This naive and misguided article perpetuates the prevailing myth, which is unfortunately being uncritically echoed as commonplace wisdom all around us right now, that black people are struggling to find a home within the university and our larger society whereas white people are the powers-that-be who are defending a racist status quo in a white supremacist nation. If, however, the author is sincere in his desire to understand “white people” and their reactions to the current situation, I suggest a three-step program:

1. Stop trying to understand “white people.” There is no such thing. The notion of “white people,” like “black people,” is a sociological fiction with hardly any biological foundation. Such notions have been used throughout history for the principal purpose of demonizing and oppressing groups you don’t like. If someone looks white to you, you call them “white” and assume they have something in common with all the other “white people” you see. And yet you know nothing about their background. Are they descendants of slaveholders? Are they newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe whose families faced generations of political oppression and economic turmoil? Are they children of families living in multi-generational poverty in Appalachia who are the first in their family to go to college? If you want to understand people, you need to get to know them as individuals, not as races. The former approach breeds empathy and mutual understanding and respect. The latter approach breeds negative generalizations (like many of the ones in the article), polarization, contempt and an escalating race war. Which outcome do you prefer?
2. When you think about your problems, stop thinking about the role of other people and start thinking a little bit more about yourself. If more people in this country stopped looking to cast blame and concoct victimization narratives and, instead, took personal responsibility, we’d get a lot further a whole lot faster. I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of blame to go around (everyone can find someone else to blame if they look hard enough), but if you think our society is racist (and it is racist in many respects, of course), ask yourself what the best approach is: (a) browbeating white people about their racism until they realize how awful they are, say sorry, it’s all our fault, and simply stop being racist; or (b) doing your best to overcome any obstacles put before you and showing these racists that their racism is unjustified, just like every ethnic group that formerly represented the underclass and faced discrimination (e.g., the Irish, Italians, Greeks, Asians, Eastern Europeans, Jews, Catholics, etc.) has done throughout American history. I’d suggest to you that approach (a) won’t get you very far, while approach (b) has worked time and time again. Today, unfortunately, this approach gets facilely dismissed as “respectability politics,” but what the dismissive label misses is that taking responsibility for yourself doesn’t mean you are agreeing that you caused your own problems; what it means is that, regardless of whoever caused your problems, you’re going to be proactive instead of reactive. You won’t let the racists define you and disempower you. Instead, you’ll take hold of the reins and do your best to prevail over every obstacle put before you.
3. If you want to be honest with yourself about why “white people” seem so resistant to your vision of social justice in which they are depicted as historical oppressors guilty of racism that can never go away while you’re the righteous oppressed incapable of exhibiting racism (no matter how many ignorant, overbroad labels you throw at “white people”) because you do not have the power necessary to perpetuate racist power structures, let go of the prevailing myth that we live in a society designed by and for white people and rigged against black people and start looking at all the ways in which “white people” — people you and others like you think look white enough to be labeled “white” — are being silenced and bullied in this country right now. Think about the declining status of their health, as compared to everyone else in America: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html. Think about how they’re getting left behind economically, while no one (other than Trump, which is why they support him) seems to care: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-slayton/theyre-drowning_b_8884850.html. And finally, think about what’s going on politically, where there is a non-stop assault by the media and people like the professor you quote in your article (Robin DiAngelo), throwing around racist labels like “white privilege” and “white fragility,” telling them they are racist and will always be racist, shouting them down, bullying them, silencing them, making them feel like they have no place in America. If you want to understand more about that, I strongly suggest you read this article that describes, citing research, what’s actually going on in America, both on university campuses and elsewhere, and shows which group is really the one that feels like it has no home in America any more: https:[email protected][email protected]-98eeea6b6151#.qh35y3btp.

When you finish educating yourself, then maybe, consider writing another article that’s a bit more reflective and empathetic, less full of vitriol, hatred, condescension and blame, an article that puts a critical examination of your own prejudices front and center instead of trying to find such prejudices in others. Good luck on your journey away from the dark side of the force.