White Tears, Brown Scars How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad Pages: 304 ***
- The inherent privilege of whiteness in our culture allows us (white women) to moderate what we experience of oppression as women
White women can oscillate between their gender and their race, between being the oppressed and the oppressor. Women of color are never permitted to exist outside of these constraints: we are both women and people of color and we are always seen and treated as such.
- Women of color have no such recourse, and have to deal not only with the inherent sexism of culture but also with the inherent racism AND ALSO with the way that “women” have been defined (by white men)
What happens when racism and sexism collide? My answer begins with the realization that the way people regard and treat us comes down to how well we match the stereotypical features associated with our perceived gender. Because women of color are always perceived as lesser women, then whatever the intersection—be it gender identity, sexuality, disability, or something else—every experience of marginalization is made more acute when race is thrown into the mix. And it impacts our lives in ways many of us may have never considered.
- White fragility is gaslighting in action, as a learned behavior, a mechanism of self-protection and deflection. It is devastatingly effective.
Rather than denoting weakness, it signals power: “Though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement. White fragility is not weakness … it is a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage.” — DiAngelo
- Don’t let people tone police you out of saying what needs to be said. OF COURSE IT WILL MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE. That’s kind of the point.
…these kinds of things have to be said precisely because they make people uncomfortable, in the best way—the way that forces them to examine their own implicit biases and question their own relative power and privilege.
- Patriarchal colonialism made a weapon of white womanhood used to subdue and control white women, enslave and abuse women of color, and maintain power over all women. White women picked up the weapon and instead of using it to free themselves and their sisters, have used it to assert whatever small dominance they could hold onto and join in the abuse of other women.
…morality was embodied in the figure of the virtuous, chaste Christian white woman. This created a false binary between white women and all other women. …absolving white men of any shame or wrongdoing by positioning black women as less evolved, animalistic, and ruled by their own carnal desires, it differentiated black women from white women, thereby justifying the sexualization of the former and the sexual repression of the latter.
Colonialism rigged the game against all colonized women by reducing them to caricatures that were at once desirable and disgusting, conveniently allowing white men to both sexually abuse them and render them beneath sexual abuse.
- What was started with colonialism has continued, creating and adjusting caricatures as needed:
These binaries, as we shall see, have evolved over the years to fit the changing needs of white supremacy, ensuring it is women of color and not the descendants of the corset-wearing white women who remain trapped inside that box.
- The responsibility is on white women to refuse to participate in white supremacy.
All the structural problems white women face—even climate change—are caused by their own society.
When you perpetuate an archetype for your own ends, don’t be too surprised when it is used against you.
There is no reasonable excuse that remains for white women to continue to betray women of color. White women have a choice. It is a choice they have always had to some degree, but never before have they been in such a strong position to make the right one. Will white women choose to keep upholding white supremacy under the guise of “equality” or will they stand with women of color as we edge ever closer to liberation?
