white fragility
white fragility noun: a range of defensive behaviors supposedly exhibited by white people in response to challenges to the unstable racial situation that gives them social privileges.
Noun
white fragility (uncountable)
Origin of white fragility
Coined by Robin DiAngelo, lecturer at the University of Washington.
Questions about white fragility
- What does white fragility mean?
- White fragility means a range of defensive behaviors supposedly exhibited by white people in response to challenges to the unstable racial situation that gives them social privileges.
- What part of speech is white fragility?
- White fragility is a noun.
Words near white fragility in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: white fragility (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “white fragility.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/white_fragility. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
