White Fragility Leads to White Violence: Why Conversations About Race With White People Fall Apart

[MrScorpio]

Monique Judge
1/15/17 3:30pm


Why do conversations about race fall apart when we have them with white people?

I have been thinking about this for the last few weeks, ever since I attempted to speak with Grey’s Anatomy actress Ellen Pompeo about it on Twitter. As with many conversations I’ve had on race with white people, that one quickly devolved from an exchange of ideas into me being accused of being a racist who was attacking her. She tweeted those accusations to her more than 1 million followers, and as I type this three weeks later, people are still responding to my tweets, agreeing with her and attacking me in the process.

It’s not so much you using the black emojis as it is your response to people who expressed concern about it, @EllenPompeo

— Monique Judge (@thejournalista) December 24, 2016

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--bu6nDV8R--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/rrolu10ti8myvmbz6rik.png

These two incidents and the many others I witness on Twitter every single day lead me to conclude that the reason conversations about race with white people fail is that white fragility leads to white violence, and not even other white people are immune to it.


http://www.theroot.com/white-fragility-leads-to-white-violence-why-conversati-1791233086

If anything, Paddock's murder spree was completely predictable.

[WhiteTara]

1. I believe it is our collective guilt as white people

that we did such a terrible thing to our fellow humans. And of course, guilt is hard to bear so the deflection is an almost immediate reaction from those with very strong egos. Egos are very slithery things that can turn ANY mirror reflection on them make them defend and defend some more.

But these are conversations we have to have.