Robin DiAngelo Is Correct about the Psychic Weight of Race

“Although one empirical study indicates that whiteness may not be as invisible to white people as is assumed, DiAngelo is not widely off the mark about the psychological advantages of being white.”

Over the past year and a half, I have written several essays about Robin DiAngelo’s theory of white fragility. In general, I have argued that the theory is based on the flawed premise of implicit bias, falls prey to logical fallacies, and makes use of flawed methodology. In practice, it amounts to a bullying Kafka trap. Moreover, as a derivative of Whiteness Studies, it turns the fallacy of reification into a fallacy of ambiguity. In other words, Whiteness ends up meaning anything and everything. As a result, it means nothing.

But none of what I have argued thus far should be interpreted as saying that neither the theory of white fragility, nor the broader fields of Whiteness Studies and Critical Race Theory from which it is derived, are addressing a pseudo-problem. Racial inequality, as well as other systemic disparities, undoubtedly deserves our most serious attention. The hows and whys may be a matter of dispute (despite DiAngelo’s aura of omniscience about it), but the fact of inequality is beyond dispute.

The Psychic Weight of Race

One of the costs of inequality involves what DiAngelo calls the psychic burden of race. In chapter four of her book, DiAngelo raises a compelling point about the psychological costs of racial inequality. In a section discussing how white people enjoy freedom from the burden of race, she writes: “Because I haven’t been socialized to see myself or to be seen by other whites in racial terms,” DiAngelo writes, “I don’t carry the psychic weight of race; I don’t have to worry about how others feel about my race. Nor do I worry that my race will be held against me.”