The purpose of this book seems to be helping corporations offload yet more burdens onto their workers, who are already overworked and underpaid. Much like the pseudo-wokeness of twitter and mass media functions to offload responsibility for the problems of our society onto individuals, who are already confused, miserable, and struggling. Younger generations are further left than any previous ones? Well, this is how the establishment wants to neutralize that. Make "left-wing politics" into a doctrine of self-discipline and suspicion toward your fellow everyday people.
We have had multiple seminars on this crap at my job. It's some shit, most men (including myself) will not sit in a conference room alone with a woman. Are we now not supposed to sit in a room alone with people of color? This suspicion of the other is wrecking us and perpetuating the bs culture war. Climate change, plague, war, healthcare, and poverty will kill us all before this kind of pandering corporate b.s. stops.
her talking about how racism happens in individual context is not 'offloading responsibility'. what annoys me about all these WHITE men talking about this is they completely skip over the part where she makes very TRUE points about how people of color's experiences. it seems like they just don't want to deal with the inconvenient idea that they themselves have participated in these racist moments, so it would be better to write her off by yelling 'nO YOU DIDNT TALK ABOUT ENOUGH SOLUTIONS' and 'OH SHE DOES CORPORATE TRAINING'. yes, SO WHAT? it doesnt mean what she is saying isn't true. obviously economic inequality pLAYS INTO racism, but it is not all of it. if you got rid of economic inequality, racism would still exist. so why cant these white men fucking sit in their discomfort about their own racism instead of TELLING us what is and isn't true about our experience?? this is the first michael brooks video that truly disgusts me and made me want to unsubscribe. it is also disheartening to see all the sheep in the comments piling on when they likely havent even read the book. a lot of 'it's popular in the mainstream so it must be bad' bullshitters.
@@sydandtaytum They're discussing an article by Cedrick-Michael Simmons, a black man, about a book by Robin DiAngelo, a white woman. The things you describe are criticisms HE made.
@@sydandtaytum way to win over sceptics, calling them sheep. who knew that delving into people's unconscious psyche and then "how dare" ing them as if its a personal failure would make people defensive? Nobody likes struggle sessions, yet the terminally online caucus of the left cant seem to do anything else...
@@sydandtaytum how do you know what people you have never met feel or have experienced? It is the same question I would ask anyone who makes broad and sweeping assertions about groups of people. It is simple, each of us is an individual before we are a member of any group. DiAngelo is a huckster selling snake oil, period
Irvin Cruz : 🤦🏻♀️…we have ‘The Intercept’, but nobody for us, here in the USA, nobody who is one of us, who knows what we undergo, what we see, and this includes those of us who are/have been 👉🏾to other places on the planet 🌎 and care…💔. it was only Micheal.
Definitely cried when I found out. Obviously didn't know him personally but learned and continue to learn so much from him. When Sam broke down on the remembering Michael Brooks episode I lost it. 😢😭
Notice how she ignores institutional racism including corporate America's racist actions. It's all about how individual employees are racist on a personal level (and that needs to be documented for HR).
Very important point. And still, the interconnectedness of it all (from the institutional through to the interpersonal level) should be considered, and I think a nuanced materialist + dialectic understanding of this is important, through a lens that takes into account both the centrality of class struggle in this and the particularly American connectedness of class with race, resultant from the centuries-long economic subjugation of African Americans.
Sam O but honestly how do we expect the work class white people to work on their own unconscious racism when people can barely work on their own mental health under this system?
If they make racism your personal, unchangeable flaw, then protests become mobs causing problems. Convincing white people that all they have to do to stop racism is to attend endless 'diversity training' seminars, then trying to change the system of racism can be portrayed as blame shifting, or a hatred of 'law and order'. If racism is your personal sin, then protesting police brutality must mean you don't want to follow the law, because the system is fine, it's all your fault as a person.
I'm having this weird realization that I had been seriously missing out on Micheal's perspective before he passed. Yeah, I watched a little TMBS and MR here and there when he was dunking on Rubin or whatever, but I'm slowly realizing -- to my dismay, frankly -- that his serious work was straight-up profound. I started reading about White Fragility today and its arguments, then watched this and was like, "This is it exactly. Michael saw the problem in high definition."
@@omarisawesome1996 I feel the same way. Ben Burgis also unfocused. I do have to say the Jacobin show and Weekends isn't bad but not even close to TMBS.
I just went through a training with the county I work for in part based on this book; at one point one of the speakers/trainers admitted the reason we are doing this is so we don't get sued by former employees or clients. The training was for shelter workers who earned little more than minimum wage and were mostly minorities, the people doing the training were making over 60K a year and talking to us about equity, the irony was painful to watch.
Actually, HR doesn’t use White Fragility. My organization did a two-day workshop and recommended reading it two years ago and no one bought it. However, one of the examples in the book is how white women will use their tears as a weapon which I’ve seen happened. During a meeting, two white women cried when were told that the worksheet they created no longer met the need of the workflow. Their manager was a man of color. No, the book doesn’t teach anything about the history of structural racism. People need to more books like the Invention of Race or Isabel Wilkerson’s upcoming book, Caste because we don’t like to think America as a caste system. The book does suggest that White people speak up, but I don’t expect that to happen. The book is for White people and can tell every behavior that she writes in the book as either happened to me or seen it done to BIPOC.
I was recommended this book by my psychiatrist after we briefly talked about the current racial tensions in my last appointment. She admitted she had not read it.
@@Reality4Peace I don't want to make it seem like she's a bad doctor, she's actually quite good and has probably helped me more than the half dozen doctors/therapists I saw before her combined. I was just trying to highlight how much undeserved press this book has gotten.
oscar strokosz HR is another way of enabling misogynists and racists, only using a third party. Reporting harassment to HR is identifying yourself as a problem, and HR gets rid of you. And the harasser moves on to harassing the next employee. HR would rather back a harasser than admit any kind of liability that could be used in a lawsuit against them.
This phenomenon feels like a bad case of, What Black People Want (the Racial Inequality Edition). I'm sorry, this book has shifted the conversation away from racial justice to who's more woke and let's talk about what makes white folks comfortable. Let's focus on the task at hand.
I don't know if you're familiar with Robin DG Kelley, but he was part of a discussion yesterday on Haymarket Books which you may find interesting. Overall, I thought it was a good talk. I hope you get something out of it. ruclips.net/video/L0sAiaJf-A8/видео.html
I’m here because Chadwick just died. I thought of all the most important people to me that died this year. Michael being one of them. Take care of yourself if you’re reading this.
"Some of the Dodgers who swore they would never play with a black man had a change of mind when they realized I was a good ballplayer who could be helpful in their earning a few thousand more dollars in World Series money. After the initial resistance to me had been crushed, my teammates started to give me tips on how to improve my game. They hadn’t changed because they liked me any better, they had changed because I could help fill their wallets." Jackie Robinson
Seems like an unsustainable solution. The second you aren’t a “valuable teammate” anymore, you’ll be reminded that nothing in their minds or hearts actually changed.
@@scoobertmcruppert2915 exactly and that same mentality is why white supremacists ideology has been able to last so long in society...the "good" non white people are good as long as they serve a purpose but as soon as they don't we break them and move on to another useful tool...
*Someone wrote this in the comment section and I think it is a good read* 1. White folks proving the thesis in this comment section. 2. The professor’s work has been out for awhile. The historical moment catapulting it to the forefront of societal consciousness is not shocking. 3. The book is a simple self-assessment tool. 4. The “ideology” of the book being hijacked, commodified, and manipulated into a “mindset” and course of “self-improvement” is not shocking either(Capitalist economic system). 5. People need to exercise some agency and glean what is useful from it and apply it to the real work you’re doing offline. If you subscribe to its message like a devout religionists that’s your fault.
@@scoobertmcruppert2915 What it highlights, though, is that targeting 'hearts and minds' via moralism won't even change racist behavior, much less the habitat in which those behaviors thrive. Such idealism is an impotent approach. There has to be a material basis for even superficial behaviors to change. This is the main failing of Diangelo's book.
Rufous Hummingbird I get that...but you can’t fall into believing that it’s ACTUALLY changed or changing anything in a permanent way. Just temporary appeasement basically
I haven't read the book so I can't really agree or disagree with your analysis. But what what you said about it reminded me of a term in the self-help/entrepreneurial sphere called "action faking," which describes engaging in surface level busywork to _feel_ as though you're productive rather than doing the necessary tasks to advance a goal. I'd say things like "spreading awareness" and "thoughts and prayers" fall into that category.
It's very nice to see a Leftist critique of this text as well as performative wokeness and superficial, identity-based diversity training. I think these things are, at best, distractions from putting together a comprehensive, policy-based agenda that addresses both economic and racial inequality, to which a class-based analysis is an essential ingredient. Excellent critique! I hope that more people on the Left start to at least question some of the orthodoxy that has become so prevalent in much of the contemporary U.S. Left. And yes, I happen to be a person of color.
Damn I miss you. Glad I can still plug in and hear you, Michael. Its still crazy here. But your presence has helped me laugh and keep going, and the people you introduced me to are a lifeline.
@@bethannesperring872 the burden of being a descendant (beneficary) of colonialism/imperialism.😢 When you have hundreds years of one race a minority race at that controling and subverting the whole world, yes they will get blamed for alot. You want whites to get all the credit for greatness of societies and not the blame for the destruction of societies. You're tired? The whole world is tired of white rule/supremacy.
Nothing sells better to The Comfortable than anything that lets them off the hook for actually doing something to resolve a problem by permitting them to wallow in guilt about it.
It's a pretty bad book in general. On a very basic level, none of the social critique is particularly off the mark in my view. The problem is the same as it is with all liberal critique which is it almost completely ignores class as it intersects with race and the fact that bigotry and capitalism are inextricably linked. It's similar to how, as Angela Davis has pointed out, there is a huge current of liberal feminists who rally to "break the glass ceiling" which by definition means that they support the ruthless hierarchies and general structure of capitalist society. If you search for the term "intersectionality", you have to sift through a lot of mainstream liberal ideology to find a chart that even has "class" on it, which is completely absurd, since it's the single most significant axis of oppression by far. Liberals, in essence, have stolen intersectionality, which is why I think it gets so maligned even in leftist circles, even though fundamentally it's a good idea. If you explain the basic idea to people on the left without using the word, they generally don't take much of an issue with it. It's not the same thing as identity politics based around adopted identities at all, it's based around observations of how people are categorized and segregated in society already. The reason so many people associate it with individualist liberal identity politics is because liberals who have co-opted it have no answer to the fundamental problems of capitalism, they can only get increasingly fervent in their beliefs that all of society's ills are down to individuals. Many of them seem to be very firm their belief that bigots are predestined from birth to be evil, to be "the bad guy", to be the villains of liberal mythology. As much as we all hate to say it, we genuinely have waaaay more in common with the average Trump fanatic and even the alt right than we do with executives like Jeff Bezos or hedge fund managers. Anyone who says we can achieve any semblance of equality in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. within capitalism is dangerously wrong. To point out that bigotry is a societal ill not a personal failing of individuals is not to excuse it, but only when it's acknowledged as such can we effectively do something about it. It's ironic to me that a group so often considered "postmodernist" by detractors of liberalism (and of postmodern thought) still in general has such a basic "good vs. evil" outlook when it comes to politics.
