/lit/ - Literature

>>17893825
Here is the rest of the passage, also keep in mind this book is being start in schools and major corporations now and has sold millions of copies

"
Because of its seeming innocence, well-meaning white women crying in
cross-racial interactions is one of the more pernicious enactments of white
fragility. The reasons we cry in these interactions vary. Perhaps we were
given feedback on our racism. Not understanding that unaware white racism
is inevitable, we hear the feedback as a moral judgment, and our feelings
are hurt. A classic example occurred in a workshop I was co-leading. A
black man who was struggling to express a point referred to himself as
stupid. My co-facilitator, a black woman, gently countered that he was not
stupid but that society would have him believe that he was. As she was
explaining the power of internalized racism, a white woman interrupted
with, “What he was trying to say was . . . ” When my co-facilitator pointed
out that the white woman had reinforced the racist idea that she could best
speak for a black man, the woman erupted in tears. The training came to a
complete halt as most of the room rushed to comfort her and angrily accuse
the black facilitator of unfairness. (Even though the participants were there
to learn how racism works, how dare the facilitator point out an example of
how racism works!) Meanwhile, the black man she had spoken for was left
alone to watch her receive comfort.
A colleague of color shared an example in which a white woman—new
to a racial justice organization—was offered a full-time position as the
supervisor of the women of color who had worked there for years and had
trained her. When the promotion was announced, the white woman tearfully
requested support from the women of color as she embarked on her new
learning curve. The new supervisor probably saw her tears as an expression
of humility about the limits of her racial knowledge and expected support to
follow. The women of color had to deal with the injustice of the promotion,
the invalidation of their abilities, and the lack of racial awareness of the
white person now in charge of their livelihoods. While trying to manage
their own emotional reactions, they were put on the spot; if they did not
make some comforting gesture, they risked being viewed as angry and
insensitive.
Whether intended or not, when a white woman cries over some aspect of
racism, all the attention immediately goes to her, demanding time, energy,
and attention from everyone in the room when they should be focused on
ameliorating racism. While she is given attention, the people of color are
yet again abandoned and/or blamed. As Stacey Patton, an assistant
professor of multimedia journalism at Morgan State University’s School of
Global Journalism and Communication, states in her critique of white
women’s tears, “then comes the waiting for us to comfort and reassure them
that they’re not bad people.
"