Explicit racism is not difficult to spot. It announces itself. Someone casually using the “k” word, hurling it at black people to crush their dignity, is not pretending to be progressive, liberal or a “soft” conservative. They are as nakedly racist as someone willing to physically assault, and even murder, a person they hate because of the colour of their skin.
Explicit racism is enormously harmful but not difficult to handle conceptually. We know it. We see it. We continue to experience it. We do not yet have an effective strategy to permanently root it out.
Robin DiAngelo invites us, in her book Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm, to set aside explicit racism for the moment. She does so not because she thinks we have done sufficient political work to root it out, but because she wants to expand our understanding about what constitutes racial harm.
White people who regard themselves as allies of black people, as committed to an anti-racist agenda, or who think of themselves as politically liberal, seldom pay attention to acts of racism they also commit. Indeed, the sentence you have just read will make the blood of many readers boil, even without them knowing the compelling minutiae of analysis DiAngelo offers in this brilliant book, a follow-up to White Fragility, which saw her become an important global figure in work on racism.
One of my favourite chapters discusses the “moves” white progressives make in discourse on race to avoid self-examining how they are implicated in anti-black racism. One desperate move is referred to by DiAngelo as “credentialing”. The functional use of credentialing by a progressive white person is to prove to a bystander they have anti-racist credentials that somehow makes them immune to the ideology of whiteness.
This typically takes one of two forms: either they claim to “not see race” or they claim a record of faithful commitment to racial diversity and treating each racialised individual equally.
If you “do not see race”, so the unstated logic goes, you cannot be a potential racist. The flipside of this strategy is to trot out apparent examples of treating people the same, regardless of their skin colour. If you do this, you exemplify anti-racism, surely?
Robin DiAngelo shows us how racist structures affect black people, and how the details of white progressives’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviour prop up racist structures
DiAngelo deconstructs the lies by showing us how racist structures affect black people, and how the details of white progressives’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviour prop up racist structures.
White progressives almost fetishise being nice, and being (on the face of it) inoffensive, elevating these characteristics to that of anti-racism warrior. But if you observe white progressives closely and long enough, the grip of whiteness becomes clear. Sometimes this manifests simply as culpable silence when they should speak out against explicit racists.
The assumption is often made that only overt action can be racist. That is false. It is a moral failing to actively do nothing to stop racial harm when you have the power to intervene.
This silence could be underpinned by many things, ranging from sheer cowardice to an addiction to conflict avoidance at all costs. This is why some white progressives can often move through the world seemingly trying to maintain the proverbial peace, and being nice. Being nice is not radical. It does not count as anti-racism work. Being nice means you are at best being decent, which shouldn’t be confused with actively challenging racism.
This is why the title of the book is more than an attempt to grab your attention and secure a book sale. It is a useful reference to the lie that someone who is nice must be free of bigotry. You can wear a smile — yes, that smile — and even be in an interracial relationship, or adopt a black baby, and be racist.
Being nice doesn’t absolve you from the grip of whiteness, white privilege or perpetrating racial harm. Niceness is, well, nice, but it isn’t proof of anti-racism. Equally, having some racial contact at work does not mean you are incapable of causing racial harm.
This is why it is so important, as DiAngelo points out, for white progressives to enter discourse on race with humility. That is a precondition for effective self-development and growth. Absent an attitude of open-mindedness, you will not get as much out of this stunning book as you should.
A white woman who had not read the book had the gumption to opine on my wall that she is certain she is free of racial bias, and stipulated she is objective when she interviews candidates as someone working in recruitment. I cringed — as did every black professional who shared their stories of both explicit and implicit racial bias experienced in the world of work.
A few things stood out for me. First, this white woman was uninterested in hearing — in a deep and meaningful way — what black people who gave generously of their time had to say about their experiences with recruitment staff. She had no regard for their epistemic authority, performing the very problem she asserted did not apply to her. This is an issue DiAngelo explores at length in her book.
If you think you, as an individual, are not causing racial harm, why resist evidence of clear systemic and structural injustices?
Second, there is an obsession with exceptionalism among white progressives. They often make an elementary logical error, effectively offering arguments structured as follows: “I am not bigoted in the way you say white progressives are often bigoted, therefore there is no bigotry problem.”
Besides the fact that many of these self-styled virtuous white people would be shocked to know what feedback they might get anonymously from black people who work with them and who felt safe enough to be honest, there is also a bizarre discursive obsession with making the structural and systemic issues either disappear or be reduced in significance.
If you think you, as an individual, are not causing racial harm, why resist evidence of clear systemic and structural injustices?
Here individual white progressives show their affinity with all fellow white people who are causing racial harm, which makes a nonsense of claims to allyship. It is like a man who tries to offer proof that he, as an individual, is not a misogynist, but who nevertheless feels targeted by evidence of general misogyny. Our claims to allyship often buckle under the pressure of critical examination.
Nice Racism will annoy white progressives. That is not the intention. It is not shocking. It is not clickbait. It is not contrarian stuff. DiAngelo is not moralising. The reason Nice Racism will annoy white progressives is simply because they are not used to critical self-examination. That is precisely why they should read the book — and challenge themselves to do so without huffing and puffing.
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