15 ms·

I'm skeptical about Robin Diangelo, I read her book a few months ago, and it only seems to be an advertisement for her services as an anti-racist instructor. He

I'm skeptical about Robin Diangelo, I read her book a few months ago, and it only seems to be an advertisement for her services as an anti-racist instructor. Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational. It's more a guide on "how not to get fired for being racist" than anything. There are much better books for foundational education about race. Even within her book she claims that no amount of training will solve the issue, it seems that "White Fragility" is just another way for White people to tamp down the anxiety of race relations in the United States, rather than take any meaningful action towards changing it. If your goal is to truly understand the Black american experience, it's best to start with actual Black authors. The House That Race Built by Wahneema Lubiano is a great set of essays about race and class structures.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational. It's more a guide on "how not to get fired for being racist" than anything. I admit I only just started reading her book, so can't comment on that, but I would say that's not the takeaway I got from any of the online videos or interviews I've seen of her, most definitely not from the youtube one I linked.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  The video you linked espouses the same ideas. To be anti-racist isn't to simply understand the things one can and cannot say. To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power. It's akin to just memorizing a list of microagressions like curse words and never saying them for fear of being fired. Anti-racism provides the tools to contextualize and understand why certain phrases are racist or biased.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    > Anti-racism provides the tools to contextualize and understand why certain phrases are racist or biased. Can you expand on this a little bit? It sounds a lot like: >It's akin to just memorizing a list of microagressions like curse words and never saying them for fear of being fired With extra steps. What are these tools and how do they avoid accidentally putting the cart in front of the horse in terms of goals vs. reality?
    - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
      It's the difference between actually understanding what makes something offensive, and not just the knowledge that it is offensive.
  - lesstenseflow 6y ago
    > To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power. I thought “fundamentally understanding the lived experiences of the black community” was impossible for non-black people. What white person has achieved this goal? If none, is it impossible for a white person to be “anti-racist?” I acknowledge racism is a real issue but think it’s reasonable to disagree what the best solution is. This stuff (white fragility etc) just smells way too much like “original sin” and “we are all sinners but must strive towards holiness, however unachievable” to me.
    - callmeal 6y ago
      >What white person has achieved this goal? I know at least one person who has. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/27/black-like-me-john-howard-griffin https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/27/black-like-me-... I know it's not possible for everyone to do what John Howard Griffin did, but reading that book and living that experience vicariously can be a start.
      - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
        I don't think that's the best example. How does one separate: "They're treating me poorly because I'm a black person" and "They're treating me poorly because I'm a white guy trying to be a black person"
greenhatglack 6y ago
There's a lot of money to be made in "anti-racism" and "gender-science", especially in tax-heavy countries. No one ever dares to question it, and it's "good" causes that could use some of the workers income. I'll be contrarian and recommend Thomas Sowell's "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" instead.
- r0s 6y ago
  On the contrary, there's not a lot of money to be made, and people constantly question it. Would-be spoilers get educated about their own unrealized bias, racism continues to be a huge problem in this country, activists are vindicated and the world moves on.
  - solveit 6y ago
    Can someone get me an actual number so I know what to think?
    - scruple 6y ago
      Estimated at $8 billion dollars a year [0]. I found this book review [1] to be spot-on with my reading of the DiAngelo book, and this is also where I learned of the above estimate from the Washington Post. > As a business journalist, however, I’ve chronicled the slow progress people of color have made in the corporate world, even as companies spend, by one measure, more than $8 billion a year on diversity initiatives. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/despite-spending-billions-companies-cant-buy-diversity/2019/11/21/d8907b92-fb1a-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/despite-spending-bill... [1]: https://newrepublic.com/article/156032/diversity-training-isnt-enough-pamela-newkirk-robin-diangelo-book-reviews https://newrepublic.com/article/156032/diversity-training-is...
      - newen 6y ago
        For comparison, US film industry revenue is around $11 billion a year.
ravenstine 6y ago
> Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational. It's also problematic because the workplace inherently has an underlying adversarial quality that can provide a never-ending supply of "microaggressions" and various forms of otherings that effectively sow more division than actually get non-whites anywhere. The author is particularly clever for writing a book for the target of anti-racism, because the market for "look who's racist" media is thoroughly saturated. Since race is becoming a greater and greater issue, I imagine it will continue to become a get-rich-quick scheme for some adept to the English language, or the language of CorporateSpeak.
- psweber 6y ago
  > the workplace inherently has an underlying adversarial quality that can provide a never-ending supply of "microaggressions" Did you pick this idea up somewhere else or think of it yourself? I've not heard that concept, and it makes way too much sense.
  - commoner 6y ago
    The term was coined in 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression
    - darkerside 6y ago
      I think poster was referring to the fact that workplaces are naturally fun of microaggressions regardless of race or sex, so it's easy to point the finger. It's analogous to how everybody's speeding, so everybody's guilty, and anyone can be pulled over (but usually the black person will happen to be the one pulled over).
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        >usually the black person will happen to be the one pulled over // Which country are you in? Have you checked that statistic or did you assume it?
secondcoming 6y ago
There's also the works of Thomas Sowell. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thomas+sowell https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thomas+sowell
- seppin 6y ago
