Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm

Racism will not be interrupted by a hug or a smile. Dismantling white supremacy requires white people to commit to a lifetime of education and accountability. Continuing the work she began in White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo challenges white listeners to rethink their ideas about racism and to confront their role in maintaining it. She identifies common moves white progressives make to telegraph their niceness, such as avoiding social discomfort, focusing on connections and commonalities, privileging concern for the feelings of perpetrators of racism over the victims, elevating intentions over impact, and credentialing. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she urges other white progressives to align their practice with their values. Drawing on over twenty years working as an anti-racist educator, she models a path forward, helping white listeners face their complicity and embrace humility. Often touting their own liberal credentials as evidence, white progressives do not see themselves as racist and, therefore, have not developed the skills necessary for examining their role in perpetuating racism. This is because they are often steeped in a culture of niceness that is animated by a belief that racism is limited to bad individuals who commit intentionally violent acts. The flipside to this logic is the idea that a nice person with good intentions could never be a racist. But that's simply not the case: racism is a system in which all white people are implicated.