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Jonathan Church is an economist and critical thinker. Find his articles on Whiteness, Whiteness Studies, Robin DiAngelo, and White Fragility on Areo Magazine here:
https://areomagazine.com/author/jchurch25/
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From "White Fragility Theory Mistakes Correlation for Causation" byJonathan Church
As I have noted before, Robin DiAngelo, the sociologist and critical race theorist who authored the bestselling book White Fragility, does not hold the “presumed neutrality of White European enlightenment epistemology” in high regard. She notes that her work is motivated in part by a subversive campaign that seeks the “decolonization” of modern universities and an interrogation of whiteness as manifested in the “presumed neutrality” of Enlightenment epistemology. As I have also noted, when she invokes “Emile Durkheim’s research questioning the infallibility of the scientific method”—a pillar of the Enlightenment—she does not appear to realize that scientists do not think of the scientific method as a Holy Grail of truth. In fact, one of the strengths of the scientific method is its emphasis on methodological rigor as a robust defense against any presumption of infallibility.
But it might come as a surprise to DiAngelo that it is the paradigmatic Enlightenment philosopher David Hume who gave us what is perhaps the greatest reason to doubt the supposed “infallibility of the scientific method.” Hume’s analysis of our understanding of causality was so incisive that it has stimulated debate among philosophers about the limits of knowledge ever since. As for white fragility, Hume’s empiricist skepticism also gives us serious reason to doubt the presumption of infallibility.
In the first chapter of her bestselling book on “why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism,” DiAngelo writes: “[w]hen I talk to white people about racism, their r..
