"White fragility is the sort of powerful notion that, once articulated, becomes easily recognizable and widely applicable.... But stare at it a little longer..."

"... and one realizes how slippery it is, too. As defined by [author of 'White Fragility' Robin] DiAngelo, white fragility is irrefutable; any alternative perspective or counterargument is defeated by the concept itself. Either white people admit their inherent and unending racism and vow to work on their white fragility, in which case DiAngelo was correct in her assessment, or they resist such categorizations or question the interpretation of a particular incident, in which case they are only proving her point. Any dissent from 'White Fragility' is itself white fragility. From such circular logic do thought leaders and bestsellers arise. This book exists for white readers. 'I am white and am addressing a common white dynamic,' DiAngelo explains. 'I am mainly writing to a white audience; when I use the terms us and we, I am referring to the white collective.' It is always a collective, because DiAngelo regards individualism as an insidious ideology. 'White people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy,' DiAngelo writes, a system 'we either are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves.'... Progressive whites, those who consider themselves attuned to racial justice, are not exempt from DiAngelo’s analysis. If anything, they are more susceptible to it. 'I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color,' she writes. '[T]o the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us as having arrived...'... It is a bleak view, one in which all political and moral beliefs are reduced to posturing and hypocrisy...."

Writes Carlos Lozada in "White fragility is real. But ‘White Fragility’ is flawed," reviewing the book "WHITE FRAGILITY: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" in The Washington Post.

"As the book nears publication and details spill out, many congressional Democrats quickly assailed Mr. Bolton for not telling his story during the impeachment proceedings and instead saving it for his $2 million book."

"Mr. Bolton explains his position in the epilogue, saying he wanted to wait to see if a judge would order one of his deputies to testify over White House objections. Once the House impeached Mr. Trump over the Ukraine matter, Mr. Bolton volunteered to testify in the Senate trial that followed if subpoenaed. But Senate Republicans voted to block new testimony by him and any other witnesses even after The New York Times reported that his forthcoming book would confirm the quid pro quo. Some of those Republican senators said that even if Mr. Bolton was correct, it would not be enough in their minds to make Mr. Trump the first president in American history convicted and removed from office. Mr. Bolton blames House Democrats for being in a rush rather than waiting for the court system to rule on whether witnesses like him should testify, and he faults them for narrowing their inquiry to just the Ukraine matter rather than building a broader case with more examples of misconduct by the president. 'Had a Senate majority agreed to call witnesses and had I testified, I am convinced, given the environment then existing because of the House’s impeachment malpractice, that it would have made no significant difference in the Senate outcome,' he writes."
From "Five Takeaways From John Bolton’s Memoir 'The Room Where It Happened' describes Mr. Bolton’s 17 turbulent months at President Trump’s side through a multitude of crises and foreign policy challenges" by Peter Baker (NYT).

ADDED:

Wacko John Bolton’s “exceedingly tedious”(New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him. A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

"The book will... allege that Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr, contributed to the death of Trump's alcoholic elder brother Fred Trump Jr by failing to help him."

From "Donald Trump’s niece reveals in new book that she leaked details of his 'fraudulent' tax schemes, alleges he contributed to his brother’s death and says his retired federal judge sister disapproves of him" (Daily Mail).

The niece is the daughter of the brother who died. It's sad to think about what could have been done to prevent a death — sad to look for living persons to blame.

Most of the time, we soothe the survivors and tell them there's nothing they could have done, and when we choose to say, no, there are things you could have done that you did not do, it is probably not because those things were more obvious or had more potential to help.

"[W]hen things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read."

"And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened. What they do is never enough. This isn’t the time to circle up with other white people and discuss black pain in the abstract; it’s the time to acknowledge and examine the pain they’ve personally caused. Black people live and die every day under the burdens of a racism more insidious than the current virus that’s also disproportionately killing us. And yet white people tend to take a slow route to meaningful activism, locked in familiar patterns, seemingly uninterested in really advancing progress. Theirs is still a world of signs and signaling, where actions like joining book clubs — often based in some 'meaningfully curated' readings that are probably easy to name: 'White Fragility,' 'How to Be an Anti-Racist,' 'Between the World and Me,' maybe even 'All About Love' — take precedence.... [In social media] people write long posts about the need to examine white privilege, to 'name white supremacy,' and to either proudly denounce family members or call them in to conversations.... ... I know what happens next. In a handful of Sundays, my social media feeds will no longer have my white allies 'This'-ing, or unpacking their whiteness or privilege, or nudging their kids to put down their tablets and march. Their book clubs will do what all book clubs do: devolve into routine reschedulings and cancellations; turn into collective apologies for not doing the reading or meta-conversations about what everyone should pretend to read next; finally become occasional opportunities to catch up over wine...."

From "When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs/I’m caught in a time loop where my white friends and acquaintances perform the same pieties over and over again" by Tre Johnson (WaPo). If you're wondering what, in Johnson's view, is the right response, I can pick out the 2 words where he says it, and when you see them, you may think it's no wonder white people don't just snap to it and do what needs to be done: "dismantle systems."

ADDED: I read the top few highest-rated comments at the link, and they were all taking issue with Johnson's stereotyping of white people. What percentage of white people react to racial strife by cuddling up in book clubs murmuring about "White Fragility" and "Between the World and Me"?

"Tengujo can be made so thin that, at a certain point, it is too insubstantial for even the most gentle, decorative uses."

