Seeing Whiteness: The Essential Essays of Robin DiAngelo (Multicultural Education Series)

Book Synopsis: Long before the widespread success of the 2018 book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo was breaking with white solidarity and writing, speaking, and teaching on the relationship among white supremacy, structural racism, and white identity. In this volume, DiAngelo has gathered a selection of her groundbreaking works leading up to White Fragility. Speaking as a white person to her fellow white people, she seamlessly blends the personal with the political. The result is an engaging and provocative analysis of the sociopolitical forces of race that shape our lives. Taking up familiar ideologies such as individualism and meritocracy, she breaks down how these concepts function to protect and obscure structural racism. Collectively, these essays show how racism infuses our society and its institutions; it is a system that goes well beyond individual intentions or conscious acts of meanness. By changing the question from if we are part of systemic racism to how each of us plays a part, DiAngelo's body of work provides a transformative framework for white identity and antiracist action.

Featured Essays:

• Chapter 1: My Class Didn't Trump My Race: Using Oppression to Face Privilege
• Chapter 2: Why Can't We All Just Be Individuals?
• Chapter 3: "My Feelings Are Not About You": Personal Experience as a Move of Whiteness (with David Allen)
• Chapter 4: Getting Slammed: White Depictions of Race Dialogues as Arenas of Violence (with Özlem Sensoy)
• Chapter 5: Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions
• Chapter 6: White Fragility
• Chapter 7: White Fragility Accessible
• Chapter 8: “We Put It in Terms of 'Not-Nice'”: White Antiracists and Parenting (with Sarah Matlock)
• Chapter 9: Respect Differences? Challenging the Common Guidelines in Social Justice Education
• Chapter 10: Leaning In: A Student’s Guide to Engaging Constructively With Social Justice Content (with Özlem Sensoy)
• Chapter 11: Showing What We Tell (with Darlene Flynn)
• Chapter 12: “We Are All For Diversity, But…”: How Faculty Hiring Committees Reproduce Whiteness and Practical Suggestions for How They Can Change (with Özlem Sensoy)

“In this book, Robin DiAngelo treats us to a rare glimpse into the evolution of her influential thought, from discernment about the varieties and effects of racism, through limitations and lessons learned in anti-oppression education, to the reliable conditions for deep engagement toward justice and social transformation. Her reflections and best practices provide solace and scaffolding to many of us who are engaged in the work of confronting structural racism.”— Leticia Nieto, leadership coach, psychotherapist, and educator; author, Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone

“Without prioritizing the development of white racial literacy, white people will continue to consciously and unconsciously perpetuate systemic racism. DiAngelo’s voice cuts through the noise and compels white people to confront and dismantle the deeply ingrained and normalized beliefs and behaviors that sustain racial hierarchies. This invaluable collection of essays is a gift to the ongoing struggle for racial justice.”—Bree Picower, professor, Montclair State University and author, Reading, Writing and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom