Robin DiAngelo is talking about empathy. She asks people to put them self in the sues of a minority, knowing how boring it is, she puts the words “Try to be less white” on the slide in an attempt to humor.
Another possibility:
She has been working up the argument that whiteness is a social construct, and in this context, “being white” is the same as “being socially constructed to perceive your self as superior”. In that context asking people “to be less white” is not a judgement on the color of the skin.
It may be something entirely different though, point is it is not hard to come up with a context where these slides are not criticizing the color of people’s skin.
> It may be something entirely different though, point is it is not hard to come up with a context where these slides are not criticizing the color of people’s skin.
I agree that your above scenarios could change the context.
However, given that I perceived the slides in a different manner, and several others did as well (if no one perceived this to mean white people, then there would have been no news). Would you agree that using "white" to mean something other than the race in a seminar titled 'Facing Racism' is less likely than 'white' being used to refer to race? If not, would you agree that the Robin's usage of 'white' was poorly thought out, considering that people ended up with the conclusion that she was referring to race?
I do believe that Robin was referring to 'white' in terms of race; however, I'm willing to explore the possibility that this wasn't the case.
In the event that my assumption is correct - that Robin is referring to race - would you then agree that Robin is a member of the left who believes that white culture should be viewed negatively based on the content of the slides within the seminar?
Robin DiAngelo is talking about empathy. She asks people to put them self in the sues of a minority, knowing how boring it is, she puts the words “Try to be less white” on the slide in an attempt to humor.
Another possibility:
She has been working up the argument that whiteness is a social construct, and in this context, “being white” is the same as “being socially constructed to perceive your self as superior”. In that context asking people “to be less white” is not a judgement on the color of the skin.
It may be something entirely different though, point is it is not hard to come up with a context where these slides are not criticizing the color of people’s skin.