Bestselling author to speak about white fragility

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This article was published 06/02/2020 (2046 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

White Fragility may be the name of the bestselling book written by an author giving a lecture at the University of Manitoba on Thursday, but it is also alive on the streets of Winnipeg, says a local black advocate.

Alexa Joy Potashnik, founder and president of Black Space Winnipeg, said racism and white supremacy may not be as overt as in some other places in the world, but it still exists here.

“People choose not to see it,” Potashnik said on Wednesday.

“I really hope the people who go to the lecture see it with an open mind. There’s a collective denial about white supremacy here in Winnipeg.”

Last year, Potashnik pointed out one area of concern during the NHL playoffs when the Winnipeg Jets and their fans brought back the “whiteout” where they dressed in white when they attended games or supported the team at parties outside the arena. After saying, during a media interview at the time, that the whiteout name was “triggering for some people” and “for marginalized communities… it impacts us all,” she received a barrage of criticism from many people.

Potashnik says “I think Winnipeg, and Canada, is in a very interesting position. It’s really easy to see white supremacy in the world and it is easy to sleep at night here, but there is insidious racism here and white supremacy. My own experience in Winnipeg has been good and bad.

“I feel it here.”

The book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism came out in 2018 and quickly sparked conversations across North America about racism.

The note on Amazon says the New York Times bestselling book explores “the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.”

The author, Robin DiAngelo, an affiliate associate professor of education at the University of Washington, will give her lecture at the university’s Investors Group Athletic Centre from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., with doors opening at 2 p.m.

The lecture will also be live streamed at the Frederic Gaspard Theatre in the Basic Medical Sciences Building at the university’s Bannatyne Campus next to the Health Sciences Centre, the William Norrie Centre, at 485 Selkirk Ave., and in Thompson at the Northern Social Work Program.

DiAngelo, who is delivering this year’s Robert and Elizabeth Knight Distinguished Visiting Lecture, has spent the last two decades of her career examining the effects of race and the blind spots that white people have which sustains an unequal society.

University president David Barnard said in a statement that the institution “is committed to bolstering human rights, both at home and across the globe, and supporting those who create and nurture an equitable society.

“We are proud to officially announce this lecture in conjunction with the anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption more than 70 years ago of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca