Able Fragility Part Two: White Fragility

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

Let me be clear here about one thing before getting into the meat of White Fragility and why I feel like there is an argument to be made that Able Fragility might exist.

Ableism and Racism are not the same thing. They are not the same experience.

Though ableism and racism share in categorizing and leading actions towards people in systemic discriminatory, prejudicial and marginalizing ways based on an a perceived bodily difference (disability or skin color) the results and experiences of the communities affected are fundamentally different (with the exception of intersectional identities).

With that said, I do feel like racism and ableism are two cross-beams holding up the sail that keeps the Capitalist ship chugging ahead, though again the experiences are different. For example, it is not unusual, from what I've experienced, seen, and read, though not to speak for disabled people (or people with disabilities depending on chosen level of identification with disability) for disabled people to be the only one they know, and not have a similar sense of community around them that can help them make sense of the trauma, prejudice, discrimination, and shaming that they can and often do routinely encounter, that many Black People and People of Color do have surrounding them (A fantastic example of this is the book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, which he wrote for his son to contextualize his own experiences and trauma surrounding racism, the racism his son would likely experience and, it really felt like, to try and find a way to express both the love and fear he held for his son in this world).

With that said, though there is a cultural history of marginalization and oppression of disabled people (The New Disability History: American Perspectives, edited by Paul K. Longmore and Laura Umansky as an example for those seeking sources). It is not uncommon either, for us to be the only one in our family with a disability. This means that another difference can lie in our not having the added trauma of familial history of trauma, adding on that passed down generational trauma to currently experienced trauma surrounding racism that Black People and People of Color might be more likely to have experienced generationlly. One example of this comes from Whittaker & Snell (2016), who describe the effects and history of "The Talk" that Black People who are parents have felt obligated to give to their kids on how to interact with Police and other authorities in order to have the best chance at staying safe in interactions with police. The thing is, this article describes these talks originating as far back as the reconstruction era.

So given that there are some similarities (as well as some definite differences), particularly in the economic utility (Dear Lord, those words seem so disgustingly horrifying to say in light of the subject matter) that both ableism and racism have in Capitalism, and the cultural need to protect Capitalism and the systems that uphold it, that perhaps similarly harmful methods of deflecting attention away from them might have arisen.

White Fragility is described by Robin DeAngelo, in her book with the very clear title of White Fragility, as the discomfort white people have discussing issues of racism, or more accurately perhaps, the means White people (often white women really have honed some of the use of emotional deflection) use to deflect attention from examining their own racism, to restore their own sense of rightness and goodness, and can include everything from insisting its racist to see color, to insisting that its not really about racism because they didn't intend anything, to centering their own hurt feelings, to insisting that they have a Black friend, cousin, or coworker, so of course they couldn't be racist. This last one, also, of course makes it clear that they think they have nothing else to learn on the topic from anybody else.

There are many, many more ways of the Fragile White to avoid owning their own and their part in racism than can be described here. And again I cannot emphasize enough, that racism and ableism can't be compared. The experiences are fundamentally different, even if the more I experience ableism after learning more about White Fragility, the more I start to feel like the methods of protecting racist and ableist systems might be more similar than the experiences and the systems themselves.

So let's delve in, now, and breakdown an example. See you in Part Three.

Referenced Article

Whitaker, T. R., & Snell, C. L. (2016). Parenting while powerless: Consequences of “the talk”. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 26(3-4), 303-309.