Robin DiAngelo Quotes

As I moved to less and less diverse places in my life, I realized that white people don't talk about race amongst themselves!

When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people.

I don't think people in America understand race, and how deep the hooks of whiteness there are in our consciousness.

Racial identity is simply forbidden to whites in America and across the entire Western world. Black children today are hammered with the idea of racial identity and pride, yet racial pride in whites constitutes a grave evil.

I have an upfront, sort of in-the-trenches knowledge of white people's trying to avoid their whiteness and replace it with something else. When I met my wife, we went through the whole race-slash-ethnicity conversation, and she told me she was Italian. Later on, I find out she's a quarter Italian, at best.

There's this sense that whiteness is the default and does not need to be questioned. That you've got a race if you're black, or any kind of Asian, or any kind of Native American, but that you have no race if you are white.

It became clear over time that white people have extremely low thresholds for enduring any discomfort associated with challenges to our racial worldviews.

When people talked about O.J. Simpson being race-neutral, that was a race card. It just meant we don't think of him as black. But race-neutral is just like flesh-tone Band-aids. It's not neutral; it's white.

Why must we always talk about race anyway? Can't we just be human beings? And Professor Hunk replied - that is exactly what white privilege is, that you can say that. Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.

Miss America was always white. All the beautiful brown women in America, beautiful sun tans, beautiful shapes, all types of complexions, but she always was white.And Miss World was always white, and Miss Universe was always white.And the angel fruit cake was the white cake and the devil food cake was the chocolate cake.I said, 'Momma, why is everything white?' I always wondered. And the President lived in the White House.

When I say, I don't care what white people think, I mean that.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

White people are potential humans - they haven't evolved yet.

When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my low expectations for white people or what.

The American paradigm of race requires that there be an ‘other’ - and the other is Black people. That's what makes white people, white.

In the Trump era, it's way more obvious extreme racism exists. But there are still a lot of people who think, 'We don't have a racist bone in our bodies.' We have to face the racism in ourselves.

I wish Americans understood that race is a social construct, even if we don't want it to be.

White people have basically been encouraged for most of recent history in America to think of themselves as outside of race. White people do have race. They need to understand how their race has been constructed as artificially as everybody else's.

As white people in this society, we are socialized from the time that we're born to see ourselves as superior, to see white people and things associated white people as superior. At the same time, I'm encouraged to never admit to that. I'm taught that racism is very bad and immoral.

White people are very wily when it comes to race. We will do everything that we can to get out from under the idea of race.

Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I'm thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do.

I think it's extremely important to challenge white brothers and sisters and think more systematically and strategically about the whiteness that they possess.

No one who's white thinks he's innocent. No one who's black thinks he's guilty.

Race has no genetic or scientific basis.

Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race.