"... but I can’t remember seeing it for a while now. (And I deliberately say 'see' it instead of 'hear' it because I’ve only ever seen it written, never heard it out loud.) Could it be that the word started to seem out of touch because we’ve been realizing how fragile we all are?"
Writes my son John on Facebook, and I think he's suggesting something about our heightened awareness of death and illness during the pandemic.
I responded over there:
Based on my search for "white fragility" in the NYT, with the results ordered newest first, I'd say it was very common up through October. Since October, there's only one appearance, in a little thing in December about what books New Yorkers read in the past year: "As nationwide discussions erupted over the summer around race and racism, demand for books on the subjects surged across the country, a trend reflected in the city’s libraries. Titles like 'White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism' by Robin DiAngelo were among the most popular in some boroughs." What changed after October? To ask the question is to make the answer obvious.
Before that December item, there were articles containing the term "white fragility" on October 29, October 22, October 6, September 27, September 17, September 6, September 1, August 31, August 11... You get the picture.
But "fragility" was a vogue word before last year's obsession with Robin DiAngelo's book. Even if the election — the answer I thought was obvious — explains the disappearance of "white fragility," we might also be seeing a disappearance of interest in "fragility" as used in the book "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. If so, I'm inclined to guess that the over-prominence of DiAngelo's concept tired us all out.
And that's the irony of being fragile about fragility that John was musing about.
Posts
28 comments:
Maybe "Congressional fragility" was so obvious that nobody wanted to call attention to it.
Robin DiAngelo's thinking was behind the Be Less White program at Coke, so you may hear talk of "fragility" again, if you follow the right media.
It's not necessary to see 'fragility' written everyday when success with Coca Cola C suite executives (and others) has replaced it with "try being less white".
"Fragility" is out, "try being less white" is in. Keep up Ann.
I've been using it a lot, but in the Taleb sense: the past year has exposed the fragilities in the system.
Joe Biden is mentally and physically fragile. So there's that.
Trump lost in early November so the need to mock the white middle class into guilt driven voting dissipated.
For a minute there it was a hip thing to accuse people who disagree with you of being "fragile" on social media. But it seems to me that people who are only willing to use words like fragile as insults on Twitter may in fact be fragile themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ewXbqRUdjU
Fragility left the front page of the New York Times and went directly into the HR Departments at corporations all across America. You may not hear about it on CNN today, but you'll get a full dose of it as an employee at Starbucks or Disney or Coca-Cola.
Ron Winkleheimer said...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ewXbqRUdjU
For the Fragile readers who can't bear to cut and paste and need to be spoon-fed their links.
Fragility disappeared when Biden became the president elect. He, being so obviously fragile, could not be described as fragile, lest the Emperor's New Clothes be criticized. Easier for the NYTimes to memory-hole the word for all uses, than to attempt avoidance of its use as a descriptor of the new President. Also, with Dems in power, their fragility is now their raison d'etre, their basis for all action at cancelling, censoring, and destroying their enemies, who are legion.
Now they're going with Be Less White
Next the CDC will be dismissing all that stuff about skin cancer and will advise white people to start browning up at the swimming pool.
If whites are so fragile, why are minorities so afraid of them?
Now they're going with Be Less White
Be more like this guy:
“He cooked the heart with potatoes to feed to his family to release the demons.”
Next the CDC will be dismissing all that stuff about skin cancer and will advise white people to start browning up at the swimming pool.
Tanning is "racial tourism" and a form of white privilege.
Cindy Sheehan was prominent in media protesting Bush and Iraq. Immediately after the 08 election she was disappeared
Racists and government supremacists haven’t changed anything but the targets.
Just replace white with jew in any of these Democrat/corporatist statements of dogma and it all becomes clear.
There is no significant difference between the regime in DC now and the nazi party in Germany circa 1933. Same goals and actions.
Check Your Privilege is holding steady.
I check my Privilege a few times a day, mostly to run some water through it.
Apologies to MFYear.
Feb 2021: No indictments in case of police killing of Daniel Prude. BLM response: crickets. As Michael 10:13 implies, BLM and lots of other "protests" were only intended to defeat Trump.
Are we all supposed to be c thomas howell in soul man?
I'd say it was very common up through October. Since October, there's only one appearance,
Gee, I wonder if anything important happened on 3 November 2020 that might have changed the narrative trajectory for liberals- the only people using the phrase....
Normal people treat people of other races as individuals and expect to be treated the same in return. Robin DiAngelo treats people of other races as representatives of a set of racial grievances that will inevitably and ceaselessly be deployed against her. In that sense, White Fragility is the truest book ever written — for Robin DiAngelo and her ilk, not for normal people.
"the over-prominence of DiAngelo's concept tired us all out."
Over-prominence? It was just prominent enough to achieve its desired effects, and it can be brought back easily to continue badgering whites. But with a prog white guy in power, it's not useful for the time being.
"tired us all out?"
Made us cringe and puke. But we ain't noways tired yet of calling BS on the BS.
While it's true the election was a big impact there was a second event. The publicity White Fragility received risked the left's true beliefs becoming publicly understood. Leftists realized from the public reaction they haven't won public support so they put their beliefs back in the closet while continuing to administer them surreptitiously through our institutions.
So many things changed after Biden was dragged across the finish line.
The, or rather, a t-word.
Maybe it takes a while to filter out of the coastal cities, but I've been hearing the word non-stop over the past six months. Mostly in context of "white fragility" and "fragile males". You know, in an attempt to shame white men from opening their mouths to supposedly shame someone else.
I like Fragile, but I think The Yes Album is better. I love Starship Trooper.
That must be Italian...
I hope so. Now if we could stop saying " unprecedented times" and " identify as" I would be truly thankful.
Post a Comment