Well-intentioned people have written best-selling books and led political action groups addressing the problem of racial equality in America, but has progress been made since the advent of the modern Civil Rights Movement? The answer to this question, to even a casual observer, is No! But why not?
Langston Hughes termed the ways of white folks “White Fragility.” A book by Robin DiAngelo entitled White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism is on Amazon’s #1 best-selling book list (1.6 million copies as of July 2020). Speaking to audiences seeking the answer to our question above, DiAngelo tries to get at the origins of racism in America and more importantly how it is perpetuated. She does not let “white folk” (who believe they are social activists but not racists) off the hook. “I know you. Oh, white progressives are my specialty. Because I am a white progressive. And I have a racist worldview.”[i] Yes, we white folks, both liberal and conservative are fragile, but not in the way most of us “progressive liberals” might think.
“White fragility, in DiAngelo’s formulation, is far from weakness. It is ‘weaponized.’ Its evasions are actually a liberal white arsenal, a means of protecting a frail moral ego, defending a righteous self-image and, ultimately, perpetuating racial hierarchies, because what goes unexamined will never be upended. White fragility is a way for well-meaning white people to guard what race has granted them, all [that] they haven’t earned.”[ii]
In like manner, humanity as a whole has a frail moral ego, the identity of the false self, and has to be in constant denial of its self-destructive behavior. In the global community we can identify “religious fragility,” sectarian fragility, “ethnic fragility,” “sexual-preference fragility,” “tribal fragility” and the fragility of “nationalism,” among others.
“White Fragility” and “whiteness lessons” are key phrases revealing America’s struggle with the contents of our “shadow” a measure, if you will, of the emergence of our moral hunger. A more profound formulation of the structure of human consciousness would reveal the True cause of human pain and suffering. Until then we will continue to be bewildered as to why there is so much irrational self-destructive behavior on the part of individuals, families, neighborhoods, tribes, religious communities and nations.
Whites make up only 10% of the global population, so how did they attain such dominance, such power? “White supremacy—yes, it includes extremists or neo-Nazis, but it is also a highly descriptive sociological term for the society we live in, a society in which white people are elevated as the ideal for humanity, and everyone else is a deficient version.”[iii]
“Denying our shadow and ‘pushing’ those traits out of our consciousness and then projecting them onto the other leads to horrific personal suffering for many people.”[iv] This behavior is common to all of humanity but expresses itself in a way unique to Americans. America will never learn how to cope with racism, until we have a more profound insight into the origin of fear and hatred toward the diverse sub-communities in our culture.
Humans today often believe (or imagine) something is “real,” but in truth it has no basis in Reality (like “race” or the other). Worse, they then act on their belief (behave) as if it is real. Which, of course means that our failure to have more profound insights into the nature of Reality (Oneness) is critically important if we are to find our way out of the morass rampant in the Global Village today. A good place to start would be with an introduction to our own personal shadow, which is indeed “real.”
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Supplemental Reading: The Shadow, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
#15 Creating Consciousness
[i] Bergner, Daniel. “Whiteness Lessons.” The New York Times Magazine. July 19, 2020, p. 26.
[ii] Ibid., p. 28.
[iii] Ibid., p. 26.
[iv] Henry, Roy Charles. The ABC’s Of Simple Reality Volume II. May 2018, p. 217.
