Robin DiAngelo is a fraud. It needs to be said and Chapter 9 exposes her the lack of conviction she has with her own belief system, at least when it comes to personal sacrifice. She asks other people to make sacrifices that she herself is unwilling to make. But I suppose when you are a diversity trainer, you can’t have too much self awareness when it comes to your low intersectionality rating. That is why she must overcompensate with righteous indignation towards others, specifically institutions that can fork out a little cash. Chapter 9 is very revealing on the limitations of Robin DiAngelo’s conviction to suffer for her own cause.
Operating Definitions
Modernism – the belief that man can achieve his own enlightenment
Postmodernism – the denial of absolute truth in favor of personal experience
Marxism – the social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx, which examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favor of communism. (Investopedia)
Critical Theory – a social, economic, political philosophy that applies the bourgeoise vs proletariat dynamic in Marxism to every cultural dynamic.
Synonymous: Cultural Marxism
Critical Race Theory – the application of Cultural Marxism as it relates to racial dynamics, disparities, whereby an oppressor vs victim relationship is created among racial or socially-constructed racial lines.
Intersectionality – the navigation of postmodernism where personal experience is given hierarchy depending on the lens of the individual. The more intersections of oppression, according to Critical Theory, an individual has, the clearer the more valuable their experience is.
Social Justice – the remedying of perceived oppressor versus victim dynamics according to Critical Theory
Standpoint Epistemology – the belief that a person is limited in their understanding of Scripture according to their Intersectionality
