I think "white talk" is a kind of defensive response, and works as a term for those responses that fall under it.

That said, my problem is with the framing of whiteness as "fragile," as if it isn't a structure that is resilient, durable, and adaptive. (1/n) https://twitter.com/danieljhicks/status/1278131899626475520

Fragility implies vulnerability, and whiteness isn't vulnerable in that sense: it withstands and endures. I might stretch to say that individual white people are fragile in some senses, but whiteness as a structure is not fragile, and history demonstrates this pretty well. (2/n)

Further, how this "fragility" is extended to white people is massively problematic. Because whiteness is durable, framing white people as fragile allows them to retreat to the "durability" of whiteness as an organizing force in our society. (3/n)

Moreover, if we frame white people as "fragile" or "made uncomfortable" by talk about race, much of our institutional responses become about managing this discomfort and this fragility which, to be blunt, wastes a lot of time in diversity work and keeps whiteness center. (4/n)

I think Audre Lorde's conversation about White Guilt in "On The Uses of Anger" is a much better counter to framings of white people and whiteness as fragile and in need of protection from the reality of race relations in America. But back to "white talk." (5/n)

"White talk" is a kind of covering tactic that allows for the retreat of white people into whiteness, much like the other defensive responses that DiAngelo points out in her article and her text. That said, defensive responses are those things that allow for such a retreat. (5/n)

The thing is, though: we can't actually let white people retreat back into the comfort of whiteness. This might sound a little harsh (see, there I go with the centering), but retreat at the first sign of "trouble" actively impedes any kind of work with white folks. (6/n)

Anyway, all of these descriptions about white habits under racial stress are, to me, simply "hoben," or "expedient means." They're ways to force a conversation, to keep white people in a space where they have to confront their whiteness and the reality of that whiteness. (6/n)

(A good articulation of hoben is the Parable of the Burning House in the Lotus Sutra where a father uses a white lie to coax his children from a burning house.)

The problem is that many folks mistake the skillful means for the actuality of doing the work, so they stop with concepts like "white fragility" as if that's the end of the necessary understanding. They also mistake the hoben for the actuality of whiteness. (7/n)

So, while "white talk" might work as a means to get white people to reflect on whiteness, but it should not be mistaken as an end to the conversation about what white people do when forced to engage in conversations about whiteness and race. (8/n)

On the other hand, "white talk" is not a complete understanding of the whole situation of white supremacy that white people are implicated in.

Also, I think struggles to "name" what white people do in language other than "racism" and "white supremacy" are problematic. (9/n)

They're problematic because focusing on what to "call" racism and the habits of whiteness is yet another defensive move, albeit a subtle one that masquerades as a "productive" conversation about white folks' understanding of the experience of racism. (10/n)

Instead, we need to ask as Lorde does "Is it my manner that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that her life may change?"

Is it the language of racism that keeps white people from hearing, or the threat of their complicitness in racism? (11/n)

Further, to paraphrase Douglass, to subdivide endlessly the question of what we should call white defensive moves, in order to make white people comfortable, is to offer an insult to our understanding of racism, and to make myself ridiculous. (12/n)

To be honest, I'm tired of making myself ridiculous in conversations about the appropriate language for racism and white supremacy, especially when such conversations just maintain white comfort.

Talking about racism is uncomfortable, and we should not pretend otherwise. (fin)

Sources
Audre Lorde - The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism
What is the Fourth of July to the Negro - Frederick Douglass
Alison Bailey - "White Talk as a Barrier to Understanding the Problems of Whiteness" in What Is It Like To Be a White Problem?
Lotus Sutra (Burton Tr.)