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August 26, 2024 - 5:45pm
Robin DiAngelo, author of the bestselling book White Fragility, stands accused of plagiarising substantial portions of her doctoral thesis, including from minority academics, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
A new complaint filed with DiAngelo’s employer, the University of Washington, lists 20 examples of alleged plagiarism from her 2004 doctoral dissertation, “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis”, per the Free Beacon‘s Aaron Sibarium. According to the complaint, DiAngelo frequently lifted materials from secondary sources and passed their summaries and analysis off as her own. She is alleged to have paraphrased full paragraphs of other scholars’ work without using quotation marks, as well as lifting whole sentences without paraphrasing. In some cases, she failed to cite the original author in-text.
Further, two of the cases of alleged plagiarism relied on the works of Asian-American professors, a violation of DiAngelo’s credo that one must “always cite and give credit to the work of BIPOC people who have informed your thinking”, as the Free Beacon notes.
White Fragility argues that white people derail conversations about racism through their defensiveness, relying on DiAngelo’s two decades of experience running diversity seminars. The book received critical acclaim following its 2018 publication, and saw a surge in sales in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent uptick in interest in racial issues. Its argument became a major touchstone in the racial reckoning of that year, but the new allegations undermine the academic credentials which served as the foundation of DiAngelo’s lucrative career in antiracism.
The report comes after a year of new plagiarism allegations levelled at various high-profile academics, many of whom worked in fields related to race. In the most significant recent case, then-president of Harvard University Claudine Gay was accused of dozens of instances of plagiarism in her own academic work, and stepped down from her role soon after the allegations came to light. Other academics who rose to national fame in 2020 have also had public falls from grace. Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to be an Antiracist, failed to produce any significant research through his $43 million Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, and has been accused of mismanagement and employee exploitation.
Even prior to the new plagiarism allegations, DiAngelo’s work had fallen out of fashion on the Left as Democrats shifted their focus away from identity politics. The new party platform, written before Joe Biden stepped down, makes few mentions of race and racism. Black Lives Matter’s opposition to the Harris candidacy, largely over the perception that the DNC has undermined the will of black voters by failing to hold a meaningful primary, has had no apparent impact on the race. Further, Democrats have chosen not to explicitly emphasise Kamala Harris’s race or gender in the ongoing campaign, focusing instead on a more patriotic and unifying message.
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SubscribeI actually read White Fragility. It’s astonishing that something so childish and lightweight has such currency. American universities are extraordinary (although ours are rapidly going the way).
I used to donate a small sum every month by standing order to Shelter, the homeless charity. One day they sent me an unsolicited text message containing a list of books I should read to educate myself about ‘white supremacy’. The first on the list was White Fragility. Needless to say, I cancelled my standing order within 10 minutes and redirected it to a local, saner, organisation.
I was talking/ debating with a progressive friend—and this is back when I was a lifelong progressive—awhile back, when she said I was a racist, and I just know it. I vehemently denied I that I was a racist. She just gave me a smug smile. I decided that I no longer recognized the progressives.
I read it as well. I cannot remember reading a more blatantly racist text.
It’s racist to call that racism racist.
As a matter of interest is there any academic research cited in White Fragility backing up diAngelo’s claims? Or is it all “lived experience” mood music? I never bothered to read it as it seemed to rely on whites having to admit they were racist as to say you weren’t just proved you were in denial and had to be re-educated. The Soviet and Maoist Chinese show trial’s approached things on a similar basis.
It’s not about her text, which are the rantings of a mentally white person. It’s about WHY she is given a platform and who platforms her. Why are KKK books on ‘black Supremacy’ not given national attention? The regime is real. It exists. What is it.
Why would you need to plagiarise when you’re writing absolute nonsense for external examiners who already agree with everything you have to say a priori?
Robin Di Angelo is nothing more than an arms-dealer in the culture war.
‘ Further, Democrats have chosen not to explicitly emphasise Kamala Harris’s race or gender in the ongoing campaign’?
Really? Have you seen Kamala’s page on her campaign site?
