American academic
|
Robin J. DiAngelo | |
|---|---|
| Born | ( 1956-09-08 ) September 8, 1956 (age 63) |
| Known for | White Fragility (book) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Washington |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Westfield State University, University of Washington |
| Notable ideas | "white fragility" |
Robin J. DiAngelo (born September 8, 1956)[1] is an American academic, lecturer, and 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 in Seattle. She is known for her work pertaining to white fragility, a term which she coined in 2011.
Born to a European American family, DiAngelo received a PhD in multicultural education from the University of Washington in 2004; her thesis constituted a discourse analysis of whiteness. Becoming a professional academic, she taught at Westfield State University, where she became a tenured professor. In a 2011 academic paper she put forward the concept of white fragility, the notion that the tendency for white people to become defensive when confronted with their racial advantage functions to protect and maintain that advantage. She further promoted the idea through her 2018 book White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism.
DiAngelo received her Ph.D. in multicultural education from the University of Washington in 2004, with a dissertation entitled "Whiteness in racial dialogue: a discourse analysis".[4] Her Ph.D. committee was chaired by James A. Banks.[3] In 2007, she joined the faculty of Westfield State University,[5] where she was named a tenured professor of multicultural education in 2014. She later resigned from her position at Westfield.[3] She now holds the position of Affiliate Associate Professor of Education at the University of Washington.[6] She holds two Honorary Doctoral degrees from Starr King Seminary (2019) and Lewis & Clark University (2017).[7] She frequently gives seminars discussing racism, which she argues is embedded throughout America's political systems and culture.[2]
DiAngelo is known for her work regarding "white fragility", a term she coined in a 2011 peer-reviewed paper.[8][9][10] She has defined the concept of white fragility as "a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves." As of 2016, she regularly gives workshops on the topic.[11][12]
In June of 2018, DiAngelo published the book White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.[13]
In a 2019 article for The New Yorker, the columnist Kelefa Sanneh characterized DiAngelo as "perhaps the country's most visible expert in anti-bias training, a practice that is also an industry, and from all appearances a prospering one".[14]
The economist and journalist Jonathan Church has published multiple articles appraising her "white fragility" thesis as a fallacy of reification brigaded by faulty science.[15][16]