I'd go further, I think the book is complete trash written by a genuinely mean-spirited academic; This book is a mis critique that creates divisions and then labels that as evidence of its critique. It is no longer a race problem, but directly and indirectly a class problem that is afflicting black Americans. These kind of progressive woke politics are just as much the enemy as racists proper are, if not more so at this point.
Any time we look for an individual solution to a systemic problem, we're inevitably going to fall short and never address the core problem itself. It's just as true for racism as it is for Climate Change. It also has the effect of making ppl defensive and that they're being personally attacked. By shifting the discussion onto the individual, it effectively means that we'll only tinker around the edges and never come even close to solving the problem.
@@SadisticSenpai61 Tensai55, if you don't think the individual has the solution for the systemic problem, what would be the core problem itself for you?
@@formalino The core problem is the system. The US Justice system itself has systemic racism built into it. Firing particularly bad officers won't change that. Additionally, the vast majority of emissions and pollution comes from corporations, not individuals. No amount of using reusable bags is going to change the fact that practically everything is packaged in plastic.
Some of the books Brooks recommended as deserving of more attention than the corporate consultant’s: “Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral” by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher “Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields Anything by Frantz Fanon (“The Wretched of the Earth”, “Black Skin, White Masks”) Speeches and writings by Malcolm X Also, of course anything by Adolph Reed Jr. (eg. “Stirrings In The Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era” or “Class Notes: Posing as Politics and other Thoughts on the American Scene”) “Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism” by Toure Reed
Thanks for this bibliography. Michael only briefly mentioned the book by Manji. I enjoy Michael sometimes, but I'm a reader and would like to know which writers influences his thinking. Very familiar with Fanon and Malcolm X, but Toure Reed is new to me. Again, thanks.
Yoster Schnauss I agree and feel white anti-racists on the left, like I know the whole TMBS crew to be, could stand to give her more credit. IMO it’s fair to say some of her ideas have merit, while others, like the idea that white people should be more aware of their “whiteness”, and by extension identifiably black people as “other”, are problematic. And most importantly, the implication that this effort to combat racism is mostly an individual effort and not systemic and requiring of broad social changes is deeply problematic. I think that’s why many white anti-racists (and the few black people I’ve found who’ve commented on this book so far) find it really disturbing: we are in a place where we can make big changes in policy to combat systemic racism with broad popular support, and here’s this very popular book that suggests an entirely different approach that has little to no impact on most people’s lives
I’ve been telling fans of yours and Sam’s, and tyt, and Packman that this is the direction the movement is heading in for years. In return I was called a racist. Nice to see this side of youtube is learning.
There are SO MANY good books. Malcolm was always my favorite. I miss my library. My entire library that took 30 years to develop was destroyed in storage at my son's. But you guys are right...go to any book store and the books people should read are endless. Thank you
Comfortably insulated white people love this book. I work in a book store, the professor, the city council person, the people who are around mostly other comfortably employed, comfortably insured white people that sometimes deal with the unwashed masses (working class, students, voters... Etc) tout this book like a token black friend.
Jannett B so they can wield it against their “lessers” when they get out of line. The Lessers are a convenient place to dump corporate guilt. Now they have a book to prove it.
i'm a non-black POC and while i havent read her book, i've seen her talk ( ruclips.net/video/45ey4jgoxeU/видео.html ) and multiple interviews on youtube. i agree with what she says. she makes really good points that i am disheartened that you would dismiss so easily. you blame her popularity on 'comfortable' white people, but maybe you are the comfortable one in your wokeness. a lot of liberals act like they have learned all they need about race and racism and therefore can dismiss everything/everyone who want to talk about it. THAT is the problem.
@@sydandtaytum I didn't 'blame' her popularity on anything or say anything about the discussions surrounding race or my feelings on it, or actually anything about the content of the book. I simply made an observation of the people I see and hear buying and talking about this book in my place of employment. It's interesting, I've noticed that a lot of people read this book and then go around telling other people what they think and feel about race. As if the act of just reading the book makes them somehow above the conversation and also able to read minds
amanda, she is getting an increasing amount of blowback. . . . i think many people, across the board, are perceiving the cheapish, groveling nature of some of these HR-driven white confessional scenarios -- and recoiling a bit. . . . but she is not fully off th mark by any means. society -- and we whites in particular -- ought to make note of the core of her message, if not all the specific 'techniques' or behavioral solutions she presents
Early in the primary process, a friend of mine started pointing out when the Dem politicians answered questions on Climate Change by recommending individual solutions instead of systemic solutions. Climate Change is a systemic problem and it's going to require a systemic solution. Anything less than that isn't going to to come anywhere close to even addressing the problem in a meaningful way. Since then, I've noticed that approach is absolutely true for the vast majority of the problems that we face as a society. So many of the problems we talk about regularly are systemic and societal issues. And we'll never come even close to addressing those issues until we actually take a systemic/societal approach to them. But that's kind of the key problem with US society and capitalism in general - there's such a huge focus on the individual that we often struggle to see the larger picture and that us individuals are part of the system. It's a way of thinking about things that just doesn't come easy to us. But we are starting to see a shift in the younger generations towards that sort of thinking. And I think the issue of Climate Change in particular is driving that shift - the vast majority of needed action for Climate Change requires a systemic change and can't be addressed on the individual level. And once you starting thinking about the ways to change the system, you've already shifted how you think about things to the point where you start recognizing the systemic problems elsewhere in our society - like systemic racism.
The number of views that this video has vs the number of views Ben Shapiro's video has on the same subject is a clear illustration of how much work we really have to do
When I first heard her talk, I went, yeah. Then after I listened to her during a talk interview, I went, this lady doesn’t really get it. All surface polish and shine. No real depth.
Keith Araneo-Yowell well let me be devils advocate. This channel also makes money off of sharing our viewpoint. I don’t mind that the woman gets paid for her work because in some sense we all do. I think what is important is if the book has led to personal change - which does not mean you don’t work in structural as well but why shoot down a person working on one aspect of racism.?
I'm black, and have read this book and attended DiAngelo's 3 day workshop. Without a doubt it she offers the most real conversation about individual racism I've ever seen from a white person. It should be mandatory reading for all whites that actually want to help solve their own bias and give them the vocabulary and confidence to truly challenge racist ideology. Michael Brooks, his guests, and the several other critics of White Fragility are obviously triggered by their own fragility or have not read or understand her book. I've noticed how most of the critics are either white, or legitimately haven't read the whole book. White Fragility is real. And it is this that has prevented people from confronting their own racism and having meaningful conversations and solutions about systemic racism.
The entire ethos of the white PMC is “The only way I can be a good ally is to feel as much guilt as possible all the time.” Not really a winning message.
I did too. If people are interested, but simultaneously too lazy to search for it themselves, here's the link: ruclips.net/video/SOy60-pfiRU/видео.html.
Best analysis that I can actually trust. Listening to a bunch of white Progressives telling me in vague terms why the book is bad, did not help me, even in the Taibbi interviews, because I wanted to hear Black voices. I was afraid this was more of the same, but you not only put a Black voice first, you detailed the problem other than "The author is a white corporatist." It is pretty hard, as a white person, to know which white voices to trust, let alone blindly. Thank you. Subscribing.
In addition to protection from Title VII type lawsuits these "anti discrimination" compulsory introspection festivals protect institutions of higher education (in particular) against Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) bench audits. A bench audit can cut off huge sums of money to federal contractors including, notably, universities.This mechanism helps enforce democratic party anti discrimination mechanisms (many of which look a lot like "White Fragility" constructs) within universities that are crucibles of politically acceptable race discourse which is predictably and necessarily non-critical with respect to class analysis.
The solution to racism? Clean your room, and do not ask that others change. The racism was in your heart this whole time, and not a material reality. (this is facetious)
Hmm, I don't agree with your stance. From the lectures and interviews I've seen of Robin Di Angelo online, she isn't presenting herself as providing a solution to everything. The impression I got is that she's trying to address the social dynamics that undermine cooperative relations between whites and African Americans and which impede progress toward dismantling racism in general. You talk about unions but ignor the fact that it's the white-dominated UNIONS that often promoted racism right alongside the owner class. But I have not read her book (yet) so I can't say definitively if you have a point. I will note that there are no Black people included in your discussion. And as a Black female, that gives me pause. In addition, since you can't take Di Angelo seriously, perhaps you could consider Carol Anderson's book "White Rage". She also looks at social dynamics that tend to undermine anti-racism efforts, e.g., the bombing of Black Wall Street. She is Black and hence can give you a view from within the Black community. Personally I found Di Angelo's lectures to be rather refreshing. She calls out the white behaviors that contribute to what I know I at least experience as racial fatigue. She doesn't let herself off the hook. She explains why these behaviors are ongoing and persistent. And of the interviews she's done that I have seen, she never positions her work as the main solution. She presents it as a contributing factor among many in the effort to dismantle racism. Perhaps also you should take a look at the work of Irami Osei-Frimpong. He's very much a proponent of changing procedures and policies to effect concrete changes in racial power relations. He approaches things from an institutional perspective in that he thinks that current institutions must be torn down and rebuilt in order to prevent the reproduction of white racism and racist behavior such as that exhibited by Amy Cooper. And he pulls no punches.
@stealth baller I can see that but the thing is, it really does capture what Black folks often experience when trying to address racial issues with whites. Not all white folks but quite a few and too often. It gets weird and then it gets hostile and the discussion dies. So again, I can see your point. But I don't know how to reconcile that with lived experience which actually reflects exactly what that titles says *sigh*
@@beingheardmedia6339 she definitely points out a phenomenon in her book that you have experienced and I have seen myself. However I still think it gets co-opted by corporations who will use it as a weapon against unions organizing
We need a follow up title, "Capitalist Fragility," about the defensiveness and denial of corporate lobbyists and CEOs who are continuing to "center themselves" and "make it all about them." as they demand that the government bail them out for Trillion$$$, even during a pandemic. The privilege! When will they say, "sorry!" for fighting against M4All, and against raising the minimum wage? I'd like to see Matt Taibbi, Matt Stoller, and Glenn Greenwald give them a sensitivity training.