  I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweblFwt-BM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweblFwt-BM He calls climate science a "racket". Why are you encouraging people to listen to him?
  - qdiencdxqd 6y ago
    Just because you don't agree with everything he says doesn't mean he's not worth reading :) Don't judge a book by its cover, nor a man by his edgiest quotes.
    - seppin 6y ago
      If a man says the earth is flat i'm not going to waste any time listening to what his other opinions are. I had never heard of this guy before so I gave him a chance, turns out he's just another in a long line of contrarian for the sake of being contrarian conservatives. Nothing of value here.
brmgb 6y ago
There was a very interesting article by Kelefa Sanneh in the New Yorker last year untitled "The fight to redefine racism" which contrasts the work done by DiAngelo with the positions taken by Ibram X. Kendi. [1] Sanneh is not convinced either. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-redefine-racism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-r...
- jimbokun 6y ago
  This is quite the burn: > This narrative may be appealing to its target audience, but it doesn’t seem to offer much to anyone else. At least, that’s my interpretation, and perhaps DiAngelo will be grateful to hear it. After all, I am what she would call a person of color, and whatever I write surely counts as “feedback.” Maybe that means she is, indeed, doing well.
- gen220 6y ago
  I was trying to remember where I’d heard her name before and this was it. I’ll toss in my recommendation for the piece and its conclusions too. I remember finding the article balanced, humble, and reflective.
natalyarostova 6y ago
Yeah. Pick up a book by James Baldwin, or read an essay by Frederick Douglas. Read anything by black authors on the experience of their lives. I believe strongly these are more valuable than non-black corporate anti-racist consultants...
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Certainly black voices are best to understand the black experience. What I found useful from Robin DiAngelo was her description of white fragility.
  - seppin 6y ago
    Which she is certainly able to speak about.
Reedx 6y ago
Your skepticism is well warranted. Unfalsifiable theory, dogma you can't question, purity tests, good vs evil, original sin, heresy, excommunication, self-flagellation and so on... It's a religion and Kafkatrap, but not yet widely recognized as such. Further explanation: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-diangelos-white-fragility/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-d... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-wave-anti-racism-dead-end/578764/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-... https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-roots-of-campus-rage-1491000676 https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-... https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-without-redemption/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-w... http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
- avs733 6y ago
  I find it interesting you choose the word 'explanation' as opposed to 'counter argument'
  - DagAgren 6y ago
    He also chose the word "kafkatrap", a word coined by a notorious racist.
    - textgel 6y ago
      Using a kafkatrap against an opponent you can't beat in debate when they have just pointed out the tactic is probably ill advised; perhaps try something else; Ad hominem or motte and bailey for example.
      - DagAgren 6y ago
        "Kafkatrap" is a meaningless term, beyond "stop calling me a racist just for saying racist things". Acting like it's an accepted logical fallacy is ridiculous. It's a term ESR made up because people kept rightly calling him a sexist and racist and he didn't like it and threw a tantrum.
sabujp 6y ago
did you generate this reply from hncynic?
typon 6y ago
It's really telling how during this entire BLM revival, white people have been recommending this particular book - written by a white author. Even in the midst of a racial awareness campaign, black voices are muffled.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Your post highlights something I can't grasp; your post is explicitly and openly racist, yet you are complaining about racism. Why is that? "People are recommending a book by an author." Fixed that for you. I'll give you the BLM, that's an instance of necessary discrimination. The rest ... if the authors advice is wrong, criticise it, if the book or person does something bad, criticise it. Don't just pick out the skin colour of the author, or of someone recommending the book, and use that as a reason why it's bad. That's racist. [Please note I haven't read the book, and do not know the author, and am categorically not promoting either.]
  - tetromino_ 6y ago
    You can most usefully talk about a topic you have extensive personal experience with and which forced you to think about the topic deeply. I can usefully talk about MySQL because I used it in a multi-year project that pushed its performance to the limit. I cannot usefully talk about Cassandra - the most I have done with it is install it. Similarly, I can usefully talk about the experience of a male Russian immigrant to the US. I cannot usefully say much about the experience of a black woman who lived in the US since birth - I have not lived it, all my sources would be second-hand; my listener would be best served by referring to the sources directly. I may suggest that to find out about the experience of black Americans, it's best to refer to the words of actual black Americans.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      >"I may suggest that to find out about the experience of black Americans, it's best to refer to the words of actual black Americans" // Absolutely. And to say "this opinion is not grounded in experience" is a worthy note, but doesn't make their conclusions wrong. As a generality people suffering a situation aren't able to take a measured approach - emotion gets the better of us - so it's not just a case of experiencing a situation. Not being subject to something doesn't discredit your viewpoint. If you tell me I need to do sharding to improve my database performance, or whatever, and I say "this is a database of Chinese people, your opinion is invalid as your not Chinese" then I'm just being xenophobic. People can have way more in common with others of different skin colour than they have with someone of the same colour. It's a people issue. Focusing on segregating people's arguments by skin colour, rather than by validity of their arguments is so antithetical to the whole object of removing unnecessary discrimination that's why I felt I needed to comment, and I stand by that comment.
malandrew 6y ago
You should be skeptical. Here’s an excellent piece from John McWhorter delving into why: https://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion https://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-reli...
hebrox 6y ago
This also made an impact on me: "Traveling While Black" on the Oculus Quest https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2121787737926354 https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2121787737926354

