What’s wrong with Robin DiAngelo’s approach to racism?

Read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_DiAngelo

Robin Jeanne DiAngelo (née Taylor; born September 8, 1956)[1] is an American author working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies.[2][3] She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University and is currently an affiliate associate professor of education at the University of Washington. She is known for her work pertaining to “white fragility“, an expression she coined in 2011 and explored further in a 2018 book entitled White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

DiAngelo was born Robin Jeanne Taylor into a working-class family in San Jose, California, the youngest of three daughters born to Robert Z. Taylor and Maryanne Jeanne DiAngelo.[3][4]

She lived with her mother in poverty until her death from cancer, after which she and her siblings lived with her father. She became a single mother with one child in her mid-20s, and worked as a waitress before beginning college at the age of 30.[5]

In her youth, she saw that her poverty led to class oppression, though it was only later in life that she identified personally benefiting from white privilege, even while being “poor and white”.[6] In 2018, DiAngelo stated that her “experience of poverty would have been different had [she] not been white”.[6]

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What drew her to this conclusion? Did she have an experience with police similar to mine many years ago?

Police misconduct is not just about killing black people.

But then again…..skin color alone must NEVER be the issue. O J Simpson literally got away with murder by playing the race card…..with a legal dream team he could afford as a rich celebrity. A poor person, whether black or white, facing the same charges O J did would almost certainly have been sent to prison for those murders. The case of Bill Cosby, serial rapist, is another example.

Also, white people, Americans, and liberals are not the enemy. White supremacy, corruption in capitalism, and misrepresenting liberalism are the enemy. You are not promoting truth or justice when you paint ALL members of any group with the same brush. Like, I condemn Israel and the Zionists that run it, but I don’t hate all Jews. I abhor Islamic states, but I don’t hate all Muslims We should always be judged as individuals, period. It’s what you DO that defines your character, not what GROUP of any kind you are said to belong to.

I am a white person, but I am also one that came from a working class family. I have also worked alongside black people for most of my life, so the idea that ALL white people are better off in this society than ALL black people strikes me as the most absurd form of nonsense. A black person who works the same job as me is my equal, no less. And a black manager or executive of the company I work for is my superior.

Here is the listing for DiAngelo’s most famous book in Beacon Press.

https://www.beacon.org/White-Fragility-P1631.aspx

Another book she has written is:

https://www.beacon.org/Nice-Racism-P1678.aspx

The description of it reads as follows:

In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized and challenged the belief that racism is a simple matter of good people versus bad. DiAngelo also made a provocative claim: white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of color. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so. Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over 25 years working as an anti-racist educator, she picks up where White Fragility left off and moves the conversation forward.

Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include:

  • rushing to prove that we are “not racist”

  • downplaying white advantage

  • romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC)

  • pretending white segregation “just happens”

  • expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism

  • carefulness

  • and feeling immobilized by shame.

DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups’ rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability.

To put it bluntly, this does not help the cause of anti-racism one iota. It actually promotes racism against white people by indicating that any effort by white people to oppose racism by seeking unity with people of color is useless. No wonder so many whites refuse to support black politicians like Barack Obama. With allies like Robin DiAngelo talking down to them, anti-racist whites don’t need enemies. They might even turn against the cause altogether and become racist because of dogmatic assertions like those of DiAngelo!

And I remember how disgusted I was by that radical feminist website many years ago.

The Bigotries of “Everyday Feminism”

As a white male person, I refuse to hate myself in order to fight racism or sexism, and if Robin DiAngelo thinks I should, that’s her problem. It won’t be mine!

Especially considering that Wahid Azal is a fan of that sort of hateful approach. And I know what a monster he is!

Religion, imperialism, and oil

Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, with about 2 billion followers all over the world. Islam is the second most popular religion, with over a billion followers. Part of the reason Christianity is larger is because it is older, since it is about 2000 years old, as compared with Islam being only 1400 years old.

Another reason Christianity is more popular is because of its association with imperialism. First, it took over the Roman Empire. After the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, the religion continued as the dominant ideology of the Byzantine Empire, which was a direct offshoot of the Roman one. Later, the Arabs built a vast empire using Islam as their unifying force, challenging the Byzantines. Finally, the Turks, another Islamic power, destroyed the Byzantine Empire.

Then the European powers spread their empires all over the world, taking Christianity with them. Islam remained relatively weak until two things happened to make it more powerful: European imperialism fell apart and oil was discovered in most parts of the Middle East. Suddenly,  the Arabs became  extremely rich due to their oil revenues, and with that wealth came the ability to spread Islam around the world. But in Europe, Christianity declined as the people became increasingly secular. The tragic events of World War II probably did more to destroy Europeans’ faith than anything else. Today, the USA is the most powerful Christian dominated nation in the world, but it is still secular in its government. And even here, religious influence is slowly declining.

I suspect that within another generation, Islam will surpass Christianity as the most popular world religion, but its power cannot last long, because oil is a nonrenewable resource. And when that oil runs out, the economies of the Middle Eastern  states that depend on oil will break down, and so will Islam.

What can freethinkers, atheists,  and secular humanists do to overcome this situation? They must do everything possible to end the dependence on oil, and indeed all other fossil fuels, and establish societies based on renewable and sustainable sources of energy such as wind, water, the sun and geothermal sources. Once at least some parts of the world are free from needing resources that are doomed to run out, we will have even less need for religions like Christianity and Islam.

The stupidity of “Life After People”

The History Channel is showing a series titled “Life After People”. It is the sequel to a two hour special that was broadcast on the same channel last year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People:_The_Series

The assumption in all versions of this show is that humans disappear SUDDENLY, by some completely unknown and unexplained process, leaving all man-made structures to slowly decay and become overrun by wildlife and plants. Some Protestants claim a simular event will occur, called the Rapture, but it will only involve them, not humanity as a whole. Quite simply, this idea is completely unscientific and irrational.

Here’s another version of the same concept:

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Let’s face it: While it may be fun to speculate what might happen to man-made structures after we are gone, it is pointless to do so while avoiding the real issue of what might cause humans to go extinct. Why are we so afraid to actually discuss this? It is a process that will take at least 100 years, involve massive death and suffering, and may be preventable. The History Channel is being profoundly irresponsible and cowardly NOT to discuss this in detail.

Besides, its not even history, is it?