I was going to read because it’s always on everyone’s recommended reading list, but now I’m going read it with this wonderful review of in mind, of how lazy an analysis can be with works like “ white Fragility”.
I know Michael Brooks has referred to and recommended the following here: “Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral” by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher “Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields Anything by Frantz Fanon (“The Wretched of the Earth”, “Black Skin, White Masks” Speeches and writings by Malcolm X
Yes, THIS! I've been thinking that for ages - there should be a reference list of mentioned books, articles, texts etc. in the description; it would be *so* helpful
Abe Hope Michael will do some reviews of the above books. There is an audience for this. Thanks for putting together this list; I’m going to look into reading these.
Michael needs to chill out in the way he talks to his producers and cohorts on the show. Im sure he doesnt intend for this, but it always comes off as super condescending and rude every time he orders them to do something. Like just chill out my dude.
This was a good discussion. Would love to see a part 2 that brings into the fold the work of Jane Elliott - her blue eye/brown eye experiment, and the psychological effects of being brought into a world in which certain individuals become prone to physical bias - using the very real (irrational and stupid) system of physical attributes which individuals have no control over (like skin color, or eye color), implemented to promote the belief in being better than or less than another on that basis... this, IMHO is a relevant aspect that has yet to rise to the forefront of public discussion.
Ugh. After watching this video the RUclips algorithm promptly recommended Ben Shapiro's ant-White-Fragility video to me. What a mess. I'm not saying I think you guys are wrong. I read this book about a year ago it got me started down my "I don't wanna be an anti-SJW anymore" path. I also facilitate some workshops at work that are heavily influenced by the kind of stuff in this book. I'm trying hard not to just react negatively to what you're saying, though. Gonna have to have a think.
The anti-sjw crowd is very toxic, but so is Robin's book. One can criticize a book that claims to have the same goal as yours if that book makes bad scientific and philosophical arguments. There is a podcast called "the dig" that goes through ten different books that are better to read than hers.
I agree with the previous reply. This book contains the exact same brand of intolerance some on the right wing have. The idea that all white people are always going to be racist is bad, but the fact that her book has gotten this much traction and the fact that critical race theory is being taught in some schools is legitimately troubling. Racism is a disease but this is like a botched vaccine.
Just finished this book. I notice that her ideology can be reframed in terms of christian ethics. Racism is basically the original sin in this theology (nobody is exempted). PoCs are the new god. You need to repent your sin in order to redeem yourself (she says explicitly near the end that it is liberating to admit you're racist). But what it means to repent is never really specified. Meanwhile she got hired by all these corporations and got rich. Sounds familiar? I'm starting to think that all these racism, sexism and whatnot are neo-religion erected by capitalism to commodify guilt. Fun stuff.
9:26 yes, blaming the individual when it is the institutions, the framework, that needs fixing. It's the same with recycling and the environment. The packaging industry has successfully pushed the problem onto the individual to "correctly recycle", when the issue could be fixed by a change at the front end of the stream -- in the packaging. RIP Michael. Thanks for all you have done.
Thank you for the conversation on 'White Fragility' issue. I'll like to add that: It had been a quiet recognition and long standing undertone of the ethnic minority communities since the racist campaigns began, most prominently about 1800s! And this racist investment has contributed to our psychological views of the world. Which still shows up in our daily lives today. The trend of weaponising the concept of human prejudices also affect other racial and social communities in different ways . But the most blatantly targeted is the African and their place in their new world. Where the carefully crafted propaganda machine by the colonialists went on to perpetuate these biased, unwritten rules which still governs our world. A world where Africans and people of recent African descent can be easily excluded and often viewed with contempt and in the same frame, Europeans are generally welcomed and assumed favourably in our walks of life. Benefactors of this phenomenon hardly notice the problem. And whether D'Angelo's book was good or not, it has opened pandora's box of the age-old 'taboo subject' and had started a difficult conversations that desperately needed to be had, hopefully - for the better. One way to help change our social psychology on prejudice is through accurate presentation of our global narrative by the custodians of the literary world, - such as, historians, publishers, the print & visual media, education systems etc. Which hasn't been the case.
There's a condensed version you might be interested in. It was frustrating to read, because it was so focused on defensiveness. She gives example after example of how people defend against the idea that they have internalized white supremacy without providing much of a path forward (one or two chapters maybe). The advice she finally gives is (shocker) to be a mature adult, listen openly to feedback you get in relationships, and to respond with empathy and awareness. I completely agree with the criticism that the book speaks to structural racism but doesn't really give any solutions for dismantling it, except for personal self reflection. It's definitely the same nonsense of corporations being the main producers of green house emissions, but everyone just needs to recycle.
My wife is not really a fan of tmbs but she agreed with all the criticisms here of this book but also said I should still read it. So I’m gonna start reading it after I finish the book I’m currently reading.
@@docan5248 there's a fucktonne of people defending the book in the comments... And the TMBS crew is addressing their comments before they typed em. And they were still typed up and sent
@@docan5248 yeah, from some comments I've seen both here and elsewhere, folks on both sides of the issue are apparently conflating the concept of white fragility with this book and it's prescriptions. It's frustrating.
I strongly agree. I’m with Michael 💯 on what he says about performative wokeness, the problems of cultural posing and symbolic obsessions as really just an anti-politics (a la Reed), the desperate need for a more materialist left, and most of what he typically has to say about most issues... *but “white fragility”, the concept, is a thing, no question.* “White Fragility”, the book, sounds like mostly irredeemable trash (I’m trying to get a copy from the library to find out for myself), but they should have maybe made more an effort to disaggregate these, or give a caveat.
It all depends on your Change Theory. Some people believe change must happen on a systemic level; others believe it happens on the level of the family or groups; and still others believe change happens on the individual level. I think it needs to happen on all levels-and you can start anywhere; wherever you happen to be; where you feel motivated. There is nothing wrong with doing diversity training for the individual as long as there is work being done with political policy and within corporate structures and within the family or group unit. And constantly monitoring oneself is nothing but mindfulness training. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you are not condemning yourself for being human and making mistakes.
1. White folks proving the thesis in this comment section. 2. The professor’s work has been out for awhile. The historical moment catapulting it to the forefront of societal consciousness is not shocking. 3. The book is a simple self-assessment tool. 4. The “ideology” of the book being highjacked, commodified, and manipulated into a “mindset” and course of “self-improvement” is not shocking either. 5. People need to exercise some agency and glean what is useful from it and apply it to the real work you’re doing offline. If you subscribe to its message like a devout religionist and only use it as a confessional for assuaging guilt or gaining the feeling of acceptance among non-white people that's your fault.
I haven’t read DiAngelo’s book but I watched her lecture. What I heard her saying is very different from what Michael and crew are saying in this video. Perhaps her book’s content is different. DiAngelo is a sociologist.
You should also read the article they cited by Cedric-Michael Simmons which points out that racism-in-the-workplace workshops are hugely profitable and based on unproven, bogus social science.
6. She's a racial essentialist who believes that solidarity between different ethnicities is impossible and as such fragments any unified front to combat the systematic racism that the current economic system is reliant on
@@joannemiddaugh122 I have read some of it but listen to more of her lectures. Its by no means a perfect solution to facilitating a broad discussion on racial dynamics. But its a suitable jumping off point imo. I think we should definitely critique it as an instrument of control and manipulation by corporate America, or say, a school district or any place of employment. And if DiAngelo herself is complicit in that she should be held to account. My sense is it is not her true aim. But we can wait and see.
Have y'all read the book or spoken with her? No? Um. Have you all worked in an environment that is filled with racial tensions and trying to figure out a way to inject some calm and understanding into the situation? No? Um. Have any of you been asked to lead discussions within a highly charged atmosphere to diminish the impact of racism? No? Um. This sounds like pseudo-intelligence. You all sound like you have the answers to solving the racial problems of America. Good for you!
She’s also a white woman herself. Like just sayin, if you’re going to read books about anti black racism you should listen to black people who have also written about this lmao
No. How many times we have to tell you that we as black people are tired to talk about racism. We are not white peoples teachers. White people have to talk about this and stop asking random black people questions about racism. Not all black people know about racism. If you want to read a book about racism read them by blacks, whites Asians, Hispanic, and Latinx. Due to the fact that black people are not the only people who talk about racism. It is not our job. So I am all for this book white fragility because white people are fragile when it comes to talking about racism. Y'all need to have this discussion at your dinner table.
My God did you miss the memo. But yes, black people are exalted beings hovering over you pouring wisdom that can only be understood when a black person makes the sound waves with their mouth.
She addresses the fact that it's not black people's job to educate us. She talks about the fact that she's white and using that as an advantage to discuss race with white people who don't listen to POC.
Lisa H agreed. But my bigger issue is that they disagree with her concepts and think they have fully evolved. How is it that black people deal with the impacts everyday, but these three white guys feel like this is not a journey but rather a destination and once they have committed to changing it that it is something you have to be conscious of daily just like Black people are and work internally and within community.
I think these guys are being a little harsh. It's really just introducing the concept of systemic racism and encouraging people so that when they get criticized to not totally breakdown - to take constructive criticism. But furthermore, she is anti-capitalist and says so; and the paradigm is capitalism. So, she is not claiming to be THE answer.
I can see the problem with corporations, but I read the book through the lens of a bi-racial, white passing person and it helped me understand a few things about myself. There were no "big" discoveries, but I found it helpful on a personal level. To be fair, I've forgotten most of it already, but I take all help for self discovery, even if there is only a grain of insight.
The sad thing is none of you even bother to read the book and it shows! She has not only enlightened corporations on racial biases. She has also confronted her own family and friends. She ask very indepth questions that exposes alot of white code speak. Also the common phrases that white people use to make themselves seem exempt. Which one of your guest have demonstrated. 🤷🏾♂️
If you think of it as a form of mindfulness training for the individual, which can work hand in hand with systematic policy changes in the government businesses and organizations, (instead of making it about feeling guilty) it can be very helpful.
If you actually want to educate yourself and examine your own attitudes and beliefs about race, then avoid this corporate training manual. That being said, I wasn't overly fond of that Matt Taibbi article about it. His anti woke schtick veers in to dickishness.
