Previous
Terms
Affirmative action refers to a set of laws and policies in the U.S. enacted in the late 1960s designed to prevent discrimination in hiring. Affirmative action only applies to state and government agencies (not private companies), and only requires employers to articulate why they didn’t hire a qualified person of color. Affirmative action has been systematically dismantled (many states have done away with it altogether), but white people often hold up affirmative action as a reason they are discriminated against. According to DiAngelo, this is a form of white fragility because it positions white people as victims despite the centuries of injustice in hiring against people of color and especially Black people.
Affirmative Action Quotes in White Fragility
The White Fragility quotes below are all either spoken by Affirmative Action or refer to Affirmative Action. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
Still, this program has been systematically chipped away at, and several states have eliminated affirmative action programs altogether. In turn, African Americans continue to be the most underrepresented group at the organizational leadership level. In 2018, affirmative action has all but been dismantled. Yet invariably, I will encounter a white male—bristling with umbrage—who raises the issue of affirmative action. It seems that we white people just cannot let go of our outrage over how unfair this toothless attempt to rectify centuries of injustice has been to us. And this umbrage consistently surfaces in overwhelmingly white leadership groups that have asked me to come in and help them recruit and retain more people of color.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire White Fragility LitChart as a printable PDF.
Affirmative Action Term Timeline in White Fragility
The timeline below shows where the term Affirmative Action appears in White Fragility. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...the white nationalist movement, explains that people can talk about shutting down immigration and fighting affirmative action as long as they don’t get outed as a white nationalist. Naming white supremacy is...
(full context)
Chapter 6
White resentment endures about affirmative action . Black people have been discriminated against in hiring since the end of slavery. In...
(full context)
Ironically, white women have been affirmative action ’s greatest beneficiaries. No employer is required to hire an unqualified person of color, but...
(full context)
