THE BRAND NEW York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white folks have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and exactly how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

With this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism being a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Discussing the defensive goes that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is certainly characterized by emotions such as anger, dread, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, subsequently, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and stop any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility grows, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to activate more constructively.