American - Educator | September 8, 1956 -
This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources - schools, textbooks, media - don't provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.
Robin DiAngelo
WaterCultureSwimmingMediaLiving
One cannot understand how racism functions in the U.S. today if one ignores group power relations.
TodayPowerRacismGroupUnderstand
Most whites live, grow, play, learn, love, work and die primarily in social and geographic racial segregation. Yet, our society does not teach us to see this as a loss. Pause for a moment and consider the magnitude of this message: We lose nothing of value by having no cross-racial relationships.
WorkLoveLiveMomentValueSociety
As a social concept, 'white' is profound in its meaning. It means people who either come from or appear to come from Europe, but it's necessarily a construct of oppression.
PeopleMeaningWhiteOppressionCome
What I do used to be called 'diversity training,' then 'cultural competency' and now, 'anti-racism.' These terms are really useful for periods of time, but then they get coopted, and people build all this baggage around them, and you have to come up with new terms, or else people won't engage.
TimeTrainingDiversityPeopleYou
Denying that race matters is irrational in the face of segregation and all of the other forms of obvious racial inequity in society... Maintaining this denial of reality takes tremendous emotional and psychic energy.
SocietyEnergyFaceRealityRace
Although racism does, of course, occur in individual acts, these acts are part of a larger system that we all participate in. The focus on individual incidences prevents the analysis that is necessary in order to challenge this larger system.
ChallengeFocusRacismAnalysis
Whites have not had to build the cognitive or affective skills or develop the stamina that would allow for constructive engagement across racial divides.
SkillsBuildRacialEngagementWould
Whites often respond defensively when linked to other whites as a group or 'accused' of collectively benefiting from racism, because as individuals, each white person is 'different' from any other white person and expects to be seen as such.
RacismWhitePersonGroupRespond
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Robin DiAngelo quotes