White people in North America live in a society that is deeply separate and unequal by race, and white people are the beneficiaries of that separation and inequality. As a result, we are insulated from racial stress, at the same time that we come to feel entitled to and deserving of our advantage.
This is the opening statement in the book’s Introduction and it essentially situates the social construct from the author sets about examining the nature of racism and the perspectives which inform an understanding of it. The argument set forth is that “white fragility” is the result of privilege and the desire—whether conscious or not—the maintain the equilibrium of the power structure which has existed in America since its beginning.
Race is an evolving social idea that was created to legitimize racial inequality and protect white advantage. The term “white” first appeared in colonial law in the late 1600s. By 1790, people were asked to claim their race on the census, and by 1825, the perceived degrees of blood determined who would be classified as Indian.
Although many people—and certainly all white supremacists—still think that race is a genetic and biological identifier that has existed for millennia as a means of delineating superior cultures from inferior ones, this quote presents a strong argument that race only really came about with the founding of America.
Many of us have been taught to believe that there are distinct biological and genetic differences between races...differences such as hair texture and eye color are superficial and emerged as adaptations to geography. Under the skin, there is no true biological race. The external characteristics that we use to define race are unreliable indicators of genetic variation between any two people.
Even well into the latter half of the 20th century, race was still believed to be a marker of biological and genetic differentiation. The revolution in genetic research proved that biologically speaking there simply is no such thing as a “race.” “Whites” are absolutely indistinguishable from “blacks” and both are genetically identical to “Asians” and “Indians.” Since racism in general—and quite specifically that type of extreme prejudice associated with Nazis and White Supremacists—is constructed on a foundation of genetic superiority which it cannot be extricated, the facts are clear and the ideology is factually unsound. Not that facts matter to such people.
FUNCTIONS OF WHITE FRAGILITY
• Maintain white solidarity
• Trivialize the reality of racism
• Make white people the victims
• Protect a limited worldview
• Protect white privilege
It is important to note that the full list under this heading is comprised of eleven bullet points. This condensed version of that list boils the function of white fragility down to its most essential tactics. Since white fragility is defined as the discomfort and anxiety triggered by a fear of losing historically unchanged assumptions about privilege and entitlement belonging to the dominant “race” of a society—in this case the white “race”—the most important functions of it are geared specifically to making sure such assumptions are never truly threatened. These listed tactics are thus the heart and soul of the strategy at work in the propagation of white fragility as a weapon.
