[5][6] DiAngelo became a tenured professor at Westfield State University, working in the areas of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies.

[2][7] DiAngelo proposes that white people are used to viewing themselves as "raceless" or the "default" race, and as such are insulated from feelings of racial discomfort.

In September 2019, Slate noted that "White Fragility has yet to leave the New York Times bestseller list since its debut in June 2018, making it the fastest-selling book in the history of Beacon Press.

"[1] The Publishers Weekly review called it "a thoughtful, instructive, and comprehensive book on challenging racism" and "impressive in its scope and complexity".

[21] The New Statesman review described it as "a clear-sighted, methodical guide seeking to help readers 'navigate the roiling racial waters of daily life', though stops short of prescribing any concrete solutions.

"[4] In an August 2019 article for The New Yorker, the columnist Kelefa Sanneh characterized DiAngelo as "perhaps the country's most visible expert in anti-bias training, a practice that is also an industry, and from all appearances a prospering one".

[23] Also writing in The Guardian, Kenan Malik countered in 2020 that the book is "psychobabble" which counter-productively shifts the focus from structural change to individual bias, thus "leaving the real issues untouched.

"[24] Reviewing Sanneh's comments, professor Lauren Michele Jackson "consider[s] DiAngelo's inclusion of seemingly incongruous grievances a strength.

As DiAngelo has said, neither White Fragility nor her workshops intend to convert the gleefully racist; she speaks to the well-intended whose banal blusters make racial stress routine.

Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post's nonfiction book critic, raised a point about circular reasoning: "any alternative perspective or counterargument is defeated by the concept itself.

"[19] In a January 2020 article for The New Republic, J.C. Pan situates DiAngelo's work among "other white anti-racist educators" such as Tim Wise and Peggy McIntosh who provide "therapeutic rather than policy-based" approaches.

"[7] Justin Lee makes a similar argument in an essay in The Independent, which views the book as part of a discourse which does not in fact promote racial justice but rather protects class privilege.

[26][27] In his view, the book divisively fetishises race and places it at the centre of people's identities, while denying the significance of individual personalities and moral choices and the universal human experience.

[28] Linguist John McWhorter, writing in The Atlantic, called the book "a racist tract", saying it infantilized and condescended towards black people.

[16] Writing in the Boston Review, political science professor Peter Dreier also criticizes DiAngelo's interpretation of the Jackie Robinson story.

"Contrary to DiAngelo's retelling," Dreier writes, "Robinson's success did not render 'whites, white privilege, and racist institutions invisible.'"