It’s that season again. From Thanksgiving dinner to the office Christmas party, many of us — myself included — aren’t exactly looking forward to those inevitable conversations. You know the ones. The Republican aunt or the habitual mansplainer discussing how rap music is tearing Black communities apart, “illegals” are stealing American jobs, or in the other direction, offering the “polite request” that we all finally stop this racism talk and just get along.

Just as predictably, pointing out the racism involved in these statements never ends with enlightenment, or even honest self-reflection. As Robin DiAngelo explains in her classic essay White Fragility, for many white people, “even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.” The resident office mansplainer may become angry or your aging aunt may redirect the whole conversation from systemic injustice to the how upset your comment has made her feel, but the result is the same: skyrocketing tension, avoidance of the real issues, and a cemented confidence that they’re still right.

While many writers have explained this frustrating process and the negative outcome of white fragility far better than I can, there has been an unfortunate dearth of practical recommendations for what to do about it. Now, before I get into one possible approach for “what to do about it,” a single tool in a kit that we (especially white people) should begin building, I want to make clear that calling out is sometimes appropriate, even necessary. In cases where there isn’t time for extended conversations or where someone’s racist behavior is directly harmful to others present we need to shut down the situation, even if it leads to triggering white fragility. That being said, calling others in helps build a movement instead of an enemy — which is a goal we should all aspire to.

The FEVER Model & Empathic Storytelling

When someone’s struggling with white fragility, or has a “fragile reaction,” it’s basically like they’re running a fever. Just like a fever, white fragility is an outward sign of something wrong that goes much deeper for that person. It’s their body’s emotional defense system kicking in. From their perspective, they’re being threatened — even if just being accused of being racist or wrong — and they’re reacting to protect themselves. Unfortunately, like a fever, this defensive reaction usually causes much more harm than it helps. We can of course coddle them and bring down their fever, but the root of the problem will remain. Empathic Storytelling, specifically the FEVER Model, is designed to both bring down the fever and begin fixing the actual problem in a more substantive way.

Empathic Storytelling, broadly speaking, shares a personal account that relates to a sensitive issue your audience is experiencing. But importantly, good empathic storytelling doesn’t say, “I know exactly what you’re going through and here’s what you should do.” We all experience the world differently, and not a single person, liberal or conservative, likes to be lectured. Instead, it offers a model of how we handled something similar in order to show we’re working with and not against them.

If you’re like me, this at first seems deeply unsatisfying. And honestly, talking about a time we were racist instead of shouting down the racism that’s happening in front of us may not seem like enough, or even seem counterproductive — and again, in cases where vulnerable people are at risk, quickly calling out and shutting down is necessary. But to help reduce the fever and get at the root of the problem, thereby shifting our friends and family member’s perspectives, we need to call them in. And to give up on this difficult work or to throw up our hands and say it’s useless to try, is — I firmly believe — siding with the racist status quo and rationalizing an easy way out for ourselves.

Empathic Storytelling is a difficult skill that can be a key calling in tool. If done well, it will

Lower our audience’s fragility / fever;

Set the groundwork for future authentic, vulnerable discussions;

Help others separate their intentions from the harmful effects of their actions; and

Provide them with tools for self-reflection and reconciliation.

While every personal story we choose to tell will be different, and the order doesn’t really matter, it’s important that your story touch on the following notes. The first three points help bring down the fever of white fragility. The last two tackle parts of the actual problem so that real change can begin.

Discuss a failure Empathize with difficult emotions Validate good or neutral intentions Highlight harmful effects Model a resolution

Failure

The goal to aim for during your story is to:

Set up that this story is about a time you failed making a similar mistake

Be genuine and vulnerable, ideally sharing something they weren’t already aware of

The effect for the listener is, hopefully, to:

Develop an understanding that this isn’t about lecturing or claiming you’re a better person than them,

Encourage the perception you’re both struggling with similar issues, and therefore on the same side

Create space for them to be vulnerable, too

The basic idea here is that you can’t force someone to listen to you or to be vulnerable. No matter how saintly we may be, admitting that we’re wrong or that we hurt someone is incredibly difficult. And no one has ever done so while being lectured to or shouted down. This is especially true in our current climate, where many people — liberal and conservative — are sensitive to any cues about whether this person is on “my side,” my in-group, or not. So whether calling in or calling out, you’ll get nowhere unless they see you as someone who’s working with and not against them. Making it clear from the first sentence that this story is about your own failure not only sets the stage that this isn’t an omniscient, judgmental lecture, but that you’re both sitting in the same boat with a similar problem to work on together.

