A reimagining of the best-selling book that gives young adults the tools to ask questions, engage in dialogue, challenge their ways of thinking, and take action to create a more racially just world. “I was taught to treat everyone the same.” “I don’t see color.” “My parents voted for Obama.” When white people have the opportunity to think and talk about race and racism, they more often than not don’t know how. In this adaptation of Dr. Robin DiAngelo’s best-selling book White Fragility, anti-racist educators Toni Graves Williamson and Ali Michael explain the concept of systemic racism to young adult readers and how to recognize it in themselves and the world around them. Along the way, Williamson and Michael provide tools for taking action to challenge systems of inequity and racism as they move into adulthood. Throughout the book, readers will find the · A dialogue between the adaptors that models anti-racist discussions · Definitions of key terms · Personal stories from this multiracial team · Discussion prompts to encourage readers to journal their reactions and feelings · Illustrations to help concepts of white fragility and systemic racism come alive · Portraits of scholars and activists, including Carol Anderson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ijeoma Oluo, whose work is amplified throughout Dr. DiAngelo’s theory of white fragility.
Author
Robin J. DiAngelo is an American academic, lecturer, and author working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies. She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University and is currently an Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is known for her work pertaining to white fragility, a term which she coined in 2011. In a 2011 academic paper she first put forward the concept of white fragility, the notion that the tendency for white people to become defensive when confronted with their racial advantage functions to protect and maintain that advantage.