Yeah, white people are looking for something for them to grab on to and say 'See? I'm an ally! I believe the correct things! Please don't break my shop windows-' and if it only requires self-flagellation rather than actually changing the material world, all the better. So White Fragility has shot up to the top of all kinds of charts, the bestseller list, etc.
Yup. Been out for awhile under the radar. Not her fault the historical moment has thrust it to the forefront. And she’s making some coin off it. Apparently that’s only appropriate for Steven Pinker.
@@dipthongthathongthongthong9691 - Its not "the historical moment" thrusting White Fragility forward, its the use it serves as an easy solution. Inculcated bias isn't that deep or groundbreaking a concept.
@@RoyalFusilier I agree there are some that are doing that. A superficial self-assuaging treatment of the problem. But others are using the book's premise to do deeper more meaningful work. Neither you nor me can know who's doing what beyond our personal circles.
The funny thing about this video commentary on the book is that sort of proves the point of the book. The book isn’t about tackling systemic racism, it’s about all the ways White people shut down conversations about race to protect themselves. Once you deal with that, you can more effectively deal with the issues of systemic racism.
@@docan5248 Is this the battle that needs to be won now? When we're looking at Tory rule in the UK, Putin's referendum power grab, and the Republican far right in the ascendancy, playing linguistic games and getting people to self flaggelate themselves over unconcious biases will not bring people together, it distracts and obfuscates the class struggle. It divides the working class along racial lines.
@@docan5248 of course it does. But it seems broader systematic race issues don't get anywhere near as much attention from people as interpersonal racism does. If social media and corporate culture is anything to go by anyway.
That's not true. Look at the vast amounts of infrastructure that has been built. The vast majority of the transportation infrastructure was built by machinations by the corporatocracy. Electrification as well. We'd be living in the stone age if we weren't worthy of being exploited as workers and consumers by our corporate overlords.
It's #MeToo 2.0. Justice movement as fashion/trend, w/ no meaningful answers, functioning as a distraction from the hard problems--i.e., underlying economic problems.
@@hehwhwh727 "Virtue signaling" Another nothing term that inexplicably still has traction in the popular discourse. I don't know you and you don't know me so you cannot possibly know what I'm about in my day to day life. "Signaling" to other anonymous nobodies on the interwebs is not my twist pal. Btw, indigenous people of ANY continent are not entwined in a system where WHITE people particularly are not conscious of the ways they benefit from and contribute to a system of race (and class) based advantage/disadvantage?
@@dipthongthathongthongthong9691 Stop whitesplaining, and ask the aboriginals themselves what they want. I don't see any of them endorsing this book. Are you a closet racist who thinks you need to be their saviour?
So, I think that if you think about racism - it impacts all of us. To deny it is kind of ridiculous. There are many levels of racism (individual/interpersonal, internalized, organizational and institutional and systemic/structural). Why I don't shit on this book is because it deals more with implicit bias and internalized. The fact of the matter is as a black woman these microaggressions are shit i have dealt with on a daily basis thank goodness my mother was knowledgeable and was able to counteract the messages and the daily racism I experienced in terms of microaggressions. You have to believe that those things impacted me considerably, but they also impacted my friends who weren't people of color. You cannot just think that academia, which I believe is the focus you all primarily take, are able to speak to racism in the same ways. I think if you interveiwed that author, I believe she talks about it from a systematic approach too but not the main emphasis of the book. Ultimately, racism is insidious and I don't think 3 white men can talk about microaggressions and how that impacts people of color, if they are not even willing to do introspection and understand that 400 years of racism (at all levels) doesn't just mean you can only attack it with logic - as you all do, but we have to address it at all levels, and the messenger is going to change depending on the audience. I think this is a situation of a toolbox and she has one tool, what is the point of throwing it out - because it only looks at two forms of racism? Karens are all around us, so to deny the why/how of weaponizing whiteness happens is to say for the millions of Black people that experience daily deluge of implicit and explicit biases verbalized or not, whose names are too "ethnic" on resumes so they never get invited, or who face the next level of racism - it must be addressed. So, I don't shit on her theory because I believe it's important, just as I wouldn't shit on your commentary because it is also in the toolbox as well. Some could say that you all don't focus on the sociological enough, but that doesn't mean I throw you out with the bathwater.
THANK YOU. The construct of "race" has its multitudinous personal and societal consequences. Brookes and co can explore the more abstract ideas of the book as a template for employee control and corporations relieving themselves of the responsibility for real change. There's room for that. But the book broaches topics that can have a real benefit to the day to day lives of non-white people. People objecting so vehemently I suspect don't deal with the micro-aggressions of which you speak.
Dip Thongthathongthongthong yes. I love this show, but my main point of contention from time-to-time is that when we just focus on class without looking at the intersections with race or other areas, we become blind-sighted to the ways racism was designed and how it maintains itself to adjust to different aspects of society. We cannot talk about Marxism without talking about what Marx said about Blacks and Mexicans. Even within all structures of society, racism exists. When we deny it or when we belittle the experience through intentional oversight, we miss major impacts for communities and it comes off as nonchalant, especially when we see the direct impact of police who have implicit bias taking lives based on implicit bias. Ultimately, you captured correctly my sentiments. It’s just like when I used to go to hear Green Party people or well known people that I could get behind, but then I said why are there no Black people here- probably because you can’t build a real movement without the people most impacted. If this show cannot understand all aspects of racism and understand that it is not only the Cornel West’s, or the Angela Davis’ and others that have been working to address all forms of racism and classism and other isms and that it is a constant battle to shape our minds to be more just through our words and actions; through battling what our minds may say. To believe that racism is a one time thing that you have wrestled with seems to be a fallacy because just like trauma impacts people for large portions of their life so do systems of oppression impact whites and people of color. I would say white men attempting to delegitimize the day-to-day experiences of people of color and dictate what the focus must be on is also short-sighted and loses some depth along the way.
YES THIS. i am so annoyed that they really dont see the irony here. three white men telling people of color that what robin talks about isn't our experience.
sydandtaytum well, for people that like to talk about intersections, I just feel they are near-sighted. I believe that we have to engage heart and mind and systems. It’s funny because black families and families of color have been dealing with systematic racism - from there it is trickle down to the everyday minutiae that still impacts us. I understand the class struggle but these things are intertwined. Marginalized communities deal with systems and individuals every single day, why are white people absolved of the daily work of addressing their issues that stem from race. Who knew it was a one time event that then gives white people “the stamp of approval.” It’s daily work to think about it and marginalized groups should just be the ones dealing with it because they face that shit everyday. Also, I come from a labor background and also understand even within this context if you don’t address racism, it’s just another system with racist undertones or racism that in this case does trickle down. At the end of the day I do love most of their content but I refuse to sit here and do this with three woke bros who tell me my everyday struggle should not matter in the scheme of things.
I don’t think these guys read the book. The book’s “topic” is literally about pointing out that white people have a hard time talking about race and why from her perspective. She is literally talking about the same issues as Jane Elliot. It’s a good book and I recommend it🤷🏾♂️
![The White Fragility Theory with Glenn Loury [MINI CLIP]](/img/1.gif)
The purpose of this book seems to be helping corporations offload yet more burdens onto their workers, who are already overworked and underpaid.
Much like the pseudo-wokeness of twitter and mass media functions to offload responsibility for the problems of our society onto individuals, who are already confused, miserable, and struggling.
Younger generations are further left than any previous ones? Well, this is how the establishment wants to neutralize that. Make "left-wing politics" into a doctrine of self-discipline and suspicion toward your fellow everyday people.
We have had multiple seminars on this crap at my job. It's some shit, most men (including myself) will not sit in a conference room alone with a woman. Are we now not supposed to sit in a room alone with people of color? This suspicion of the other is wrecking us and perpetuating the bs culture war.
Climate change, plague, war, healthcare, and poverty will kill us all before this kind of pandering corporate b.s. stops.
her talking about how racism happens in individual context is not 'offloading responsibility'. what annoys me about all these WHITE men talking about this is they completely skip over the part where she makes very TRUE points about how people of color's experiences. it seems like they just don't want to deal with the inconvenient idea that they themselves have participated in these racist moments, so it would be better to write her off by yelling 'nO YOU DIDNT TALK ABOUT ENOUGH SOLUTIONS' and 'OH SHE DOES CORPORATE TRAINING'. yes, SO WHAT? it doesnt mean what she is saying isn't true.
obviously economic inequality pLAYS INTO racism, but it is not all of it. if you got rid of economic inequality, racism would still exist. so why cant these white men fucking sit in their discomfort about their own racism instead of TELLING us what is and isn't true about our experience?? this is the first michael brooks video that truly disgusts me and made me want to unsubscribe. it is also disheartening to see all the sheep in the comments piling on when they likely havent even read the book. a lot of 'it's popular in the mainstream so it must be bad' bullshitters.
@@sydandtaytum They're discussing an article by Cedrick-Michael Simmons, a black man, about a book by Robin DiAngelo, a white woman. The things you describe are criticisms HE made.
@@sydandtaytum way to win over sceptics, calling them sheep.
who knew that delving into people's unconscious psyche and then "how dare" ing them as if its a personal failure would make people defensive?
Nobody likes struggle sessions, yet the terminally online caucus of the left cant seem to do anything else...
@@sydandtaytum how do you know what people you have never met feel or have experienced? It is the same question I would ask anyone who makes broad and sweeping assertions about groups of people. It is simple, each of us is an individual before we are a member of any group. DiAngelo is a huckster selling snake oil, period
I can’t believe he’s gone😭😭😭😢😭 Rest In Peace old friend . You’re legacy will live on.
It's so tragic. On a personal human level, and on a grander political level it's a huge loss for the left. Devisating.
an ass he were, might've been karma
Irvin Cruz : 🤦🏻♀️…we have ‘The Intercept’, but nobody for us, here in the USA, nobody who is one of us, who knows what we undergo, what we see, and this includes those of us who are/have been 👉🏾to other places on the planet 🌎 and care…💔. it was only Micheal.
Definitely cried when I found out. Obviously didn't know him personally but learned and continue to learn so much from him. When Sam broke down on the remembering Michael Brooks episode I lost it. 😢😭
@@Julian-we6qg tf man, check yourself
Notice how she ignores institutional racism including corporate America's racist actions. It's all about how individual employees are racist on a personal level (and that needs to be documented for HR).
EsEe TV exactly it’s all about shifting the blame on to the worker. No talk about how systemic racism is a product of capitalism.
Very important point. And still, the interconnectedness of it all (from the institutional through to the interpersonal level) should be considered, and I think a nuanced materialist + dialectic understanding of this is important, through a lens that takes into account both the centrality of class struggle in this and the particularly American connectedness of class with race, resultant from the centuries-long economic subjugation of African Americans.