I quote PBS ‘she opted for direct mentions of her multiracial background and upbringing. She paid tribute to her roots as the daughter of a brown woman and Caribbean man. She honored the multicultural village of “aunties” and “uncles” in California’s Bay Area. And following her speech, the relatives who joined her onstage for the traditional balloon drop included people of different and often multiple, overlapping races, like Harris herself. Western attire and saris were worn side by side.’
“daughter of a brown woman and Caribbean man” –
Why “brown woman” vs South Asian yet “Caribbean”… Does the left resent the flourishing of Americans of South Asian decent that much that it would instead use a more general term about the quantity of melanin that happens to be in a person’s skin…
So manipulative and infantile…
Trump was brilliant in calling out Harris’ and the Democrats exploitation of the ‘one drop’ rule during the black journalists convention. No one is more racist than the American Left today, which takes every opportunity to slice’n’dice the electorate by crayola-crayon skin colors.
Who could have guessed?
‘ Further, Democrats have chosen not to explicitly emphasise Kamala Harris’s race or gender in the ongoing campaign’?
Really? Have you seen Kamala’s page on her campaign site?
I quote PBS ‘she opted for direct mentions of her multiracial background and upbringing. She paid tribute to her roots as the daughter of a brown woman and Caribbean man. She honored the multicultural village of “aunties” and “uncles” in California’s Bay Area. And following her speech, the relatives who joined her onstage for the traditional balloon drop included people of different and often multiple, overlapping races, like Harris herself. Western attire and saris were worn side by side.’
Is plagiarised racism any worse than regular racism?
Yes of course. One moral wrong plus another moral wrong by definition adds up to a double moral wrong.
Only if these moral wrongs are perpetrated by white people.
It’s not uncommon for scientific/humanities/activist work to undergo ‘re-evaluation’ as a fresh generation try to establish their own careers. But when a body of work depends on identity politics then new perspectives are inevitable as fashions change.
You just always have to be on the “right side of History.”
‘The new div > p > a”>party platform, written before Joe Biden stepped down, makes few mentions of race and racism.’
It only makes 3 mentions of Kamala Harris.
The Democrats couldn’t even be bothered to change their party platform!
“one must always cite and give credit to the work of BIPOC people who have informed your thinking”
Which rather implies that it’s not always necessary to cite and give credit to the work of white people who have informed your thinking.
Why doesn’t this surprise me. Freeloading antiracists always have a colourless backstory.
I have nothing to add to this, except that RD is just another piece of american academy trash, and she was long before these plagiarism accusationz.
Time for reperations?
The more these race grifters are exposed as what they truly are the better. Hopefully our CRT captured establishment will wake up before they put “anti racism” on the national curriculum.
To say that the democrats have “shifted their focus” from identity politics is truly a wild position to take. So much of the recent DNC was about LGBT “rights” being supposedly under attack, Oprah talked about how she had to deal with racism and sexism (lol), and Michelle Obama got enormous applause when she said DT is supposedly nervous about dealing with intelligent and BLACK (her emphasis) folk like her and Barack. They are still pro DEI, pro transgenderism, pro abortion as a part of your identity, they are the party of identity par excellence, more than at any other time. They have not moved away one bit, they are just playing politics in an election year.
But of course: She’s intellectually lazy, dishonest, and shallow.
There’s apparently a scene in the new Daily Wire movie where Walsh poses as an anti-racist professor or something like that, sits down with Di Angelo…. you will have to seek it out as the MSM will ignore the film.
“Am I A Racist?”
I’m 60 and all the antiracism BS has left me so alienated. The recent two tiered police action against people protesting the murder of white children even more so. Frankly, it is radicalizing the white population.
Another “academic” bites the dust. As a former academic in saner times, I love it.
Disappointing, but typical of Unherd to be so unfocused, the author pivots at the end from talking about an individual scholar being accused of plagiarism to discussing the DNC platform. At least she didn’t bring up Donald Trump…
I doubt SHE’s guilty of plagiarism. She just hired a particularly sloppy ghostwriter.
A ghostwriter for her doctoral dissertation? No one is saying she plagiarized anything in her book White Fragility.
Pity they can’t all lose.
Unherd of!
Two words for Ms diAngelo:
Matt Walsh.
Let’s hope something very expensive happens to the Racebaiter General.
A very considerable part of humanities in university will take a very long time to again meet basic requirements of research.