Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:58:34.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Barbara Applebaum Open the ORCID record for Barbara Applebaum [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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 (DiAngelo 2011). Employing Erinn Gilson's work on vulnerability, I argue that white fragility is not a weakness but an active performance of invulnerability (Gilson 2011; 2014). 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.

Type
Found Cluster: Issues in the Profession
Information
Hypatia , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , Fall 2017 , pp. 862 - 875
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler‐Bell, Sam. 2015. Why white people freak out when they're called out about race. Alternet, March 12. http://www.alternet.org/culture/why-white-people-freak-out-when-theyre-called-out-about-race (accessed January 11, 2017).Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2009. Embodying diversity: Problems and paradoxes for black feminists. Race, Ethnicity and Education 12 (1): 41–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The promise of happiness. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlak, Ann. 2004. Confrontation and pedagogy: Cultural secrets, trauma, and emotions in antioppressive pedagogies. In Democratic dialogue in education: Troubling speech, disturbing silence, ed. Boler, Megan. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Boler, Megan. 1999. Feeling power: Emotions and education. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Boler, Megan. 2004. Teaching for hope: The ethics of shattering world views. In Teaching, learning, and loving: Reclaiming passion in educational practice, ed. Liston, Daniel and Garrison, Jim. New York: Routledge Falmer.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1988. Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal 40 (4): 519–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990/1999. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1995. For a careful reading. In Feminist contentions: A philosophical exchange, ed. Benhabib, Seyla, Butler, Judith, Cornell, Drucilla, and Fraser, Nancy. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1974. Of grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
DiAngelo, Robin. 2011. White fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3 (3): 54–70.Google Scholar
DiAngelo, Robin. 2015. White fragility: Why it's so hard to talk to white people about racism. The Good Men Project, April 9. http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/#sthash.KbElJORV.dpuf (accessed January 11, 2017).Google Scholar
Fellows, Marie Louise, and Razack, Sherene. 1998. The race to innocence: Confronting hierarchical relations among women. Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 1 (2): 335–52.Google Scholar
Felman, Shoshana. 1992. Education and crisis, or, vicissitudes of listening. In Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history, ed. Felman, Shoshana and Laug, Dori. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gilson, Erinn. 2011. Vulnerability, ignorance, and oppression. Hypatia 26 (2): 308–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilson, Erinn. 2014. The ethics of vulnerability: A feminist analysis of social life and practice. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Griffin, Gail. 1998. Speaking of whiteness: Disrupting white innocence. Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 31 (3): 3–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivits, Shantel. 2009. “Disturbing the comfortable: An ethical inquiry into pedagogies of discomfort and crisis.” Unpublished Master's Thesis, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver.Google Scholar
Jackson, Liz. 2008. Silence, words that wound and sexual identity: A conversation with Applebaum. Journal of Moral Education 37 (2): 225–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Alison. 1999. The limits of cross‐cultural dialogue: Pedagogy, desire, and absolution in the classroom. Educational Theory 49 (3): 299–316.Google Scholar
Kumashiro, Kevin. 2002. Troubling education: Queer activism and anti‐oppressive pedagogy. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leonardo, Zeus. 2004. The color of supremacy: Beyond the discourse of “white privilege.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 36 (2): 137–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonardo, Zeus. 2016. Foreword: Whiteness and emo‐social justice. In Feeling white: Whiteness, emotionality, and education, by Matias, Cheryl. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.Google Scholar
Leonardo, Zeus, and Porter, Ronald. 2010. Pedagogy of fear: Toward a Fanonian theory of “safety” in race dialogue. Race, Ethnicity and Education 13 (2): 139–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister outsider: Essays and speeches by Audre Lorde. Berkeley: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Courtney. 2015. Transforming white fragility into courageous imperfection. On Being, June 26. http://www.onbeing.org/blog/transforming-white-fragility-into-courageous-imperfection/7701 (accessed January 11, 2017).Google Scholar
Matias, Cheryl, and DiAngelo, Robin. 2013. Beyond the face of race: Emo‐cognitive explorations of white neurosis and racial cray‐cray. Educational Foundations 27 (3–4): 3–20.Google Scholar
Mayo, Cris. 2002. The binds that tie: Civility and social difference. Educational Theory 52 (2): 169–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintz, Avi. 2013. Helping by hurting: The paradox of suffering in social justice education. Theory and Research in Education 11 (3): 215–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rak, Julie. 2003. Do witness: Don't: A woman's word and trauma as pedagogy. Topia 10: 53–71.Google Scholar
Razack, Sherene. 2007. Stealing the pain of others: Reflections on Canadian humanitarian responses. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 29 (4): 375–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shroyer, Amelia. 2015. White fragility is racial violence. The Huffington Post, September 19. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amelia-shroyer/white-fragility-is-racial_b_8151054.html (accessed January 11, 2017).Google Scholar
Squire, Aurin. 2015. Biker gangs, Tamir Rice, and the rise of white fragility. Talking Points Memo, May 22. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-rise-of-white-fragility (accessed January 11, 2017).Google Scholar
Srivastava, Sarita. 2006. Tears, fears and careers: Antiracism and emotion in social movement organizations. Canadian Journal of Sociology 31 (1): 55–90.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Shannon. 2006. Revealing whiteness: The unconscious habits of racial privilege. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Yancy, George. 2012. Look, a white! Philosophical essays on whiteness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Yancy, George. 2014. White gazes: What it feels like to be an essence. In Living alterities: Phenomenology, embodiment, and race, ed. Lee, Emily. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Zembylas, Michalinos. 2012. Pedagogies of strategic empathy: Navigating through the emotional complexities of anti‐racism in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education 17 (2): 113–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zembylas, Michalinos. 2015. “Pedagogy of discomfort” and its ethical implications: The tensions of ethical violence in social justice education. Ethics and Education 10 (2): 163–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar