Jun 7, 2020

in imageWHITE FRAGILITY: WHY IT'S SO HARD FOR WHITE PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT RACISM
feel some unease around certain groups of people,
if only a heightened sense of self-consciousness.
But this feeling doesn't come naturally. Our un-
ease comes from living separate from a group of
people while simultaneously absorbing incomplete
or erroneous information about them. When the
prejudice causes me to act differently—I am less
relaxed around you or I avoid interacting with you
—I am now discriminating. Prejudice always mani-
fests itself in action because the way I see the world
drives my actions in the world. Everyone has preju-
dice, and everyone discriminates. Given this reality,
inserting the qualifier "reverse" is nonsensical
When a racial group's collective prejudice is
backed by the power of legal authority and insti-
tutional control, it is transformed into racism,
far-reaching system that functions independently
from the intentions or self-images of individual ac-
tors. J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, professor of American
studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University,
explains, "Racism is a structure, not an event."13
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