45 extremely pessimistic and static view of the world. There are important historic examples of breakthroughs in at least partially overcoming racial division in the heat of a class battle. The mass organizing drives by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and ‘40s provide key lessons in this regard. Diangelo’s pessimism about the inevitability of racism is ultimately rooted in her defense of the systems that require racism to begin with. Challenging racism would mean challenging capitalism, and that is something Diangelo and her billionaire clients simply couldn’t get behind. Concretely, while talk is cheap, they are not prepared to pay the price and invest the resources to end segregation and historic inequities. For example the disastrous state of public hospitals and the lack of universal free health care in the U.S. has directly contributed to the way COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Black people. Amazon has donated million to racial justice groups while at the same time firing Black and brown workers for organizing in Amazon warehouses
Diangelo’s Solution to White Fragility
Despite saying in the introduction that she does not provide a solution to racism in the book, she spells out how white people can challenge their own fragility, which she repeatedly argues upholds racism itself. Diangelo tells her readers to internalize a list of assumptions she created when being called out on racism - including “Whites are/ I am unconsciously invested in racism... nothing exempts me from the forces of racism” (p. 142-3). She says that if white people adopted these assumptions, our institutions would change and become less racist (p. 144). The implication that white people simply changing their assumptions would change the system of mass incarceration or racist housing discrimination is baffling. It completely leaves out the need to struggle to defeat the interests which maintain these institutions.
The Danger of Diangelo’s Ideas
Diangelo tells her white readers that it is up to them as individuals to challenge racism by education and reflection on their personal privilege, but draws the conclusion it’s ultimately futile because they will always be racist. Diangelo also repeatedly says that people of color essentially can’t change things for themselves because they don’t control institutions of power. This is a perfect illustration of her belief that institutions of power are themselves the source of change. If you’re not a CEO how can you change the policies at your workplace? If you’re not a politician how can you affect the laws in your city? Diangelo’s entire argument is based on an assumption that change happens from the top, something we wholeheartedly reject. We suggest Diangelo re-
visit the titanic gains that came out of the Civil Rights movement to challenge her assumptions. But possibly the most incorrect statement of the entire book is the following: “I am often asked if I think the younger generation is less racist. No, I don’t” (p. 50). She seems to think that the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Lives Matter movement of 2014-15 had no effect on racial attitudes of younger generations. Survey data shows that while in 1942 only 32% of white people agreed that white and Black people should attend the same schools, in 1995 it was 96%. In 1944, 45% of white people thought that black people should have “as good a chance as white people to get any kind of job,” but by 1972, 97% agreed. A few weeks after the break out of the Justice for George Floyd movement, 52% of registered voters said they supported BLM, up from 42% before Floyd was murdered. Polling on unfavorable views of the police and the belief that Black people face “a great deal/a lot of discrimination” also significantly spiked. These changes in racial attitudes are a direct result of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014-5 that has now resurfaced with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless others. The fact that the recent round of protests constituted the biggest protest movement in U.S. history, was truly multiracial, and swept through tiny towns and big cities alike is profoundly significant. The actions taken by essential workers and union members, from bus drivers in Minneapolis refusing to transport arrested protestors at the behest of the police to International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union members shutting down West Coast ports in solidarity with the protests, point in the direction of working-class unity. The ruling class has for centuries relied on racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression to sow divisions and weaken the solidarity that is necessary to fight back. They rely on and whip up racist and xenophobic ideas when they sense a threat to their power - a threat like what is brewing under the surface of U.S. society, where millions of white, Black, and brown people are facing unemployment, eviction, hunger, and death by COVID-19. Let us not let Diangelo and her corporate clients lead us astray: while the legacy of racism has created fundamental differences in the conditions of Black, brown, and white workers, we do have common interests which the ruling class is determined to obscure. A multiracial movement will be necessary to win health care and housing for all, fully funded education, living wages, an end to mass incarceration and police brutality, and a cancellation of student debt, all of which will disproportionately impact Black and brown people. To fully root out racism, we have to get rid of the system that created it and relies on it to survive. We need workers of all races to fight for and build a socialist society. J