Empathy

The goal is to:

Discuss the difficult emotions you experienced when you made your mistake

For instance, how you just wanted to be a good person, were initially confused about what happened, or were upset when others accused you

The effect is to:

Disarm their defensive reactions since you apparently understand where they’re coming from emotionally

Lay the initial groundwork for the idea that they aren’t the “bad guy,” but made a mistake they can learn from and fix

Validation

The goal is to:

Explain how your good or neutral intentions were in some way correct, or at least understandable

For instance, you meant something as a compliment or a joke, thought it was appropriate, or your beliefs made sense at the time given how you were raised or your limited understanding of the situation

The effect is to:

Again, undermine their defensive reactions since you apparently understand where their coming from intellectually

Lay additional groundwork that they’re coming from an understandable place, but we all make mistakes we can learn from and fix

For both Empathy and Validation, the goal is to show you can understand where they’re coming from and preemptively deflate the arguments they’re using to defend their behavior. Just as you can’t force someone to be vulnerable, you can’t force someone to just accept that you’re right and they’re wrong. And with the fever that is white fragility, defensive reactions focus on the neutral or good intentions that they have, which to them, in that moment, don’t warrant being personally “attacked” and labeled. Empathizing with and validating their emotions and intentions right off the bat will help them feel like their arguments are heard and therefore defuse, or at least help mitigate, the fever.

But again, this isn’t the goal! Empathy and Validation aren’t meant to coddle them into once more feeling good about themselves, but to pave the way for actual work.

Effect

The goal is to:

Explain the negative effect your behavior had on others

For instance, how others interpreted what you did or said and why they were hurt by it

The effect is:

Draw a firm distinction between internal intentions and external outcomes, which allows them to separate their core identity (good) from a specific behavior (harmful)

Begin perspective taking into how marginalized people perceive them and understand the harm that they caused

Ever since the psychologist Carl Rogers developed the concept of unconditional positive regard in the 1950s, therapists have helped clients change by paradoxically radically accepting them. We all desperately want to see ourselves and to be seen by others as good. And in the midst of a fever, where it feels like we’re being attacked, we’ll inevitably fight back or run away to defend ourselves. Therefore, in order to criticize a behavior or a habit so that change can begin, we need to separate it out from the core of who that person is. So while we establish that we’ll be there for them and understand the core of them as good, we must make it equally clear that we won’t support their harmful behaviors. Through our own Empathic Storytelling, we can acknowledge that we, too, want and are trying to be good, but are also flawed and inevitably hurt others.

Resolution

The goal is to:

Provide a concrete description of how you resolved the conflict, or would have liked to have resolved it

Explain the effect this had for the people who you hurt

The effect is to:

Role model what they might do themselves

Instill hope that these conflicts can be addressed and, to varying degrees, healed

A quick addition to my discussion of unconditional positive regard: our goals and our effort, in other words the intentions we validated earlier, are a part of our core. To continue to be unconditionally positively regarded, we must honestly do the tough work of combatting oppressive behavior in the future. In this last part of your Empathic Story, it’s important to show them that they can change. Of course, the details of what to do may vary drastically depending on the specific context and racist comment or microaggression, but many of the lessons remain pretty good guidelines. For instance, discuss how you listened to the person you hurt and deferred to their judgment on the issue, or how you apologized without insisting they justify why they were right and you were wrong. Maybe you researched the issue on your own because you recognized it was too sensitive to discuss in person. Regardless of what you did, phrase all of this in terms of yourself. It bears repeating that no one likes being lectured. But everyone likes a good story and a chance to glean what they can about how to solve the difficult problems we share.

A Hypothetical Empathic Story

[Failure] I made a similar mistake myself one time when I asked to touch a Black coworker’s hair. [Empathize] I was just curious and really admired it, and actually pretty upset when she said I was being kind of racist. [Validate] In my defense, I meant it as a compliment and didn’t think she’d be offended at all. [Effect] But I later read about it more and learned that it makes a lot of Black women feel like they’re seen as some exotic foreign object, and also, because it actually happens a lot, it gets really annoying. [Resolution] So I went back to my coworker and said that, while we didn’t have to discuss it, I wanted to apologize, which she appreciated.