The same conservatives who complained about Sarah Jeong's anti-white tweets don't seem to have much to say about Robin DiAngelo, even though her entire career is based on the hereditarian notion that being "white" is an essential identity that tells you everything you need to know about an individual and their moral inclinations.
But I think this episode of a podcast called "With Friends Like These" an interview with DiAngelo, demonstrates exactly why - because Robin DiAngelo consistently focuses her attacks on progressives and white women. Conservatives correctly understand that DiAngelo is working for them more than for anybody else.
On this week’s pod, Ana (@anamariecox) sat down with Robin DiAngelo, author of the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. To kick things off, Robin explained what white fragility is, and the impact that it has not just on white people, but white progressives in particular. Ana and Robin then talked about the need for people who recognize racism’s ills not to get complacent or arrogant, but rather be actively anti-racist, and continue educating themselves. They then switched gears, and explored why white women often fail to be allies for people of color before probing the ways de facto segregation and tokenizing minorities are so deeply problematic.
It's apparent that with Ana Marie Cox, once again DiAngelo gets a free pass - her crackpot idea of "white fragility" is itself never questioned. The interviewer simply assumes it's valid and unquestionable and continues on from there. In 2015 another sympathetic (of course) interview with DiAngelo lays out exactly what "white fragility" means: Why all white people are racist, but can't handle being called racist: the theory of white fragility
In the interview DiAngelo says: "Racism comes out of our pores as white people. It's the way that we are."
DiAngelo truly believes that the color of your skin is all that matters. She does not allow for a variety of character contents of people she has designated as "white" - we are all born evil, so evil that racism comes out of our pores.
There will always be crackpots. What is so disturbing is that way that people like Ana Marie Cox promotes DiAngelo's crackpot theories and race essentialism absolutely without question.