On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski brought on two guests to promote Robin di Angelo's 2018 book White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. It came rushing back onto the best seller list in the George Floyd aftermath.
The author couldn't find time for the segment. That might have been because MSNBC actually aired opposing views! They brought on author John McWhorter to shred the whole thesis as "patronizing" to black people, and that in diAngelo's fanatical framework, "a white person is not to say anything at all about race other than Amen on the pain of being told that they have practically physically injured the black person in question."
The segment began with promotional gush:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We want to expand the conversation now and talk about the book by author Robin DiAngelo, entitled White Fragility, Why It Is So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism which has been a runaway best seller, topping best seller lists for well over a year while receiving widespread critical acclaim. DiAngelo’s work is the fastest selling book in the history of Beacon Press.
Beacon Press churns out a lot of leftist claptrap no one wants to read, so that's not saying much. It continued:
BRZEZINSKI: The book recently saw a resurgence in demand this summer, reaching number one on The New York Times best seller again, as the George Floyd protests swept the nation. DiAngelo's book explores the counterproductive reactions, she says, that white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
Longtime MSNBC contributor Michael Eric Dyson represented the hard-left and at least MSNBC pointed out that Dyson wrote the Foreword to this book, so you could understand just how much he loved it:
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: I think this is a timely book, this intervention and racial escapades of the nation was long overdue and for a white woman to say, look, there is racial stress associated with many white brothers and sisters who find it, who find themselves incapable of either acknowledging their race or having acknowledged it to acknowledge the degree to which they have been either consciously or unconsciously, willingly or not, complicit in racial inequalities that prevail. No less a philosopher than the great Beyonce Knowles said that it has been said that,in America, racism is so American that to challenge racism seems like you're challenging America itself.
That was quite the take to suggest that every single white person in America has engaged in racism or that some invisible racial structure must thus be removed by white people because black people are incapable of thriving otherwise. Also, racism being uniquely American was terrifically idiotic for a number of historical reasons.
Then came the smackdown by guest John McWhorter, who came out vehemently strongly against the book here and at The Atlantic:
McWHORTER: What Robin di Angelo has created is a way of interacting between white and black people where a white person is not to say anything at all about race other than amen on the pain of being told that they have practically physically injured the black person in question. I'm insulted for black people. I am pained to imagine especially a young, black person reading that book and coming out of it with the self image that results from such a patronizing piece of work.
Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
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Read the full transcript below to learn more:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
7-22-20
8:50 AM ET
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We want to expand the conversation now and talk about the book by author Robin Diangelo, entitled "White Fragility, Why It Is So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" which has been a runaway best seller, topping best seller lists for well over a year while receiving widespread critical acclaim. Diangelo’s work is the fastest selling book in the history of Beacon Press. The book recently saw a resurgence in demand this summer, reaching number one on "The New York Times" best seller again, as the George Floyd protests swept the nation. Diangelo's book explores the counterproductive reactions, she says, that white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
Diangelo, who is white, regards racism as the foundation of the society we are in. Recently, Atlantic contributing writer and professor at Columbia University, John McWhorter who, himself, is an author of a number of books on race relations took on some of the central themes in Diangelo's book. He is no stranger to bold critiques, recently taking on "The New York Times'" 1619 project with a stern yet critical eye. We should note that we invited Robin Diangelo to take part in this discussion this morning. She, unfortunately, was unable to join us. But we hope to have her on the program soon. We wanted to proceed forward with this fascinating discussion. So instead we have the man who authored the forward of the book for us, social commentator Michael Eric Dyson. His own latest book is entitled "Tears We Cannot Stop:a Sermon to White America." Aforementioned professor at Columbia University and social commentator John McWhorter.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Michael, always great to have you. Professor, thank you for coming on today. If you could, talk about your critique of the book that you laid out in the atlantic. Professor? Can you hear me? So sorry about that, professor. We'll have Alex and the team try to work with your shot, instead, Michael, talk about the book and why you wrote the forward to it.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: I wrote the forward because it is always great to be on with you and Mika, brother Joe. I wrote the forward because I think this is a timely book, this intervention and racial escapades of the nation was long overdue and for a white woman to say, look, there is racial stress associated with many white brothers and sisters who find it, who find themselves incapable of either acknowledging their race or having acknowledged it to acknowledge the degree to which they have been either consciously or unconsciously, willingly or not, complicit in racial inequalities that prevail and that when people push back on white brothers and sisters to talk about having a race, cause we don't often invite brothers and sisters who are white in this country to see themselves as raced, as possessing a race the same way men don't get accustomed to think of them about possessing gender. She talked about the racial stress that was often experienced by white brothers and sisters when they were told they were white, when they were forced to grapple with whiteness in this country, and no less a philosopher than the great Beyonce Knowles said that it has been said that,in America, racism is so American that to challenge racism seems like you're challenging America itself. And so, what Robin Diangelo is trying to do is explain to the country, and to white people in particular, that the racial stress you feel and the discomfort that you endure is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong in the recognition that you have to deal with race but that it is an open doorway to try to grapple with the inequalities that African-American, Latinx and other people's experience on a daily basis.