Sam O but honestly how do we expect the work class white people to work on their own unconscious racism when people can barely work on their own mental health under this system?
Where it leads to is increased surveillance and increased tyranny and employer control in the workplace. It’s DISGUSTING.
If they make racism your personal, unchangeable flaw, then protests become mobs causing problems. Convincing white people that all they have to do to stop racism is to attend endless 'diversity training' seminars, then trying to change the system of racism can be portrayed as blame shifting, or a hatred of 'law and order'. If racism is your personal sin, then protesting police brutality must mean you don't want to follow the law, because the system is fine, it's all your fault as a person.
I'm having this weird realization that I had been seriously missing out on Micheal's perspective before he passed. Yeah, I watched a little TMBS and MR here and there when he was dunking on Rubin or whatever, but I'm slowly realizing -- to my dismay, frankly -- that his serious work was straight-up profound. I started reading about White Fragility today and its arguments, then watched this and was like, "This is it exactly. Michael saw the problem in high definition."
Me too. This shit is way better than i think a lot of people realized. The state of a lot of things is way worse than I ever expected
Having this realization too. I saw him as funny, but he was so much more. His work will live on.
@@omarisawesome1996 I feel the same way. Ben Burgis also unfocused. I do have to say the Jacobin show and Weekends isn't bad but not even close to TMBS.
I just went through a training with the county I work for in part based on this book; at one point one of the speakers/trainers admitted the reason we are doing this is so we don't get sued by former employees or clients. The training was for shelter workers who earned little more than minimum wage and were mostly minorities, the people doing the training were making over 60K a year and talking to us about equity, the irony was painful to watch.
Man, I want him alive right now. He had such an insightful, thoughtful perspective on everything.
2020 really is the worst year, hands down.
Everything HR does is in service to helping companies and the overprivileged and harming the workers and the underprivileged.
Actually, HR doesn’t use White Fragility. My organization did a two-day workshop and recommended reading it two years ago and no one bought it. However, one of the examples in the book is how white women will use their tears as a weapon which I’ve seen happened. During a meeting, two white women cried when were told that the worksheet they created no longer met the need of the workflow. Their manager was a man of color. No, the book doesn’t teach anything about the history of structural racism. People need to more books like the Invention of Race or Isabel Wilkerson’s upcoming book, Caste because we don’t like to think America as a caste system.
The book does suggest that White people speak up, but I don’t expect that to happen. The book is for White people and can tell every behavior that she writes in the book as either happened to me or seen it done to BIPOC.
I was recommended this book by my psychiatrist after we briefly talked about the current racial tensions in my last appointment. She admitted she had not read it.
Omg. 😨
Quackery!
it's the book equivalent of "I have a black friend". The title is EVERYTHING
In my experience, most psychiatrists are quacks. Not that there aren't good people in psychiatry doing good work.
@@Reality4Peace I don't want to make it seem like she's a bad doctor, she's actually quite good and has probably helped me more than the half dozen doctors/therapists I saw before her combined. I was just trying to highlight how much undeserved press this book has gotten.
The HR-ification of social problems.
oscar strokosz HR is another way of enabling misogynists and racists, only using a third party. Reporting harassment to HR is identifying yourself as a problem, and HR gets rid of you. And the harasser moves on to harassing the next employee. HR would rather back a harasser than admit any kind of liability that could be used in a lawsuit against them.
This is the ‘clean your room’ version of milk toast activism
Absolutely. Spot on.
This phenomenon feels like a bad case of, What Black People Want (the Racial Inequality Edition). I'm sorry, this book has shifted the conversation away from racial justice to who's more woke and let's talk about what makes white folks comfortable. Let's focus on the task at hand.
I don't know if you're familiar with Robin DG Kelley, but he was part of a discussion yesterday on Haymarket Books which you may find interesting. Overall, I thought it was a good talk. I hope you get something out of it.
ruclips.net/video/L0sAiaJf-A8/видео.html
@@non-standardproletarian3356 Robin DG Kelley ROCKS. Historians can do far better with what we are up against in this moment than corporate trainers.
itgetter9 Yeah maybe Lawyers aren’t the only people who should be in our Congress to save us. 😂
That's so true
Fair point. I can see how this conversation could come off as white people making the issues about themselves in an attempt to help...
I’m here because Chadwick just died. I thought of all the most important people to me that died this year. Michael being one of them. Take care of yourself if you’re reading this.
"Some of the Dodgers who swore they would never play with a black man had a change of mind when they realized I was a good ballplayer who could be helpful in their earning a few thousand more dollars in World Series money. After the initial resistance to me had been crushed, my teammates started to give me tips on how to improve my game. They hadn’t changed because they liked me any better, they had changed because I could help fill their wallets."
Jackie Robinson
Seems like an unsustainable solution. The second you aren’t a “valuable teammate” anymore, you’ll be reminded that nothing in their minds or hearts actually changed.
@@scoobertmcruppert2915 exactly and that same mentality is why white supremacists ideology has been able to last so long in society...the "good" non white people are good as long as they serve a purpose but as soon as they don't we break them and move on to another useful tool...
*Someone wrote this in the comment section and I think it is a good read*
1. White folks proving the thesis in this comment section.
2. The professor’s work has been out for awhile. The historical moment catapulting it to the forefront of societal consciousness is not shocking.
3. The book is a simple self-assessment tool.
4. The “ideology” of the book being hijacked,
commodified, and manipulated into a “mindset” and course of “self-improvement” is not shocking either(Capitalist economic system).
5. People need to exercise some agency and glean what is useful from it and apply it to the real work you’re doing offline. If you subscribe to its message like a devout religionists that’s your fault.
@@scoobertmcruppert2915 What it highlights, though, is that targeting 'hearts and minds' via moralism won't even change racist behavior, much less the habitat in which those behaviors thrive. Such idealism is an impotent approach. There has to be a material basis for even superficial behaviors to change. This is the main failing of Diangelo's book.
Rufous Hummingbird I get that...but you can’t fall into believing that it’s ACTUALLY changed or changing anything in a permanent way. Just temporary appeasement basically
A proper title for this book should be "Marketing Myself Multiculturally".
I haven't read the book so I can't really agree or disagree with your analysis. But what what you said about it reminded me of a term in the self-help/entrepreneurial sphere called "action faking," which describes engaging in surface level busywork to _feel_ as though you're productive rather than doing the necessary tasks to advance a goal. I'd say things like "spreading awareness" and "thoughts and prayers" fall into that category.
Spot on
It's very nice to see a Leftist critique of this text as well as performative wokeness and superficial, identity-based diversity training.
I think these things are, at best, distractions from putting together a comprehensive, policy-based agenda that addresses both economic and racial inequality, to which a class-based analysis is an essential ingredient.
Excellent critique!
I hope that more people on the Left start to at least question some of the orthodoxy that has become so prevalent in much of the contemporary U.S. Left.
And yes, I happen to be a person of color.
Damn I miss you. Glad I can still plug in and hear you, Michael. Its still crazy here. But your presence has helped me laugh and keep going, and the people you introduced me to are a lifeline.
Not only is the book wrong, people are reading it instead of a number of other great books.
I'm tired of white people taking the blame for everything that is wrong in society
that's true with any crummy book!
@@bethannesperring872 ph there is the white fragility right there.
😅 yet you fail to list the other great books
@@bethannesperring872 the burden of being a descendant (beneficary) of colonialism/imperialism.😢 When you have hundreds years of one race a minority race at that controling and subverting the whole world, yes they will get blamed for alot. You want whites to get all the credit for greatness of societies and not the blame for the destruction of societies. You're tired? The whole world is tired of white rule/supremacy.
So much still to learn from such a great mind, very sorry he’s gone..
Nothing sells better to The Comfortable than anything that lets them off the hook for actually doing something to resolve a problem by permitting them to wallow in guilt about it.
It's a pretty bad book in general. On a very basic level, none of the social critique is particularly off the mark in my view. The problem is the same as it is with all liberal critique which is it almost completely ignores class as it intersects with race and the fact that bigotry and capitalism are inextricably linked. It's similar to how, as Angela Davis has pointed out, there is a huge current of liberal feminists who rally to "break the glass ceiling" which by definition means that they support the ruthless hierarchies and general structure of capitalist society.
If you search for the term "intersectionality", you have to sift through a lot of mainstream liberal ideology to find a chart that even has "class" on it, which is completely absurd, since it's the single most significant axis of oppression by far. Liberals, in essence, have stolen intersectionality, which is why I think it gets so maligned even in leftist circles, even though fundamentally it's a good idea.
If you explain the basic idea to people on the left without using the word, they generally don't take much of an issue with it. It's not the same thing as identity politics based around adopted identities at all, it's based around observations of how people are categorized and segregated in society already. The reason so many people associate it with individualist liberal identity politics is because liberals who have co-opted it have no answer to the fundamental problems of capitalism, they can only get increasingly fervent in their beliefs that all of society's ills are down to individuals. Many of them seem to be very firm their belief that bigots are predestined from birth to be evil, to be "the bad guy", to be the villains of liberal mythology.
As much as we all hate to say it, we genuinely have waaaay more in common with the average Trump fanatic and even the alt right than we do with executives like Jeff Bezos or hedge fund managers. Anyone who says we can achieve any semblance of equality in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. within capitalism is dangerously wrong. To point out that bigotry is a societal ill not a personal failing of individuals is not to excuse it, but only when it's acknowledged as such can we effectively do something about it. It's ironic to me that a group so often considered "postmodernist" by detractors of liberalism (and of postmodern thought) still in general has such a basic "good vs. evil" outlook when it comes to politics.
I'd go further, I think the book is complete trash written by a genuinely mean-spirited academic; This book is a mis critique that creates divisions and then labels that as evidence of its critique. It is no longer a race problem, but directly and indirectly a class problem that is afflicting black Americans.
These kind of progressive woke politics are just as much the enemy as racists proper are, if not more so at this point.
Any time we look for an individual solution to a systemic problem, we're inevitably going to fall short and never address the core problem itself. It's just as true for racism as it is for Climate Change. It also has the effect of making ppl defensive and that they're being personally attacked. By shifting the discussion onto the individual, it effectively means that we'll only tinker around the edges and never come even close to solving the problem.
👏👏👏
@@SadisticSenpai61 Tensai55, if you don't think the individual has the solution for the systemic problem, what would be the core problem itself for you?
@@formalino The core problem is the system. The US Justice system itself has systemic racism built into it. Firing particularly bad officers won't change that.
