Comforting Discomfort as Complicity: White Fragility and the Pursuit of Invulnerability

Hypatia 32 (4):862-875 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this article, I trouble the pedagogical practice of comforting discomfort in the social-justice classroom. Is it possible to support white students, for instance, and not comfort them? Is it possible to support white students without recentering the emotional crisis of white students, without disregarding the needs and interests of students of color, and without reproducing the violence that students of color endure? First I address the dangers of comforting discomfort and discuss Robin DiAngelo's notion of white fragility, which has been used to explain the tendency of white people to flee discomfort rather than tarry with it. Employing Erinn Gilson's work on vulnerability, I argue that white fragility is not a weakness but an active performance of invulnerability. I conclude by arguing that developing vulnerability is a counter to white fragility, and that one way such vulnerability can be encouraged is through offering critical hope, which I maintain is a type of support that does not comfort.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

A Du Boisian Proposal for Persistently White Colleges.Lisa Maree Heldke - 2004 - Journal of Speculative Philosophy 18 (3):224 - 238.
Vigilance as a Response to White Complicity.Barbara Applebaum - 2013 - Educational Theory 63 (1):17-34.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-09-08

Downloads
134 (#127,211)

6 months
12 (#122,866)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?