SCARBOROUGH: So, professor, I understand you can hear us better now. In the Atlantic, and I hope I state this correctly, part of your argument against the book is that the author pushes people into the corner and basically creates this circular logic that makes it impossible to debate any of the issues that she brings forward in this book. Explain.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Well, yeah, that is accurate. What Robin Diangelo has created is a way of interacting between white and black people where a white person is not to say anything at all about race other than amen on the pain of being told that they have practically physically injured the black person in question. And there are two quick problems with that. One is that it infantilizes black people in the name of treating us with dignity. There has not been a group of people in the history of the human species that require treatment that careful even in difficult times. She doesn't intend it, but that whole book is one where I would assume that any black person who actually read it from cover to cover would feel like a white woman was telling them that they were 5 years old.
The second problem, very quickly, is that there is no precedent in how society has changed, including this one, for the notion that white people have to be this exquisitely sensitive to their, quote, unquote, complicitness in racial structures. That complicitness is real. But the idea that as many white people as possible need to take themselves into a closet and flatulate themselves daily about their complicitness in whiteness before we can forge social change that is a radical proposition which Robin Diangelo, unfortunately, doesn't seem to understand needs to be proven. Show me, I mean there are all sorts of things that need to happen in black America and I think we need to get out and do them the way we always have. The spirit of John Lewis is hovering over us. I doubt if he quite understood what this Robin DiAngelo business was about. You get out and you do the hard work. Somehow we're being told that the final step can't happen until all white people feel so guilty that they don't want to get out of bed. I don't get it. That may be some sort of sophisticated socio-political philosophy, but nobody has explained it to me and you won't find it in that little book.
SCARBOROUGH: Professor, you also say that this white woman has written -- let me be specific here. You said I have learned that one of America's favorite advice books of the moment is actually a racist tract despite the sincere intentions of the author, the book diminishes black people in the name of dignifying us. Explain that, if you will.
McWHORTER: Oh, I mean it. And I don't walk any of it back. I'm not calling her a racist but I find her thesis to be discriminatory against basic black resilience and dignity. In that what she's basically saying is that we can't take care of ourselves, that in order to be authentic people, we are supposed to be pretend to be deeply hurt by things which roughly ten years ago we didn't even know were insults. You have to actually read the roughly 25-line list she gives in roughly Chapter 9, of things that white people aren't supposed to say. They can't say anything. The idea being that I'm supposed to be hurt when any of those things are said. And some people will say, no, she didn't mean you. But, yes, she did mean me. She means all black people.
No, I feel for George Floyd but the book is not only about black people who are suffering. The idea is a general etiquette between all white and black people. And she seems to think that we have a lesser degree of strength. There is no black power in that book. Than any human beings who have ever existed in the 300,000-year history of homo sapiens. I'm insulted for black people. I am pained to imagine especially a young, black person reading that book and coming out of it with the self image that results from such a patronizing piece of work. I know DiAngelo didn't mean it this way I can put myself in her head and see that she sees this as somewhat useful. She's atoning, she’s trying to get over something. I can imagine being white and doing it and I think white people do it enough. Over the past 20 years, the typical white person has a sense of whiteness as something to be somewhat guilty about. The idea of saying, oh, that's so white. White women calling themselves white girls in that self deprecating way. The question is, how much further do we need to go and that book doesn't prove that what we need is white people in closets whipping themselves every morning.