Additionally, the vast majority of emissions and pollution comes from corporations, not individuals. No amount of using reusable bags is going to change the fact that practically everything is packaged in plastic.
Some of the books Brooks recommended as deserving of more attention than the corporate consultant’s:
“Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral” by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher
“Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields
Anything by Frantz Fanon (“The Wretched of the Earth”, “Black Skin, White Masks”)
Speeches and writings by Malcolm X
Also, of course anything by Adolph Reed Jr. (eg. “Stirrings In The Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era” or “Class Notes: Posing as Politics and other Thoughts on the American Scene”)
“Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism” by Toure Reed
Thanks for this bibliography. Michael only briefly mentioned the book by Manji. I enjoy Michael sometimes, but I'm a reader and would like to know which writers influences his thinking. Very familiar with Fanon and Malcolm X, but Toure Reed is new to me. Again, thanks.
Thank you.
Yoster Schnauss I agree and feel white anti-racists on the left, like I know the whole TMBS crew to be, could stand to give her more credit. IMO it’s fair to say some of her ideas have merit, while others, like the idea that white people should be more aware of their “whiteness”, and by extension identifiably black people as “other”, are problematic. And most importantly, the implication that this effort to combat racism is mostly an individual effort and not systemic and requiring of broad social changes is deeply problematic. I think that’s why many white anti-racists (and the few black people I’ve found who’ve commented on this book so far) find it really disturbing: we are in a place where we can make big changes in policy to combat systemic racism with broad popular support, and here’s this very popular book that suggests an entirely different approach that has little to no impact on most people’s lives
RIP Michael.... Hanging out with the greats like Tupac and Kobe...
I’ve been telling fans of yours and Sam’s, and tyt, and Packman that this is the direction the movement is heading in for years. In return I was called a racist. Nice to see this side of youtube is learning.
There are SO MANY good books. Malcolm was always my favorite. I miss my library. My entire library that took 30 years to develop was destroyed in storage at my son's. But you guys are right...go to any book store and the books people should read are endless.
Thank you
Comfortably insulated white people love this book. I work in a book store, the professor, the city council person, the people who are around mostly other comfortably employed, comfortably insured white people that sometimes deal with the unwashed masses (working class, students, voters... Etc) tout this book like a token black friend.
Jannett B so they can wield it against their “lessers” when they get out of line. The Lessers are a convenient place to dump corporate guilt. Now they have a book to prove it.
i'm a non-black POC and while i havent read her book, i've seen her talk ( ruclips.net/video/45ey4jgoxeU/видео.html ) and multiple interviews on youtube. i agree with what she says. she makes really good points that i am disheartened that you would dismiss so easily. you blame her popularity on 'comfortable' white people, but maybe you are the comfortable one in your wokeness. a lot of liberals act like they have learned all they need about race and racism and therefore can dismiss everything/everyone who want to talk about it. THAT is the problem.
@@sydandtaytum You are no such thing. You are a youtube comment.
@@sydandtaytum I didn't 'blame' her popularity on anything or say anything about the discussions surrounding race or my feelings on it, or actually anything about the content of the book. I simply made an observation of the people I see and hear buying and talking about this book in my place of employment. It's interesting, I've noticed that a lot of people read this book and then go around telling other people what they think and feel about race. As if the act of just reading the book makes them somehow above the conversation and also able to read minds
@@jannettb7930 The left is eating itself up big time.
Thank you for this elevating conversation.
It's politicized original sin dogma - a huge guilt trip.
Matt Taibbi wrote a scathing takedown of this book.
amanda, she is getting an increasing amount of blowback. . . . i think many people, across the board, are perceiving the cheapish, groveling nature of some of these HR-driven white confessional scenarios -- and recoiling a bit. . . . but she is not fully off th mark by any means. society -- and we whites in particular -- ought to make note of the core of her message, if not all the specific 'techniques' or behavioral solutions she presents
Early in the primary process, a friend of mine started pointing out when the Dem politicians answered questions on Climate Change by recommending individual solutions instead of systemic solutions. Climate Change is a systemic problem and it's going to require a systemic solution. Anything less than that isn't going to to come anywhere close to even addressing the problem in a meaningful way.
Since then, I've noticed that approach is absolutely true for the vast majority of the problems that we face as a society. So many of the problems we talk about regularly are systemic and societal issues. And we'll never come even close to addressing those issues until we actually take a systemic/societal approach to them. But that's kind of the key problem with US society and capitalism in general - there's such a huge focus on the individual that we often struggle to see the larger picture and that us individuals are part of the system. It's a way of thinking about things that just doesn't come easy to us.
But we are starting to see a shift in the younger generations towards that sort of thinking. And I think the issue of Climate Change in particular is driving that shift - the vast majority of needed action for Climate Change requires a systemic change and can't be addressed on the individual level. And once you starting thinking about the ways to change the system, you've already shifted how you think about things to the point where you start recognizing the systemic problems elsewhere in our society - like systemic racism.
Michael, plz try not to interrupt David. Thanks, love the show :)
Man his point of view is so missed, but he was never alone then and we are not alone now
The number of views that this video has vs the number of views Ben Shapiro's video has on the same subject is a clear illustration of how much work we really have to do
When I first heard her talk, I went, yeah. Then after I listened to her during a talk interview, I went, this lady doesn’t really get it. All surface polish and shine. No real depth.
"you can never do anything about it" - except make money off of it.
It makes her "corporate consultant " job vital
we really do live in a nightmare Kafka could've never dreamed of
This powerpoint solves racism. You owe me $60000
Keith Araneo-Yowell well let me be devils advocate. This channel also makes money off of sharing our viewpoint. I don’t mind that the woman gets paid for her work because in some sense we all do. I think what is important is if the book has led to personal change - which does not mean you don’t work in structural as well but why shoot down a person working on one aspect of racism.?
I'm black, and have read this book and attended DiAngelo's 3 day workshop. Without a doubt it she offers the most real conversation about individual racism I've ever seen from a white person. It should be mandatory reading for all whites that actually want to help solve their own bias and give them the vocabulary and confidence to truly challenge racist ideology.
Michael Brooks, his guests, and the several other critics of White Fragility are obviously triggered by their own fragility or have not read or understand her book. I've noticed how most of the critics are either white, or legitimately haven't read the whole book.
White Fragility is real. And it is this that has prevented people from confronting their own racism and having meaningful conversations and solutions about systemic racism.
you sound like a cult member
@Autumn Potato the biggest tell it was three short paragraphs best summed up as "lolll triggered much???" without a single substantive point
Focusing on the racism of individuals, takes the spot light off the systemic racism of institutions. It's original sin for secular society.
The entire ethos of the white PMC is “The only way I can be a good ally is to feel as much guilt as possible all the time.” Not really a winning message.
really liked the chapo ep on that book ;D
I did too. If people are interested, but simultaneously too lazy to search for it themselves, here's the link: ruclips.net/video/SOy60-pfiRU/видео.html.
Best analysis that I can actually trust. Listening to a bunch of white Progressives telling me in vague terms why the book is bad, did not help me, even in the Taibbi interviews, because I wanted to hear Black voices. I was afraid this was more of the same, but you not only put a Black voice first, you detailed the problem other than "The author is a white corporatist." It is pretty hard, as a white person, to know which white voices to trust, let alone blindly. Thank you. Subscribing.
In addition to protection from Title VII type lawsuits these "anti discrimination" compulsory introspection festivals protect institutions of higher education (in particular) against Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) bench audits. A bench audit can cut off huge sums of money to federal contractors including, notably, universities.This mechanism helps enforce democratic party anti discrimination mechanisms (many of which look a lot like "White Fragility" constructs) within universities that are crucibles of politically acceptable race discourse which is predictably and necessarily non-critical with respect to class analysis.
The solution to racism? Clean your room, and do not ask that others change. The racism was in your heart this whole time, and not a material reality.
(this is facetious)
Or how about this...clean your room before you indulge your need to assert your (laughable) moral and social superiority.
Policy positions = substantive
Social justice activism = trivial, performative
Damn straight, and lucid analysis of a complex issue.
Hmm, I don't agree with your stance. From the lectures and interviews I've seen of Robin Di Angelo online, she isn't presenting herself as providing a solution to everything. The impression I got is that she's trying to address the social dynamics that undermine cooperative relations between whites and African Americans and which impede progress toward dismantling racism in general. You talk about unions but ignor the fact that it's the white-dominated UNIONS that often promoted racism right alongside the owner class.
But I have not read her book (yet) so I can't say definitively if you have a point. I will note that there are no Black people included in your discussion. And as a Black female, that gives me pause. In addition, since you can't take Di Angelo seriously, perhaps you could consider Carol Anderson's book "White Rage". She also looks at social dynamics that tend to undermine anti-racism efforts, e.g., the bombing of Black Wall Street. She is Black and hence can give you a view from within the Black community.
Personally I found Di Angelo's lectures to be rather refreshing. She calls out the white behaviors that contribute to what I know I at least experience as racial fatigue. She doesn't let herself off the hook. She explains why these behaviors are ongoing and persistent. And of the interviews she's done that I have seen, she never positions her work as the main solution. She presents it as a contributing factor among many in the effort to dismantle racism.
Perhaps also you should take a look at the work of Irami Osei-Frimpong. He's very much a proponent of changing procedures and policies to effect concrete changes in racial power relations. He approaches things from an institutional perspective in that he thinks that current institutions must be torn down and rebuilt in order to prevent the reproduction of white racism and racist behavior such as that exhibited by Amy Cooper. And he pulls no punches.
She's a racial essentialist
@stealth baller I can see that but the thing is, it really does capture what Black folks often experience when trying to address racial issues with whites. Not all white folks but quite a few and too often. It gets weird and then it gets hostile and the discussion dies. So again, I can see your point. But I don't know how to reconcile that with lived experience which actually reflects exactly what that titles says *sigh*
I wouldn't say the book was/is valueless to me at all even while I disagree with the trajectory of the book at times and where it has gone.
@@DisappointedBuddha That is not possible if she also takes an intersectional approach (which she does).
@@beingheardmedia6339 she definitely points out a phenomenon in her book that you have experienced and I have seen myself. However I still think it gets co-opted by corporations who will use it as a weapon against unions organizing
We need a follow up title, "Capitalist Fragility," about the defensiveness and denial of corporate lobbyists and CEOs who are continuing to "center themselves" and "make it all about them." as they demand that the government bail them out for Trillion$$$, even during a pandemic. The privilege! When will they say, "sorry!" for fighting against M4All, and against raising the minimum wage?
