i've barely cracked into this one, but #WhiteFragility: Why It's So Hard For #White People To Talk About #Racism by #RobinDiangelo is absolutely starting off with a banger:
"Interrupting the forces of racism is ongoing, lifelong work because the forces conditioning us into racist frameworks are always at play; our learning will never be finished. Yet our simplistic definition of racism—as intentional acts of racial discrimination committed by immoral individuals—engenders a confidence that we are not part of the problem and that our learning is thus complete."
"I expect that white readers will have moments of discomfort reading this book. This feeling may be a sign that I’ve managed to unsettle the racial status quo, which is my goal. The racial status quo is comfortable for #white people, and we will not move forward in race relations if we remain comfortable."
"The key to moving forward is what we do with our discomfort. We can use it as a door out—blame the messenger and disregard the message. Or we can use it as a door in by asking, Why does this unsettle me? What would it mean for me if this were true? [...] How can my unease help reveal the unexamined assumptions I have been making? Is it possible that because I am #white, there are some racial dynamics that I can’t see? Am I willing to consider that possibility? If I am not willing to do so, then why not?"
this quote mirrors a line of thought from #IjeomaOluo 's So You Want To Talk About Race:
"Build a tolerance for discomfort. You must get used to being uncomfortable and get used to this not being about your feelings if you plan to help and not hinder people of color in their efforts for racial justice."
"If you are reading this and are still making your case for why you are different from other #white people and why none of this applies to you, stop and take a breath. Now return to the questions above, and keep working through them. To interrupt #WhiteFragility, we need to build our capacity to sustain the discomfort of not knowing, the discomfort of being racially unmoored, the discomfort of racial humility."
"Our next task is to understand how the forces of racial socialization are constantly at play. The inability to acknowledge these forces inevitably leads to the resistance and defensiveness of #WhiteFragility. To increase the racial stamina that counters white fragility, we must reflect on the whole of our identities—and our racial group identity in particular. For white people, this means first struggling with what it means to be white."
"The tension between the noble ideology of equality and the cruel reality of #genocide, #enslavement, and #colonization had to be reconciled. Thomas Jefferson (who himself owned hundreds of enslaved people) and others turned to science. [...] If science could prove that black people were naturally and inherently inferior (he saw Indigenous people as culturally deficient—a shortcoming that could be remedied), there would be no contradiction between our professed ideals and our actual practices."
"The idea of racial inferiority was created to justify unequal treatment; belief in racial inferiority is not what triggered unequal treatment. Nor was fear of difference. As Ta-Nehisi Coates states, “But race is the child of #racism, not the father.” He means that first we exploited people for their resources, not according to how they looked. Exploitation came first, and then the ideology of unequal races to justify this exploitation followed."
"The metaphor of the #UnitedStates as the great #MeltingPot, in which immigrants from around the world come together and melt into one unified society through the process of assimilation, is a cherished idea. [...] In reality, only #European#immigrants were allowed to melt, or assimilate, into dominant culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because, regardless of their ethnic identities, these immigrants were perceived to be #white and thus could belong."
"All humans have prejudice; we cannot avoid it. If I am aware that a social group exists, I will have gained information about that group from the society around me. This information helps me make sense of the group from my cultural framework. People who claim not to be prejudiced are demonstrating a profound lack of self-awareness. Ironically, they are also demonstrating the power of socialization—we have all been taught in schools, through movies, and from family members, teachers, and clergy that it is important not to be prejudiced."