I’ve noticed that white fragility can be affected not just in relation to race-related issues but in any context that threatens perceptions of white superiority. I think of this as a domination-superiority complex wherein acts of domination feel like superiority and thus dominance is performed to maintain this perception of superiority. It seems like white fragility is a more precise way to describe these affectual processes involved with mobilizations of whiteness in imitation of white supremacy

I am the only queer person in my white conservative family, and have been met with these same kinds of defenses when trying to advocate for my rights. I am also read as a “liberal” and thus receive these same kinds of defenses whenever I try to discuss political issues that affect my life. This thus seems to me like the conceptual utility of white fragility applies beyond race and into any intersectional vector of social difference… it’s as though encountering difference in general is what affects white fragility, which thus implicates that whiteness is a structure that aims toward homogenization of difference, and positions white fragility as that which functions to maintain a perception of homogeneity (which currently exists in the form of “colorblind” erasure — it’s not just colorblindness, but “differenceblindness”).

Thank you for your work, Robin. It has been so helpful for my own (and I’m sure many others’) healing.