Dr. Jenn Simms, Assistant Professor of Sociology and author of Mixed-Race in the US and UK: Comparing the Past, Present, and Future, in conversation with Twitter followers points to White Fragility as a useful and necessary starting point for many white students, who are by and large racially illiterate, before they're able to "appreciate and understand more critical and structural works."

Several months after the killing of George Floyd, Resmaa Menakem, who offers trauma-based therapy in Minneapolis and authored My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, and Robin DiAngelo discuss everything from willful white ignorance and virtue signaling to "repair" and the world they wish to live in. 

CBS This Morning. (2020, June 5). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dteOQPzc_so

PBS News Hour. (2020, July 8). https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-anti-racism-is-a-treatment-for-the-cancer-of-racism

Bergner, D. (2020, July 15). 'White Fragility' Is Everywhere. But Does Antiracism Training Work? The New York Times Magazine.

Daniel Bergner points to the surge of attention given to Robin DiAngelo and her book in the wake of the protests of the killing of George Floyd and considers the effectiveness or lack thereof of antiracist workshops.

McWhorter, J. (2020, July 15). The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility. The Atlantic. 

John McWhorter argues that DiAngelo's book is both designed "to make certain educated white readers feel better about themselves" and entails "dehumanizing condescension toward Black people." 

Jackson, L.M.  (2019, September 05). "White Fragility" Has a Whiteness Problem. Slate Magazine. September 05, 2019. 

Lauren Michele Jackson points out that DiAngelo's white fragility remains "enthralled by whiteness" whereas there also needs to be a focus towards others and towards next steps. 

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press. 

To cite the Beacon Press blurb (linked above) about this New York Times best-seller: "In this 'vital, necessary, and beautiful book' (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and 'allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’' (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively."

The Beacon Press website also includes several reading/discussion guides and a quiz to see if you exhibit white fragility.