White Fragility
Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
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Narrated by:
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Amy Landon
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By:
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Robin DiAngelo
About this listen
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.
Anger. Fear. Guilt. Denial. Silence. These are the ways in which ordinary white people react when it is pointed out to them that they have done or said something that has - unintentionally - caused racial offence or hurt. After, all, a racist is the worst thing a person can be, right? But these reactions only serve to silence people of colour, who cannot give honest feedback to 'liberal' white people lest they provoke a dangerous emotional reaction.
Robin DiAngelo coined the term 'White Fragility' in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy. Using knowledge and insight gained over decades of running racial awareness workshops and working on this idea as a Professor of Whiteness Studies, she shows us how we can start having more honest conversations, listen to each other better and react to feedback with grace and humility. It is not enough to simply hold abstract progressive views and condemn the obvious racists on social media - change starts with us all at a practical, granular level, and it is time for all white people to take responsibility for relinquishing their own racial supremacy.
'With clarity and compassion, DiAngelo allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to "bad people." In doing so, she moves our national discussions forward. This is a necessary book for all people invested in societal change' Claudia Rankine
'By turns mordant and then inspirational, an argument that powerful forces and tragic histories stack the deck fully against racial justice alongside one that we need only to be clearer, try harder, and do better' David Roediger, Los Angeles Review of Books
'The value in White Fragility lies in its methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance' Katy Waldman, New Yorker
'A vital, necessary, and beautiful book' Michael Eric Dyson
Critic reviews
But, the narration. "Monotonous" is a description that gets thrown around too often with audiobooks, often unfairly, but at first I genuinely believed that the narration was done with text-to-speech. In the interest of fairness I should probably say that the narrator definitely warms up and becomes less robotic as things go on, but it always feels extremely clinical.
This isn't helped by the fact that a good portion of the book is lists of phrases and thoughts - while they're meant to illustrate common thought processes, or examples of racism, they're delivered so flatly that they blur together become hard to follow. I've honestly never had such an issue keeping focused on an audiobook before, especially one that genuinely interested me.
The narration is at least clear, and I can imagine there's an argument in favour of having a narrator that's able to keep an educational tone while discussing difficult issues. But I just found myself wishing for some more passion or emphasis in the delivery.
Finally, a more personal downside for me is that the book is heavily focused on America. This obviously doesn't invalidate its message, and 95% of it is universal, but every once in a while it would lean heavily on an example of distinctly American culture and I'd find it very hard to relate to. This isn't really a criticism - if the book would probably be a thousand hours long if it tried to explain how racism infiltrates and affects every culture differently. However, this did mean that I got slightly less out of this book than "Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race", a book that ensures it covers the aspects of racism present in British culture specifically.
It's very easy to focus on the negatives of the audiobook, but I genuinely found it enlightening and I'd recommend it to others. Just be prepared to deal with the narration!
Good, in spite of the narration.
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Good content. Terrible narration.
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must read for every white person
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enlightening
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A thought provoking book.
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