Criticisms of white-on-white educators

White-on-white educators, such as Tim White, Robin DiAngelo, Peggy McIntosh, etc. definitely can do a lot of good. But as people who are white, they're ultimately speaking about a subject that they have no personal experience with, and are passing on information second-hand, so they're always going to have blind spots.

Also, it's a little ironic that a white person raises themselves up as an authority on racism. Shouldn't they be redirecting others to POC content creators who can speak on anti-racism efforts with more authority? (certainly white educators can speak to how their personal anti-racism journeys have gone, but they seem to be going much further than that)

criticisms of Robin DiAngelo

• "The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility", a lengthy piece by John McWhorter [bio]
• "The Washington Post's Carlos Lozada said the book ['White Fragility'] employs 'circular logic.' Lozada writes that White Fragility views people of color as 'almost entirely powerless, and the few with influence do not wield it in the service of racial justice.' Columbia University professor and linguist John McWhorter, who is Black, echoes that criticism, writing in The Atlantic that the book 'openly infantilized Black people' and 'simply dehumanized us.' He argues that for 'DiAngelo, the whole point is the suffering' of white people, who are 'taught that pretty much anything they say or think is racist and thus antithetical to the good.'"

criticisms of Tim Wise

• "Tim Wise should get a game show called 'I Know More About Black People Than Black People Know About Black People'. I'd lose to him.", by W. Kamau Bell
• (TODO — track down some live pages that discuss this Sep 16, 2013 Facebook post — some places to start: [1] [2] [3] — It's too bad that the Storify.com and GradientLair.com pages are now dead links)
  • Ahh, better links: [1]
• (TODO — track down the conflict that happened when Tim Wise visited W. Kamau Bell's show "Totally Biased" on Sep 24, 2013 — some tendrils: [1] [2])

criticisms of Peggy McIntosh

• (TODO)

See also

Other articles that cover a similar topic:

• "Is the Anti-Racism Training Industry Just Peddling White Supremacy?", by Jonathan Chait [bio], who appears to be White
• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html, also apparently authored by a white guy?

Other articles that cover a nearby-but-slightly-different topic:

• "'Woke Racism': John McWhorter argues against what he calls a religion of anti-racism"
  • John McWhorter's critiques seem to focus more on the general approach to anti-racism, rather on white-on-white educators
  • (Though I'm not sure I completely understand his viewpoint. TODO — re-read this, and other material by him)