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

> Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational. It's more a guide on "how not to get fired for being racist" than anything. I admit I only just started reading her book, so can't comment on that, but I would say that's not the takeaway I got from any of the online videos or interviews I've seen of her, most definitely not from the youtube one I linked.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
The video you linked espouses the same ideas. To be anti-racist isn't to simply understand the things one can and cannot say. To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power. It's akin to just memorizing a list of microagressions like curse words and never saying them for fear of being fired. Anti-racism provides the tools to contextualize and understand why certain phrases are racist or biased.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  > Anti-racism provides the tools to contextualize and understand why certain phrases are racist or biased. Can you expand on this a little bit? It sounds a lot like: >It's akin to just memorizing a list of microagressions like curse words and never saying them for fear of being fired With extra steps. What are these tools and how do they avoid accidentally putting the cart in front of the horse in terms of goals vs. reality?
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    It's the difference between actually understanding what makes something offensive, and not just the knowledge that it is offensive.
- lesstenseflow 6y ago
  > To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power. I thought “fundamentally understanding the lived experiences of the black community” was impossible for non-black people. What white person has achieved this goal? If none, is it impossible for a white person to be “anti-racist?” I acknowledge racism is a real issue but think it’s reasonable to disagree what the best solution is. This stuff (white fragility etc) just smells way too much like “original sin” and “we are all sinners but must strive towards holiness, however unachievable” to me.
  - callmeal 6y ago
    >What white person has achieved this goal? I know at least one person who has. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/27/black-like-me-john-howard-griffin https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/27/black-like-me-... I know it's not possible for everyone to do what John Howard Griffin did, but reading that book and living that experience vicariously can be a start.
    - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
      I don't think that's the best example. How does one separate: "They're treating me poorly because I'm a black person" and "They're treating me poorly because I'm a white guy trying to be a black person"

greenhatglack 6y ago

There's a lot of money to be made in "anti-racism" and "gender-science", especially in tax-heavy countries. No one ever dares to question it, and it's "good" causes that could use some of the workers income. I'll be contrarian and recommend Thomas Sowell's "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" instead.

