the conversation has come to the fore with renewed force and renewed urgency. Perhaps no author has played a more central role in this cultural conversation than Robin DiAngelo and perhaps no book has been more widely recommended than her White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Though it was first published in 2018, its moment has come two years later and, according to the foreword, has established DiAngelo as “the new racial sheriff in town”—one who “is bringing a different law and order to bear upon the racial proceedings.”
The great tension at the heart of the book is this: Why is a white woman leading the conversation about racism and racial inequality? If white people are so biased and so blinded by our whiteness (as she herself teaches), how can we trust her to properly understand the problem and prescribe the right solution? DiAngelo begins to offer her resolution to this conundrum by introducing the reader to a key term—identity politics. She states on the opening page that her book is unapologetically
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