White Fragility

This is a book written by a white person to white people about white people - and race.
It's not what the 1 star reviews say it is. It just challenges some unspoken beliefs and that makes people insecure, angry, hostile and nervous. White Fragility.

Come on, people, we white people are not in any kind of trouble. If there is one ounce of decency in you, you admit this.

Stop whining about not being “allowed” to feel this or that, stop getting insulted and offended because people tell you you hurt someone. Stop challenging your victim and arguing about whether your victim is “really” hurt or just being oversensitive. We are the strong ones, the privileged ones, the ones who benefit of the European racial prejudices put into system. You might not want to admit it, but it's nevertheless there. We are not the ones being discriminated as a group of people, by those who hold the power. I might personally be discriminated against, hurt, violated, in trouble, and there's plenty of people of color who are better off than I am, but COME ON! When even the President of United States gets called an ape just because he's a black man, the society is racist. And it's not racist against us, the white people.

So - stop being fragile white snowflakes. Yes, yes, we are all pretty and unique, but nevertheless white and fragile.

I verified a lot of it through my different “minority” identities.
I am a Feminist living in a culture where a man is the norm.
I am Autistic living in a culture where “neuronormals” (duh) are the norm.
I am a Pagan living in a culture where Christians are the norm. (Most of them secular, sure, but nevertheless.)
I have some experiences through my husband, but those are, of course, just second hand, and don't really count.
I mostly recognized the patterns as Autistic. The “neuronormal fragility” is strong.
The male fragility is also a thing, but surprisingly enough, so is the female fragility.

It might have been easier for me to read, because I'm Finnish, and because I went in to learn to become a better ally. I wanted to see what this “white fragility” is, and if I have it, do my best to get rid of it. Now, as far as I can see, I don't have much of it. It doesn't much matter, because all the things Robin DiAngelo said we should be doing goes for everyone in every situation where we are privileged. And I am, very privileged in many ways.

I admit being a racist.
I do have a preconceived idea of who the person is based on their skin color. My idea of who the person is is much more varied when I look at white people than when I look at black or yellow people.
I just assume that to everyone the people of their own race is the norm, and see the people with the same skin color as individuals and the people with the different skin color as members of a group. Now, I might be wrong, there, and it's just us white people who think that way. I remember asking a Kenyan woman if they have a pejorative+ name for white people, and she didn't tell me, so either she was polite enough not to offend me, or we white people are real a-holes. Nevertheless, if they had had a name, it would have been only a jolly curiosity to me. Because I'm white. My whiteness is the norm, the ideal, I'm safe from racism, so ethnic slurs don't mean anything.
I'm married to a Jewish man. The mere “Jew” can be a threat. We live in a very antisemitic neighborhood, and there are days he won't even leave the apartment, because of the threat of violence.

So, all these white people saying “we are being targeted now!” don't know what they are talking about. Whiny entitled babies. Needing to acknowledge that other races are just as deserving of the privileges we have been enjoying for hundreds of years is nothing to be afraid of. But, sure, we lose the “first ching” as it's called in Swedish. The opportunity to get to choose before everyone else. And, sure, that is a loss of a benefit. After all, they give this “first ching” as a VIP benefit to club members etc.
But - if I acknowledge I lose this benefit, I have to admit I have the benefit,
and I also have to admit that it's racially motivated, not merit based.
And then I have to admit that I do consider my race being more deserving than others, that is, that I'm a racist.
And that I don't really care about merit, as long as someone else is more merited than I am...
You know, the Affirmative Action? It doesn't say that if a white person and a black person seek for employment, the job has to go to the black person. It says, that if a white person and a black person see for employment, the job goes to the better merited, UNLESS THEY ARE EQUALLY MERITED, AND THEN the job goes to the black person. EQUALLY MERITED. And it exists because the society isn't merit based, it's based on nepotism, money and chauvinism. People prefer people they identify with, people they'd choose as friends, over everyone else.
Just look at your friends. Look at your spouse and your children and their friends. I bet it's pretty monochromatic.

Sure, we could say that most people alive today in spite of their color has been a slave, and that the game field has been leveled, but... it's like... think about an online computer game. You get XP by years you play, and the XP gives bonus points to all players playing the same kind of character. Like, better luck pick-pocketing, or higher charm counter or so. Now, some kinds of characters haven't been around for as long as others, because at one point, some people playing a certain type of character deleted all the others. Now, those players aren't playing any longer, but other people playing the same character kind don't think the others should either get the deleted benefits back, get compensated for it, or that everyone's benefits are zeroed. Simply because THEY didn't delete anything, because they are letting everyone play and they think it was really bad to delete the characters.