THENEWYORKER,AUGUST19, 2019 21
institutional power and privilege over
people of color,” she writes. She is un-
impressed by white participants who
swear they “treat everyone the same,”
since that’s not possible. And she is alert
to acts of racial transgression, as when
a white woman uses what DiAngelo
considers a “stereotypical” voice while
telling an anecdote about an African-
American. She thanks the woman for
her “insight,” and then asks her to “con-
sider not telling that story in that way
again.” When the woman tries to
defend herself, DiAngelo interrupts,
speaking in the friendly but steely voice
of administrative authority. “I am offer-
ing you a teachable moment,” she says.
Despite her sensitivity to racial power
dynamics and to the reality of racial ha-
rassment, DiAngelo seems to have lit-
tle interest in other workplace power
dynamics, which might explain why
she’s so surprised that many of the em-
ployees who attend her sessions aren’t
happier to see her. DiAngelo is devoted
to “challenging injustice,” but her cor-
porate clients doubtless have their own
priorities, and in any case it’s not clear
what the effect of these seminars is. A
group of social scientists has come up
with the concept of “implicit bias,” which
many trainers aim to diagnose and treat,
even though there is scant evidence that
implicit bias reliably affects behavior.
DiAngelo mentions implicit bias, but,
even more than Kendi, she is engaged
in something that resembles a spiritual
practice. In the sanctuaries she creates,one of the rules is that white people, es-
pecially white women, should not cry.
It attracts too much attention, and it
may upset nonwhite participants, by
evoking the “long historical backdrop
of black men being tortured and mur-
dered because of a white woman’s dis-
tress.” If DiAngelo herself can’t resist,
she performs a ritual of abnegation. “I
try to cry quietly so that I don’t take up
more space,” she writes, “and if people
rush to comfort me, I do not accept the
comfort.”
If there is scripture in DiAngelo’s
world, it is the testimony of “people of
color,” a term that usefully reduces all of
humanity to two categories: white and
other. Since white people are presumed
to have “institutional power,” and there-
fore institutional responsibility, people
of color function in this world as sages,
speaking truths that white people must
cherish, and not challenge. DiAngelo
has sometimes received “feedback from
people of color on my racist patterns
and assumptions,” which she first found
uncomfortable but eventually, as she
grew more enlightened, came to find
encouraging. “There is no way for me to
avoid enacting problematic patterns,”
DiAngelo writes, “so if a person of color
trusts me enough to take the risk and
tell me, then I am doing well.”
Once, when she offended a black
client by referring to another black
woman’s hair, DiAngelo discussed the
incident with another white person (so
as not to burden any other people of
color), and then apologized to the
offended party. She was forgiven her
trespasses, but says she was prepared
not to be. When you get feedback, es-
pecially from a person of color, what’s
most important is to be grateful, and
to try to do better. “Racism is complex,”
she writes, “and I don’t have to under-
stand every nuance of the feedback to
validate that feedback.”
Unlike Kendi, who boldly defines
racism, DiAngelo is endlessly deferen-
tial—for her, racism is basically what-
ever any person of color thinks it is. In
the story she tells about the world, she
and her fellow white people have all
the power, and therefore all the respon-
sibility to do the gruelling but trans-
formative spiritual work she calls for.
The story makes white people seem
like flawed, complicated characters; bySCYLLA ANDCHARYBDIS
I like when the choices are both ugly—
the rock and the hard place. Odysseus chose
Scylla and I, too, would have opted for
a terrestrial evil, the sea vortex probably
concealing some subterranean meat with its beauty.
Soon you and I will exist in different time zones.
While day breaks for you, night will hold me to the big, wild moon.
I cast a wakeful light unravelling across the ocean.
While you swim in open Spanish waters brushing
the bright-eyed fish, I spin in a street of yellow cars
nod off to an organ in a small church on Broadway.
When you face the queen medusas in the water
transfixed by their pale rosy pulses
their accusatory look of afterlife—know that you are facing me.
I am them in hundreds, blind and mutant
ready to greet and interrogate your days.
These hallucinations are such a small price for your face.
I keep myself busy and disoriented.
I trace our disappearing homelands through myth.
I understand now that to love radically is to always
be willing to be banished to some disfigured island of stone
in the middle of the sea, a small sacrifice, really.
I, too, might have sacrificed a few men
to preserve the whole idea of a voyage.
Or even a nation. Both false beloveds.
That’s the thing.
Our hero didn’t really want to go down with the ship.
Wily, he skidded the sea cosmos.
He knew the milk foaming at the whirlpool’s edge
was bad medicine and chose the lesser of two omens—
a prophecy where the weak get plucked
and you sail on home fine. Just fine.—Megan Fernandes