"At the width of a couple of kozo fibers, the paper becomes as thin as the wings of a mayfly. Only one use remains then: paper conservation. Trying to aggressively mend a document is risky because long-term chemical and physical effects are highly variable and relatively unknown. 'The more and more I am in this field, I feel that I should do less and less,' Ms. Choi said. So, as far as reinforcement material goes, the thinner the better.... The width of this thinnest tengujo is the same as the diameter of a single kozo fiber: 0.02 millimeters.... Slicing a 3-millimeter strip of Hidaka Washi tengujo with an ethanol-activated adhesive brushed onto one side, Ms. Choi gently covered an imperfection in Pinckney’s yellowing page. With a little push, the papers melted into each other. From a normal reading distance it looked as if nothing had been done, but under close examination you could see tiny strands of kozo gripping onto the ink....."

From "The Thinnest Paper in the World" (NYT).

Kozo is material — stems — from mulberry trees.

Choi is Soyeon Choi, "the head paper conservator at the Yale Center for British Art."

Pinckney is Eliza Pinckney, who was "a prominent American agriculturalist" and who wrote that letter in 1753.



From her Wikipedia article:

Eliza was 16 years old when she became responsible for managing Wappoo Plantation and its twenty slaves, plus supervising overseers at two other Lucas plantations, one inland producing tar and timber, and a 3,000 acres (12 km2) rice plantation on the Waccamaw River. In addition she supervised care for her extremely young sister, as their two brothers were still in school in London. As was customary, she recorded her decisions and experiments by copying letters in a letter book. This letter book is one of the most impressive collections of personal writings of an 18th-century American woman. It gives insight into her mind and into the society of the time.

From Antigua, [her father] Col. Lucas sent Eliza various types of seeds for trial on the plantations. They and other planters were eager to find crops for the uplands that could supplement their cultivation of rice. First, she experimented with ginger, cotton, alfalfa and hemp. Starting in 1739, she began experimenting with cultivating and improving strains of the indigo plant, for which the expanding textile market created demand for its dye. When Col. Lucas sent Eliza indigofera seeds in 1740, she expressed her "greater hopes" for them, as she intended to plant them earlier in the season. In experimenting with growing indigo in new climate and soil, Lucas also made use of knowledge and skills of enslaved Africans who had grown indigo in the West Indies and West Africa.

After three years of persistence and many failed attempts, Eliza proved that indigo could be successfully grown and processed in South Carolina. While she had first worked with an indigo processing expert from Montserrat, she was most successful in processing dye with the expertise of an indigo-maker of African descent whom her father hired from the French West Indies.

Eliza used her 1744 crop to make seed and shared it with other planters, leading to an expansion in indigo production. She proved that colonial planters could make a profit in an extremely competitive market. Due to her successes, the volume of indigo dye exported increased dramatically from 5,000 pounds in 1745–46, to 130,000 pounds by 1748.[4] Indigo became second only to rice as the South Carolina colony's commodity cash crop, and contributed greatly to the wealth of its planters. Before the Revolutionary War, indigo accounted for more than one-third of the total value of exports from the colony....

This letter book is one of the most complete collections of writing from 18th century America and provides a valuable glimpse into the life of an elite colonial woman living during this time period. Her writings detail goings on at the plantations, her pastimes, social visits, and even her experiments with indigo over several years. Many scholars consider this letter-book extremely precious because it describes everyday life over an extended period of time rather than a singular event in history....

There's a Pinckney Street in Madison, Wisconsin because of her son, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who was one of the founders of the United States Constitution.

You can read some excerpts from Eliza Pinckney's letter book here. Example (from May 1742):

Wont you laugh at me if I tell you I am so busey in providing for Posterity I hardly allow my self time to Eat or sleep and can but just snatch a minnet to write you and a friend or two now. I am making a large plantation of Oaks which I look upon as my own property, whether my father gives me the land or not; and therefore I design many years hence when oaks are more valueable than they are now — which you know they will be when we come to build fleets.  I intend, I say 2 thirds of the produce of my oaks for a charity (I'll let you know my scheme another time) and the other 3rd for those that shall have the trouble of putting my design in Execution. I sopose according to custom you will show this to your Uncle and Aunt. “She is [a] good girl,” says Mrs. Pinckney. “She is never Idle and always means well.” “Tell the little Visionary,” says your Uncle, “come to town and partake of some of the amusements suitable to her time of life.” Pray tell him I think these so, and what he may now think whims and projects may turn out well by and by. Out of many surely one may hitt. . .

Bookshelves.

The best thing about these Skype TV interviews is we can be on the lookout for problematic material on politicians’ bookshelves.

I’m compiling a database of MPs who might be reading beyond the scope of permitted opinions.

Report any suspicious books to me. I’ll do the rest. pic.twitter.com/dPTKvj6Aes

— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) May 4, 2020

Ha. Not looking to call down the PC police, but this is just something else about the lockdown and the bookshelves, from Roz Chast:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @rozchast on May 1, 2020 at 2:10pm PDT

That's the one Philip K. Dick book that I read, loved, and found to be sufficient: "The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch."

Also:

Nailed it. Depth. Color. Composition. And cool glasses. 10/10 @AlRoker pic.twitter.com/hUM7FoH2x4

— Room Rater (@ratemyskyperoom) May 3, 2020