r0s 6y ago
On the contrary, there's not a lot of money to be made, and people constantly question it. Would-be spoilers get educated about their own unrealized bias, racism continues to be a huge problem in this country, activists are vindicated and the world moves on.
- solveit 6y ago
  Can someone get me an actual number so I know what to think?
  - scruple 6y ago
    Estimated at $8 billion dollars a year [0]. I found this book review [1] to be spot-on with my reading of the DiAngelo book, and this is also where I learned of the above estimate from the Washington Post. > As a business journalist, however, I’ve chronicled the slow progress people of color have made in the corporate world, even as companies spend, by one measure, more than $8 billion a year on diversity initiatives. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/despite-spending-billions-companies-cant-buy-diversity/2019/11/21/d8907b92-fb1a-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/despite-spending-bill... [1]: https://newrepublic.com/article/156032/diversity-training-isnt-enough-pamela-newkirk-robin-diangelo-book-reviews https://newrepublic.com/article/156032/diversity-training-is...
    - newen 6y ago
      For comparison, US film industry revenue is around $11 billion a year.

ravenstine 6y ago

> Her entire argument frames race relations within the context of the workplace which is problematic because her approach is coercive, not educational. It's also problematic because the workplace inherently has an underlying adversarial quality that can provide a never-ending supply of "microaggressions" and various forms of otherings that effectively sow more division than actually get non-whites anywhere. The author is particularly clever for writing a book for the target of anti-racism, because the market for "look who's racist" media is thoroughly saturated. Since race is becoming a greater and greater issue, I imagine it will continue to become a get-rich-quick scheme for some adept to the English language, or the language of CorporateSpeak.

psweber 6y ago
> the workplace inherently has an underlying adversarial quality that can provide a never-ending supply of "microaggressions" Did you pick this idea up somewhere else or think of it yourself? I've not heard that concept, and it makes way too much sense.
- commoner 6y ago
  The term was coined in 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression
  - darkerside 6y ago
    I think poster was referring to the fact that workplaces are naturally fun of microaggressions regardless of race or sex, so it's easy to point the finger. It's analogous to how everybody's speeding, so everybody's guilty, and anyone can be pulled over (but usually the black person will happen to be the one pulled over).
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      >usually the black person will happen to be the one pulled over // Which country are you in? Have you checked that statistic or did you assume it?

secondcoming 6y ago

There's also the works of Thomas Sowell. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thomas+sowell https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thomas+sowell

seppin 6y ago
I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweblFwt-BM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rweblFwt-BM He calls climate science a "racket". Why are you encouraging people to listen to him?
- qdiencdxqd 6y ago
  Just because you don't agree with everything he says doesn't mean he's not worth reading :) Don't judge a book by its cover, nor a man by his edgiest quotes.
  - seppin 6y ago
    If a man says the earth is flat i'm not going to waste any time listening to what his other opinions are. I had never heard of this guy before so I gave him a chance, turns out he's just another in a long line of contrarian for the sake of being contrarian conservatives. Nothing of value here.

brmgb 6y ago

There was a very interesting article by Kelefa Sanneh in the New Yorker last year untitled "The fight to redefine racism" which contrasts the work done by DiAngelo with the positions taken by Ibram X. Kendi. [1] Sanneh is not convinced either. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-redefine-racism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-r...

jimbokun 6y ago
This is quite the burn: > This narrative may be appealing to its target audience, but it doesn’t seem to offer much to anyone else. At least, that’s my interpretation, and perhaps DiAngelo will be grateful to hear it. After all, I am what she would call a person of color, and whatever I write surely counts as “feedback.” Maybe that means she is, indeed, doing well.
gen220 6y ago
I was trying to remember where I’d heard her name before and this was it. I’ll toss in my recommendation for the piece and its conclusions too. I remember finding the article balanced, humble, and reflective.

natalyarostova 6y ago

Yeah. Pick up a book by James Baldwin, or read an essay by Frederick Douglas. Read anything by black authors on the experience of their lives. I believe strongly these are more valuable than non-black corporate anti-racist consultants...