I'd like to see Matt Taibbi, Matt Stoller, and Glenn Greenwald give them a sensitivity training.
This book and corporate woke culture is literal cancer.
I was going to read because it’s always on everyone’s recommended reading list, but now I’m going read it with this wonderful review of in mind, of how lazy an analysis can be with works like “ white Fragility”.
I read it, liked some of it, didn't agree with all of it, but I DO NOT BELIEVE that these 3 men even read it through
It would be nice if they could list all the book recommendations in the description. Is there a reddit page for this info out there?
I know Michael Brooks has referred to and recommended the following here:
“Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral” by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher
“Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life” by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields
Anything by Frantz Fanon (“The Wretched of the Earth”, “Black Skin, White Masks”
Speeches and writings by Malcolm X
Yes, THIS! I've been thinking that for ages - there should be a reference list of mentioned books, articles, texts etc. in the description; it would be *so* helpful
Abe
Hope Michael will do some reviews of the above books. There is an audience for this. Thanks for putting together this list; I’m going to look into reading these.
Michael needs to chill out in the way he talks to his producers and cohorts on the show. Im sure he doesnt intend for this, but it always comes off as super condescending and rude every time he orders them to do something. Like just chill out my dude.
Agreed. Sam does that shit too..or at least use to with Jamie. Shit is annoying.
I think they are just super high maintenance when it comes to their shows haha but yeah it Defo comes across as rude
jsbart96 They want a high quality well-run show. I think they tunnel-vision that and ignore their coworkers. I understand it, but they should chill.
@@eldridgedavis He still does. Idk if it's just me, but Jamie always seems to be consistently interrupted or talked over by everyone else on the show
It's pointlessness, poorly written by a fraud.
You gotta give her credit for finding a good hustle that won’t get her canceled.
Rip brother you will be missed so much by so many people
This was a good discussion. Would love to see a part 2 that brings into the fold the work of Jane Elliott - her blue eye/brown eye experiment, and the psychological effects of being brought into a world in which certain individuals become prone to physical bias - using the very real (irrational and stupid) system of physical attributes which individuals have no control over (like skin color, or eye color), implemented to promote the belief in being better than or less than another on that basis... this, IMHO is a relevant aspect that has yet to rise to the forefront of public discussion.
Ugh. After watching this video the RUclips algorithm promptly recommended Ben Shapiro's ant-White-Fragility video to me. What a mess. I'm not saying I think you guys are wrong. I read this book about a year ago it got me started down my "I don't wanna be an anti-SJW anymore" path. I also facilitate some workshops at work that are heavily influenced by the kind of stuff in this book. I'm trying hard not to just react negatively to what you're saying, though. Gonna have to have a think.
The anti-sjw crowd is very toxic, but so is Robin's book. One can criticize a book that claims to have the same goal as yours if that book makes bad scientific and philosophical arguments. There is a podcast called "the dig" that goes through ten different books that are better to read than hers.
I agree with the previous reply. This book contains the exact same brand of intolerance some on the right wing have. The idea that all white people are always going to be racist is bad, but the fact that her book has gotten this much traction and the fact that critical race theory is being taught in some schools is legitimately troubling. Racism is a disease but this is like a botched vaccine.
Just finished this book. I notice that her ideology can be reframed in terms of christian ethics. Racism is basically the original sin in this theology (nobody is exempted). PoCs are the new god. You need to repent your sin in order to redeem yourself (she says explicitly near the end that it is liberating to admit you're racist). But what it means to repent is never really specified. Meanwhile she got hired by all these corporations and got rich. Sounds familiar? I'm starting to think that all these racism, sexism and whatnot are neo-religion erected by capitalism to commodify guilt. Fun stuff.
9:26 yes, blaming the individual when it is the institutions, the framework, that needs fixing. It's the same with recycling and the environment. The packaging industry has successfully pushed the problem onto the individual to "correctly recycle", when the issue could be fixed by a change at the front end of the stream -- in the packaging. RIP Michael. Thanks for all you have done.
This just popped up on my feed. It feels strange to watch. We lost an important progressive voice. R.I.P.
Thank you for the conversation on 'White Fragility' issue. I'll like to add that: It had been a quiet recognition and long standing undertone of the ethnic minority communities since the racist campaigns began, most prominently about 1800s! And this racist investment has contributed to our psychological views of the world. Which still shows up in our daily lives today. The trend of weaponising the concept of human prejudices also affect other racial and social communities in different ways . But the most blatantly targeted is the African and their place in their new world. Where the carefully crafted propaganda machine by the colonialists went on to perpetuate these biased, unwritten rules which still governs our world. A world where Africans and people of recent African descent can be easily excluded and often viewed with contempt and in the same frame, Europeans are generally welcomed and assumed favourably in our walks of life. Benefactors of this phenomenon hardly notice the problem. And whether D'Angelo's book was good or not, it has opened pandora's box of the age-old 'taboo subject' and had started a difficult conversations that desperately needed to be had, hopefully - for the better. One way to help change our social psychology on prejudice is through accurate presentation of our global narrative by the custodians of the literary world, - such as, historians, publishers, the print & visual media, education systems etc. Which hasn't been the case.
Michael Brooks, Rest in Power
Between this article and Taibbi's piece, I kinda want to read this dumpster fire for myself. Please change my mind. Please.
@stealth baller OK, that's not relevant to the topic at hand, but I hope it made you feel better to leave a useless comment anyway.
@stealth baller proof?
There's a condensed version you might be interested in.
It was frustrating to read, because it was so focused on defensiveness. She gives example after example of how people defend against the idea that they have internalized white supremacy without providing much of a path forward (one or two chapters maybe). The advice she finally gives is (shocker) to be a mature adult, listen openly to feedback you get in relationships, and to respond with empathy and awareness.
I completely agree with the criticism that the book speaks to structural racism but doesn't really give any solutions for dismantling it, except for personal self reflection. It's definitely the same nonsense of corporations being the main producers of green house emissions, but everyone just needs to recycle.
My wife is not really a fan of tmbs but she agreed with all the criticisms here of this book but also said I should still read it. So I’m gonna start reading it after I finish the book I’m currently reading.
@@edwardb4730 read it but don't buy it
You might want to add the word "book" to the title. I'm seeing some very confused comments.
It's a number one seller.
Also the book is the thumbnail
Cam M Also the term white fragility very obviously triggers many people.
@@docan5248 there's a fucktonne of people defending the book in the comments... And the TMBS crew is addressing their comments before they typed em. And they were still typed up and sent
@@docan5248 yeah, from some comments I've seen both here and elsewhere, folks on both sides of the issue are apparently conflating the concept of white fragility with this book and it's prescriptions. It's frustrating.
I strongly agree. I’m with Michael 💯 on what he says about performative wokeness, the problems of cultural posing and symbolic obsessions as really just an anti-politics (a la Reed), the desperate need for a more materialist left, and most of what he typically has to say about most issues... *but “white fragility”, the concept, is a thing, no question.* “White Fragility”, the book, sounds like mostly irredeemable trash (I’m trying to get a copy from the library to find out for myself), but they should have maybe made more an effort to disaggregate these, or give a caveat.
If these corporations had a lick of sense they would hire Dr Cornell West come in and educate their work force on these topics
It all depends on your Change Theory. Some people believe change must happen on a systemic level; others believe it happens on the level of the family or groups; and still others believe change happens on the individual level.
I think it needs to happen on all levels-and you can start anywhere; wherever you happen to be; where you feel motivated. There is nothing wrong with doing diversity training for the individual as long as there is work being done with political policy and within corporate structures and within the family or group unit. And constantly monitoring oneself is nothing but mindfulness training. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you are not condemning yourself for being human and making mistakes.
1. White folks proving the thesis in this comment section. 2. The professor’s work has been out for awhile. The historical moment catapulting it to the forefront of societal consciousness is not shocking. 3. The book is a simple self-assessment tool. 4. The “ideology” of the book being highjacked, commodified, and manipulated into a “mindset” and course of “self-improvement” is not shocking either. 5. People need to exercise some agency and glean what is useful from it and apply it to the real work you’re doing offline. If you subscribe to its message like a devout religionist and only use it as a confessional for assuaging guilt or gaining the feeling of acceptance among non-white people that's your fault.
I haven’t read DiAngelo’s book but I watched her lecture. What I heard her saying is very different from what Michael and crew are saying in this video. Perhaps her book’s content is different. DiAngelo is a sociologist.
You should also read the article they cited by Cedric-Michael Simmons which points out that racism-in-the-workplace workshops are hugely profitable and based on unproven, bogus social science.
6. She's a racial essentialist who believes that solidarity between different ethnicities is impossible and as such fragments any unified front to combat the systematic racism that the current economic system is reliant on
@@joannemiddaugh122 Actually, she's a racist grifter who charges corporations $6000 an hour to peddle this nonsense. But thanks for playing.
@@joannemiddaugh122 I have read some of it but listen to more of her lectures. Its by no means a perfect solution to facilitating a broad discussion on racial dynamics. But its a suitable jumping off point imo. I think we should definitely critique it as an instrument of control and manipulation by corporate America, or say, a school district or any place of employment. And if DiAngelo herself is complicit in that she should be held to account. My sense is it is not her true aim. But we can wait and see.
Good discussion, guys.
Michael Brooks reminds me of being late to a party... forever.
Have y'all read the book or spoken with her? No? Um. Have you all worked in an environment that is filled with racial tensions and trying to figure out a way to inject some calm and understanding into the situation? No? Um. Have any of you been asked to lead discussions within a highly charged atmosphere to diminish the impact of racism? No? Um. This sounds like pseudo-intelligence. You all sound like you have the answers to solving the racial problems of America. Good for you!
damn i miss Michael. we lost a real leader.
Fuck, I just found out that you can't donate negative amounts of money to the Rubin report.
I really miss him
The funniest part about this book is how many white outlets have given it energy while its roundly being ignored by black media outlets.
The only argument from both sides of the white political punditry is that it didn’t provide ALL the answers.
She’s also a white woman herself. Like just sayin, if you’re going to read books about anti black racism you should listen to black people who have also written about this lmao
No. How many times we have to tell you that we as black people are tired to talk about racism. We are not white peoples teachers. White people have to talk about this and stop asking random black people questions about racism. Not all black people know about racism. If you want to read a book about racism read them by blacks, whites Asians, Hispanic, and Latinx. Due to the fact that black people are not the only people who talk about racism. It is not our job. So I am all for this book white fragility because white people are fragile when it comes to talking about racism. Y'all need to have this discussion at your dinner table.
