It turns out, all those 'woke' White allies were lying

It's possible to use accusations of white fragility as a discussion-ending argument, but it's worth noting that white fragility as a concept is actually aimed at identifying exactly that from the other side.

One of the ways white fragility manifests itself is that in racial conversations, white people often center their own feelings. What this means is that when a person of color expresses something about their experience as a person of color or comments on race, white people often tend to center themselves in that disclosure, even when they're the least affected party regarding that issue. This often acts as a discussion-ender for the person of color, because the conversation fundamentally pivots onto the terms introduced by this recalibration.

I think the concept of "fragility" in general might be easier for you to see if we move away from Harriot's piece here and even race in general. Here's an example of fragility with regards to gender that I experienced in my own life:

A few years ago, at the height of the #MeToo movement, I was in a bar with a mixed gender group of friends and acquaintances, and our group conversation turned to the movement. At the time, a prominent male actor (I genuinely don't remember who), had said something on Twitter that he intended to be supportive of the movement but had done it in a clumsy way and faced a lot of blowback for it.

The male members of the group were very focused on this event, and were incredibly frustrated at the unfair treatment they felt this actor received. He was just trying to help, and here he was getting cancelled at large!

The women in the group, meanwhile, kept trying to move the conversation away from the guy and back to the issue at hand -- widespread sexual assault of women -- but the men in the conversation kept coming back to the movement's treatment of the actor. The conversation actually ground to a full halt because the men kept demanding some sort of satisfactory explanation or answer for what the actor faced.

Let's unpack this for a moment, to see the fragility in action:

In this conversation, the men were calibrated to identify injustice as it affected the actor. The backlash he received, a now bog-standard Twitter bullying, did genuinely feel unfair, so the men identified a legitimate injustice from their perspective.

However, their focus on that particular injustice pulled focus from the injustice that women were facing and that was the basis for the whole conversation in the first place. The men also prioritized their need for satisfaction regarding their identified injustice (the bullying of the actor) over the women's need for satisfaction regarding their identified injustice (sexual assault).

The whole conversation completely derailed because the men's fragility was activated. They needed their injustice responded to, addressed, and resolved before they would even allow the other to be considered. As such, the greater injustice -- sexual assault -- went unexamined in favor of a lesser one. Fragility shut down the conversation.

The second piece here is that fragility caused the men to believe that they were "under attack" via proxy of the actor on Twitter. This meant that women had to pivot to an accommodating or understanding tone, because to do otherwise (shutting the men down or refusing their refocusing of the conversation) would have made the men feel attacked even more directly, thereby verifying their feelings.

From an internal perspective it makes perfect sense, but externally it makes no sense whatsoever. #MeToo was a movement about bringing awareness to men literally attacking women, but the dynamics of this particular conversation inverted that and made these men feel that they were under attack AND that this "attack" was the priority issue.

Even if we accept that some women did legitimately attack the actor on Twitter (and they did), we can see how those attacks still pale in comparison to actual sexual assault. But, the conversation about sexual assault of women completely inverted to focus on lesser attacks on men.

If you want to think about fragility in less accusatory terms, think of it this way: fragility is when a lesser injustice pulls focus from a greater one because the lesser one impacts people who are less used to dealing with injustice. It's a matter of stamina: people who are not accustomed to discomfort are less able to abide it than those who regularly experience it.

What the men could have done instead was prioritize the women's disclosure, affirm the women's identified injustice, or used the sense of outrage they felt about the actor's mistreatment as an empathetic tool to help them understand why so many women feel so strongly about mistreatment of women. All of those would have allowed the conversation to maintain its focus and would have centered the more severe injustice over lesser ones. In order for that to happen though, the men would have had to be able to abide their own discomfort. The women were all able to do this and patiently listened and redirected, demonstrating incredible emotional intelligence and fortitude. They sat with their discomfort regarding the sexual assault of women and still made the time and effort to hear the men out. They modeled the opposite of a fragile response, putting aside their identified injustice and deeply felt pain in order to hear and genuinely process someone else's frustration.

The twist of the knife here is that fragility often creates a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. By patiently listening to the men, the women yielded the conversation to them and effectively enabled their fragile responses, but if they hadn't, as previously identified, the men would have felt attacked. Imagine if one of the women had said something like "getting shit-talked on Twitter is not the same thing as getting raped" or "we are not going to prioritize men's feelings on women's abuse" or "this isn't about you". Would the men have heard that and processed it, or would they have just felt dismissed and dug in their heels further?

White fragility specifically means that on racialized conversations, white feelings often take priority. The article that has spawned all of these comments is a person of color speaking about racism from a place of frustration and hurt. It's someone who is feeling the sting of legitimate and longstanding injustice. How many of the comments here acknowledge that? How many demonstrate that they understand any of that pain or frustration?

You talked about how accusations of fragility make it feel like you can't give adequate criticism. I encourage you to think about how if the only thing you're meeting something with is criticism, then that itself might genuinely be a fragile response. Consider how someone might respond to this author by affirming the pain, horror, and injustice of racism and only then levy their criticism within that context. Or, alternately, consider how someone might have legitimate criticism of this author but choose not to say it because it centers on an injustice that is less important than letting the author convey his pain borne out of far greater injustice.

I have my issues with this article. Harriot's title does say "all" and his argument regularly conflates "many" and "most" with "almost all". Also, he's a professional writer, so he definitely has a command of language and knows how words work, and he's choosing to use words in a way that comes across as deliberately inflammatory. I think he's intentionally taking a swipe at white people here.

And I think a lot of us felt that swipe and its commensurate discomfort, and we responded in genuine frustration.

I think it is incumbent on us, however, to consider why Harriot might be taking that swipe in the first place. I think we need to consider how he might be speaking from a place of genuine frustration. I think it is entirely possible for his swipe at white people to be unjust but also unworthy of such forceful pushback because, in terms of racial justice, it is far less important to counter than the other, much, MUCH worse unfairnesses out there.