For white people who have just recently recognized their own complicity in America’s racist systems and are looking to “fix” that — it’s not going to happen overnight.
“It’s a little bit like saying ‘I want to be in shape tomorrow’ …” says author Robin DiAngelo. “This is going to be a process.”
DiAngelo is the author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. The book came out in 2018 and is back on the bestseller lists as streets fill with protesters calling for an end to police violence against black people.
The status quo in the United States is racism, DiAngelo says, and “it is comfortable for me, as a white person, to live in a racist society.”
To sustain the momentum of these protests, DiAngelo says, it must become uncomfortable for white people to continue to benefit from racist systems.
“We’ve got to start making it uncomfortable and figuring out what supports we’re going to put in place to help us continue to be uncomfortable,” she says. “Because the forces of comfort are quite seductive.”
NPR: ‘There Is No Neutral’: ‘Nice White People’ Can Still Be Complicit In A Racist Society
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