In the last installment of White Fragility Rebuttal, we saw how Robin DiAngelo’s experience as a corporate diversity trainer gave her the inspiration for her magnum opus, White Fragility. In this installment we get a full dose of Karl Marx. Personally, I was shocked at her audacity to start chapter one by articulating a Marxist worldview. The chapter begins by establishing the operating premise of postmodernism, the denial of objective truth in favor of personal experience. Robin DiAngelo writes with a sense of self-importance giving herself a gnostic view of racism. She goes to great length to disagree with the conventional definition of racism but refuses to define racism in response.
But the biggest highlight of this chapter was the argument that individualism and meritocracy are forces of racism. Yes, she does go that far. In antiquity, meritocracy was viewed as justice, people getting what they deserve, what they are owed. Similarly in the Bible we have a system of sowing and reaping.
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. 10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
Galatians 6:7-10 NASB
But under Marxism, there are only power dynamics and if you are without, it’s not your fault. And if you have, then you did not earn it. But the Bible is opposed to this worldview. Similarly, the Bible affirms individualism, in that we have a personal relationship with God, through Jesus. We are to see everyone as individuals, not as a monolithic collective of their group. But Robin DiAngelo rejects this, and charges white people with the responsibility to reject this also.
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