My God did you miss the memo. But yes, black people are exalted beings hovering over you pouring wisdom that can only be understood when a black person makes the sound waves with their mouth.
She addresses the fact that it's not black people's job to educate us. She talks about the fact that she's white and using that as an advantage to discuss race with white people who don't listen to POC.
Lisa H agreed. But my bigger issue is that they disagree with her concepts and think they have fully evolved. How is it that black people deal with the impacts everyday, but these three white guys feel like this is not a journey but rather a destination and once they have committed to changing it that it is something you have to be conscious of daily just like Black people are and work internally and within community.
I am reminded (around the 5min mark) that UNITE-HERE (via USAS) used to enforce racial identity caucuses at its conferences.
I think these guys are being a little harsh. It's really just introducing the concept of systemic racism and encouraging people so that when they get criticized to not totally breakdown - to take constructive criticism. But furthermore, she is anti-capitalist and says so; and the paradigm is capitalism. So, she is not claiming to be THE answer.
I can see the problem with corporations, but I read the book through the lens of a bi-racial, white passing person and it helped me understand a few things about myself. There were no "big" discoveries, but I found it helpful on a personal level. To be fair, I've forgotten most of it already, but I take all help for self discovery, even if there is only a grain of insight.
The sad thing is none of you even bother to read the book and it shows! She has not only enlightened corporations on racial biases. She has also confronted her own family and friends. She ask very indepth questions that exposes alot of white code speak. Also the common phrases that white people use to make themselves seem exempt. Which one of your guest have demonstrated. 🤷🏾♂️
If you think of it as a form of mindfulness training for the individual, which can work hand in hand with systematic policy changes in the government businesses and organizations, (instead of making it about feeling guilty) it can be very helpful.
The author is a corporate consultant. That tells me all I need to know.
If you actually want to educate yourself and examine your own attitudes and beliefs about race, then avoid this corporate training manual. That being said, I wasn't overly fond of that Matt Taibbi article about it. His anti woke schtick veers in to dickishness.
Hasn’t this book been out for awhile? Is it because of the social climate that people are talking about it more?
Yeah, white people are looking for something for them to grab on to and say 'See? I'm an ally! I believe the correct things! Please don't break my shop windows-' and if it only requires self-flagellation rather than actually changing the material world, all the better. So White Fragility has shot up to the top of all kinds of charts, the bestseller list, etc.
Yup. Been out for awhile under the radar. Not her fault the historical moment has thrust it to the forefront. And she’s making some coin off it. Apparently that’s only appropriate for Steven Pinker.
@@dipthongthathongthongthong9691 - Its not "the historical moment" thrusting White Fragility forward, its the use it serves as an easy solution. Inculcated bias isn't that deep or groundbreaking a concept.
@@RoyalFusilier I agree there are some that are doing that. A superficial self-assuaging treatment of the problem. But others are using the book's premise to do deeper more meaningful work. Neither you nor me can know who's doing what beyond our personal circles.
This book is a distraction and too many people on the left are falling for it.
My biggest problem with this book isn’t that it’s wrong per-se, it’s that it’s so limited in its scope it’s effectively useless.
The funny thing about this video commentary on the book is that sort of proves the point of the book. The book isn’t about tackling systemic racism, it’s about all the ways White people shut down conversations about race to protect themselves. Once you deal with that, you can more effectively deal with the issues of systemic racism.
What subject matters would a conversation about race contain if it isn't about systematic racism?
Gilfoyle Shanks The breaking down of the implied myth and held belief that systemic racism doesn’t manifest on an individual/interpersonal level.
@@docan5248 Is this the battle that needs to be won now? When we're looking at Tory rule in the UK, Putin's referendum power grab, and the Republican far right in the ascendancy, playing linguistic games and getting people to self flaggelate themselves over unconcious biases will not bring people together, it distracts and obfuscates the class struggle. It divides the working class along racial lines.
@@docan5248 of course it does. But it seems broader systematic race issues don't get anywhere near as much attention from people as interpersonal racism does.
If social media and corporate culture is anything to go by anyway.
yes, it's called Kafka's trap, any criticism is just more proof that i'm right
“this is a great piece” Sam Harris podcast pops up
RIP Michael. :(
Love that Sonics hat
This case just reminds us that the corporatocracy has never solved any of our problems.
That's not true. Look at the vast amounts of infrastructure that has been built. The vast majority of the transportation infrastructure was built by machinations by the corporatocracy. Electrification as well. We'd be living in the stone age if we weren't worthy of being exploited as workers and consumers by our corporate overlords.
It's like I read a different book than all the people who are criticizing it.
Please enlarge on your comment!
She needs to rename it "I'm a racist so you are too"
Great video
For some reason, I picture this as a book a liberal like Mark Duplass would read and think he’s revolutionary
OMG - you made me spit my coffee!
itgetter9
To follow up, I checked his Twitter afterwards, and he was indeed promoting the book!
@@ImNotGregGraffin That is too good. These guys are so damn predictable!
Anybody else start thinking a little too much into what the Sam Harris podcast page that pulled up before the article was doing there? lol
love michael brooks on the left
It's #MeToo 2.0. Justice movement as fashion/trend, w/ no meaningful answers, functioning as a distraction from the hard problems--i.e., underlying economic problems.
Too late, it's already spreading to Australia and other countries.
Good. Treat your aboriginal people better. Or leave them alone to live their lives on their own terms.
@@dipthongthathongthongthong9691 that kinds of systemic critique isnt what this book is about tho, stop virtue signalling
@@hehwhwh727 "Virtue signaling" Another nothing term that inexplicably still has traction in the popular discourse. I don't know you and you don't know me so you cannot possibly know what I'm about in my day to day life. "Signaling" to other anonymous nobodies on the interwebs is not my twist pal. Btw, indigenous people of ANY continent are not entwined in a system where WHITE people particularly are not conscious of the ways they benefit from and contribute to a system of race (and class) based advantage/disadvantage?
@@dipthongthathongthongthong9691 Stop whitesplaining, and ask the aboriginals themselves what they want. I don't see any of them endorsing this book. Are you a closet racist who thinks you need to be their saviour?
Anyone got a link to the Matt Taibbi article? I can't find it.
So, I think that if you think about racism - it impacts all of us. To deny it is kind of ridiculous. There are many levels of racism (individual/interpersonal, internalized, organizational and institutional and systemic/structural). Why I don't shit on this book is because it deals more with implicit bias and internalized. The fact of the matter is as a black woman these microaggressions are shit i have dealt with on a daily basis thank goodness my mother was knowledgeable and was able to counteract the messages and the daily racism I experienced in terms of microaggressions. You have to believe that those things impacted me considerably, but they also impacted my friends who weren't people of color. You cannot just think that academia, which I believe is the focus you all primarily take, are able to speak to racism in the same ways. I think if you interveiwed that author, I believe she talks about it from a systematic approach too but not the main emphasis of the book. Ultimately, racism is insidious and I don't think 3 white men can talk about microaggressions and how that impacts people of color, if they are not even willing to do introspection and understand that 400 years of racism (at all levels) doesn't just mean you can only attack it with logic - as you all do, but we have to address it at all levels, and the messenger is going to change depending on the audience. I think this is a situation of a toolbox and she has one tool, what is the point of throwing it out - because it only looks at two forms of racism? Karens are all around us, so to deny the why/how of weaponizing whiteness happens is to say for the millions of Black people that experience daily deluge of implicit and explicit biases verbalized or not, whose names are too "ethnic" on resumes so they never get invited, or who face the next level of racism - it must be addressed. So, I don't shit on her theory because I believe it's important, just as I wouldn't shit on your commentary because it is also in the toolbox as well. Some could say that you all don't focus on the sociological enough, but that doesn't mean I throw you out with the bathwater.
THANK YOU. The construct of "race" has its multitudinous personal and societal consequences. Brookes and co can explore the more abstract ideas of the book as a template for employee control and corporations relieving themselves of the responsibility for real change. There's room for that. But the book broaches topics that can have a real benefit to the day to day lives of non-white people. People objecting so vehemently I suspect don't deal with the micro-aggressions of which you speak.
Dip Thongthathongthongthong yes. I love this show, but my main point of contention from time-to-time is that when we just focus on class without looking at the intersections with race or other areas, we become blind-sighted to the ways racism was designed and how it maintains itself to adjust to different aspects of society. We cannot talk about Marxism without talking about what Marx said about Blacks and Mexicans. Even within all structures of society, racism exists. When we deny it or when we belittle the experience through intentional oversight, we miss major impacts for communities and it comes off as nonchalant, especially when we see the direct impact of police who have implicit bias taking lives based on implicit bias. Ultimately, you captured correctly my sentiments. It’s just like when I used to go to hear Green Party people or well known people that I could get behind, but then I said why are there no Black people here- probably because you can’t build a real movement without the people most impacted. If this show cannot understand all aspects of racism and understand that it is not only the Cornel West’s, or the Angela Davis’ and others that have been working to address all forms of racism and classism and other isms and that it is a constant battle to shape our minds to be more just through our words and actions; through battling what our minds may say. To believe that racism is a one time thing that you have wrestled with seems to be a fallacy because just like trauma impacts people for large portions of their life so do systems of oppression impact whites and people of color. I would say white men attempting to delegitimize the day-to-day experiences of people of color and dictate what the focus must be on is also short-sighted and loses some depth along the way.
YES THIS. i am so annoyed that they really dont see the irony here. three white men telling people of color that what robin talks about isn't our experience.
sydandtaytum well, for people that like to talk about intersections, I just feel they are near-sighted. I believe that we have to engage heart and mind and systems. It’s funny because black families and families of color have been dealing with systematic racism - from there it is trickle down to the everyday minutiae that still impacts us. I understand the class struggle but these things are intertwined. Marginalized communities deal with systems and individuals every single day, why are white people absolved of the daily work of addressing their issues that stem from race. Who knew it was a one time event that then gives white people “the stamp of approval.” It’s daily work to think about it and marginalized groups should just be the ones dealing with it because they face that shit everyday. Also, I come from a labor background and also understand even within this context if you don’t address racism, it’s just another system with racist undertones or racism that in this case does trickle down. At the end of the day I do love most of their content but I refuse to sit here and do this with three woke bros who tell me my everyday struggle should not matter in the scheme of things.
I don’t think these guys read the book.
The book’s “topic” is literally about pointing out that white people have a hard time talking about race and why from her perspective. She is literally talking about the same issues as Jane Elliot. It’s a good book and I recommend it🤷🏾♂️
Go woke go broke😂
Im still kinda shocked hes gone