FROM THE PASTOR

My Encounter with White Fragility

The past three years have seen more conversation about and struggle with racial injustice than we have seen at any time since the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Caring Connections, an ejournal published by Lutheran chaplains, pastoral counselors, and clinical educators, made a contribution to the conversation in its September 2020 issues, “Reflections on Racial Justice.” Following below is an edited version of my personal response to Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, published in that issue. I commend the book to you.

Pastor John Schumacher, BCC

For many years I, as the manager of a hospice spiritual care staff, had the privilege of providing mentorship and clinical supervision for one resident annually from the local hospital CPE site. Of the dozen students I supervised, one was a Black woman.

Once during her residency, I had a family ask that their patient not be assigned a Black chaplain – even before they were certain there was a Black chaplain on staff or knew that I had already assigned the resident to serve their mother. It saddened me to encounter what I assessed as vestigial racism but, without going into the details of the case here, I concluded it would not be helpful to either the patient or the resident to leave the assignment unchanged.

I made the reassignment to another chaplain in the most ignorant and insensitive manner possible. I sent the resident a voicemail as I was heading out the door for a two-week vacation. I didn’t consider the impact of the message on her. I did not explain my thinking as I decided to honor the family request. I did not grant her the opportunity to process with me her experience of my voicemail and the message it conveyed.

The resident was waiting for me when I returned from vacation. She did not confront me and accuse me of being a racist. Rather in conversation with me about my behavior she observed that “my supervisor is a racist.” Even this suggestion triggered a defensive response. I could not accept the label “racist.” The Klan and neo-Nazis are racists. I actively recruited this Black woman to do residency with the hospice. I had been commended by the hospice CEO as being a leader in creating the most racially and ethnically diverse department in the agency. How could I be a racist? And in my defensiveness, I was deaf to what the resident could have taught me.

Last month, more than fifteen years after this encounter with the Black resident I read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and recognized with absolute clarity that my response was a textbook demonstration of white fragility. DiAngelo characterizes white fragility as a process through which white people, socialized into an unrecognized or unacknowledged sense of superiority, respond defensively to perceived challenges to white racial worldviews and our self-identities as good moral people. These defensive responses, though triggered by anxiety and discomfort, are born of entitlement and are a powerful tool for maintaining white racial control. My conversation with the resident challenged me on a number of unrecognized assumptions which DiAngelo identifies as foundational to white fragility, including:

• Racism is personal prejudice.
• I am free of racism.
• Racism can only be intentional.
• I am a good person. I can’t be racist.
• Racism is conscious bias. I have none.

Because I experienced incongruity between my self-understanding and the person the resident perceived me to be I felt confused, defensive, embarrassed, and hurt, a response which is consistent with other foundational assumptions

• I am entitled to remain comfortable.
• The important issue is how I am perceived.
• I am feeling challenged, therefore you are wrong.
• It is unkind to point out racism.

It is worth noting for our community of chaplains, clinical educators, and clinical educators, as well as for the wider community of pastoral care providers that DiAngelo’s intended primary audience is “white progressives.” It is her contention that white progressives “cause the most daily damage to people of color.” White progressives are those white people who believe they are not racist or not intentionally racist. We are certain we “get it” and we put our energy into making sure other people see that we have arrived rather than into the life-long work we need to do in self-critique, continuing education, relationship building, and antiracist action. We white progressives perpetuate racism while being well defended against any suggestion that we participate in and benefit from the system.

For me and for my white peers in pastoral care, I hear three challenges from DiAngelo’s work – personal, professional, and theological.

The personal challenge is to see myself clearly. I am a white person socialized in a racism-based society. I have a racist world view, biases, patterns of behavior, and investments in a system which elevates me. Every day I benefit from white privilege in ways I haven’t begun to comprehend. I am called to a life-long process of challenging my own socialization and investment in racism. I need to tolerate the discomfort of an honest appraisal of my internalized sense of superiority and privilege.

When considering how to begin, I turn to a question asked by DiAngelo, “What has enabled you to be a full, educated, professional adult and not know about racism?” If I need to be educated there are books, movies, documentaries, museums, and a whole host of other resources to be explored. If I need to expand my circle beyond people who look like me, I can commit to intentionally building relationships. If I need to get out of my comfort zone, I can find those people and organizations who are seeking dialogue and action for racial justice.

The professional challenge is to understand how white privilege and white fragility unconsciously shape my pastoral identity and practice.

[Omitted here specific standards for professional pastoral education and practice set by national certifying organizations.]

Since Jim Wallis named racism as “America’s original sin,” it follows that all Christian, and certainly we Lutheran, pastoral educators and practitioners are called to the theological challenge of wrestling with racial injustice and white fragility within the context of that which we believe and confess. I hear DiAngelo as almost Pauline as she convicts me of my sin, my own complicity in unacknowledged racism. Various texts from Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians came to mind as I read and reflected upon DiAngelo.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right but cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Romans 7:15-19

One question for consideration is how does the promised freedom in Christ expounded by Paul in Galatians free and empower me to understand, acknowledge, and challenge racism, a systematic, institutionalized, and omnipresent phenomenon, which like sin itself, pervades every vestige of reality?

I leave consideration of this question to the guidance of a more astute student of Paul.

I would not have picked up White Fragility on my own initiative but confused and distressed by the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, and the many other current reflections of racial sickness within our country, I was eager to read – to do something – when the board of a pastoral care agency on which I serve chose to read and discuss White Fragility as the focus of its annual (this year, virtual) retreat. The board/staff is currently about two-thirds white and one-third persons of color. The facilitated discussion was slow with times of silence. Talking about race in an inter-racial group is awkward for white folks. However, I deeply appreciate being challenged to read the book and to be a part of the process which will continue beyond the board retreat. I have gained insight into myself and how I function in a racially-defined society. I see the need to grow. I also appreciate working with this board. While the self-reflective conversation will of necessity continue, the board discussion will also include consideration of the steps we can take as an agency to address racial injustice in our ministry context. Going forward we will not be the people we were or the board we have been because of the impact of DiAngelo’s work.