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
Certainly black voices are best to understand the black experience. What I found useful from Robin DiAngelo was her description of white fragility.
- seppin 6y ago
  Which she is certainly able to speak about.

Reedx 6y ago

Your skepticism is well warranted. Unfalsifiable theory, dogma you can't question, purity tests, good vs evil, original sin, heresy, excommunication, self-flagellation and so on... It's a religion and Kafkatrap, but not yet widely recognized as such. Further explanation: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-diangelos-white-fragility/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/intellectual-fraud-robin-d... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-wave-anti-racism-dead-end/578764/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/why-third-... https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-roots-of-campus-rage-1491000676 https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-... https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-without-redemption/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-w... http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

avs733 6y ago
I find it interesting you choose the word 'explanation' as opposed to 'counter argument'
- DagAgren 6y ago
  He also chose the word "kafkatrap", a word coined by a notorious racist.
  - textgel 6y ago
    Using a kafkatrap against an opponent you can't beat in debate when they have just pointed out the tactic is probably ill advised; perhaps try something else; Ad hominem or motte and bailey for example.
    - DagAgren 6y ago
      "Kafkatrap" is a meaningless term, beyond "stop calling me a racist just for saying racist things". Acting like it's an accepted logical fallacy is ridiculous. It's a term ESR made up because people kept rightly calling him a sexist and racist and he didn't like it and threw a tantrum.

sabujp 6y ago

did you generate this reply from hncynic?

typon 6y ago

It's really telling how during this entire BLM revival, white people have been recommending this particular book - written by a white author. Even in the midst of a racial awareness campaign, black voices are muffled.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Your post highlights something I can't grasp; your post is explicitly and openly racist, yet you are complaining about racism. Why is that? "People are recommending a book by an author." Fixed that for you. I'll give you the BLM, that's an instance of necessary discrimination. The rest ... if the authors advice is wrong, criticise it, if the book or person does something bad, criticise it. Don't just pick out the skin colour of the author, or of someone recommending the book, and use that as a reason why it's bad. That's racist. [Please note I haven't read the book, and do not know the author, and am categorically not promoting either.]
- tetromino_ 6y ago
  You can most usefully talk about a topic you have extensive personal experience with and which forced you to think about the topic deeply. I can usefully talk about MySQL because I used it in a multi-year project that pushed its performance to the limit. I cannot usefully talk about Cassandra - the most I have done with it is install it. Similarly, I can usefully talk about the experience of a male Russian immigrant to the US. I cannot usefully say much about the experience of a black woman who lived in the US since birth - I have not lived it, all my sources would be second-hand; my listener would be best served by referring to the sources directly. I may suggest that to find out about the experience of black Americans, it's best to refer to the words of actual black Americans.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    >"I may suggest that to find out about the experience of black Americans, it's best to refer to the words of actual black Americans" // Absolutely. And to say "this opinion is not grounded in experience" is a worthy note, but doesn't make their conclusions wrong. As a generality people suffering a situation aren't able to take a measured approach - emotion gets the better of us - so it's not just a case of experiencing a situation. Not being subject to something doesn't discredit your viewpoint. If you tell me I need to do sharding to improve my database performance, or whatever, and I say "this is a database of Chinese people, your opinion is invalid as your not Chinese" then I'm just being xenophobic. People can have way more in common with others of different skin colour than they have with someone of the same colour. It's a people issue. Focusing on segregating people's arguments by skin colour, rather than by validity of their arguments is so antithetical to the whole object of removing unnecessary discrimination that's why I felt I needed to comment, and I stand by that comment.

malandrew 6y ago

You should be skeptical. Here’s an excellent piece from John McWhorter delving into why: https://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion https://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-reli...

hebrox 6y ago

This also made an impact on me: "Traveling While Black" on the Oculus Quest https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2121787737926354 https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2121787737926354