White Fragility and American Popular Protestantism

Racism as a Private Sin

Recently, the book White Fragility has taken our country by storm. “Woke” progressives have read it and explored its meaning in depth. Many have found that its message resonates deeply with them. I think that one reason why the book has been so successful is that it fits well with one of the strongest strands of our culture – that of popular, American, Protestant religiosity. Like American, popular Protestantism, White Fragility is deeply conservative in its political implications.

Protestant Christianity generally focuses on salvation from sin through faith in Jesus Christ, but what is sin?  We can divide sins into two categories. There are public sins like oppression of the poor or corruption in public business, and there are private sins like fornication, gambling or drinking. American Protestantism has recognized both, but popular Protestant religiosity has focused much more on private sin than on public sin. Those like the 19^th century abolitionists who have insisted on social justice have faced widespread opposition from religious groups. 

The focus on private sin encourages individuals to work for personal development, self-understanding, psychological growth and repentance rather than to engage in social action, and White Fragility fits neatly into this tradition. Just as Protestantism insists that sin is the inescapable condition of mankind, so White Fragility insists that racism is the inescapable condition of our society. Just as Protestantism says that we should look into our hearts, find the sin there and turn away from it, so, White Fragility says that we should look into our hearts, find the racism there and turn away from it. In both cases, “salvation” comes from personal improvement, not from social action. Thus, the message of White Fragility fits well into the conservative religious tradition of one of the main streams of American culture. In that tradition, we achieve “salvation” by seeking virtue in our private lives. We do not have to confront the evils of our society.

White Fragility and Social Action

Readers of White Fragility may be social activists, but the book does not lead them in that direction. They may oppose the systemic racism of our society by fighting against discrimination in housing, in hiring or in education, and they can protest against police brutality. However, the decision to engage in that kind of public fight for social justice must come from outside of the book. The closest that White Fragility comes to promoting social action is its recommendation that we should be bold enough to object when we hear people make racist remarks or tell racist jokes. We should not allow such remarks to pass unchallenged. We should recognize and call out the sin of racism in ourselves and in our friends and associates. White Fragility asks us to do what we can to free ourselves and those around us from the sin of racism, but the book does not ask us to engage in a public fight for social justice.

This approach seems very natural and understandable to us because it fits well within our religious tradition. It allows us to think of racism as a private sin from which we should free ourselves as much as we can. We will never free ourselves from it completely, but we can begin our Pilgrim’s Progress.

Racism is a Public Sin

Treating racism in this way is profoundly conservative in its political implications. Such an approach does not directly challenge any institutional practice because it allows self-improvement to take the place of social action. The focus on self-improvement is very attractive to most of us because it is much less risky and requires much less time than social action. However, it is ultimately a dead end because it does not lead to social change. We cannot allow ourselves to be seduced by the attractiveness of self-improvement. We must remember that racism is not primarily a private sin. It is public, and it must be fought in the public realm.