White Supremacy, Feminism and Off Our Backs

It has been an eye-opening experience to watch the events unfold when one Black feminist blogger and writer speaks up about racism in the predominantly white radical feminist community. Jennifer writes passionately, eloquently and with great insight on her blog Celie’s Revenge about issues that affect ALL women. Her blog is inspiring and incredibly brave. She is one woman who truly represents the ideals of sisterhood and liberation.

And yet, when she dares to open her mouth to stand opposed to the racism inherent within the treatment she received at the hands of white feminists… all hell breaks loose. What has shocked me about this whole event is the fact that it has exposed that racism is not present within a small pocket of feminists in the Off Our Backs collective… It has spread like wildfire, with more and more white feminists lining up to tell Jennifer that she is a crazy, angry, racist against white people and, worst of all, a bitch!!! All this just because she insisted that she should be treated as human as a white woman.

This is totally unacceptable. No woman who thinks that this is an appropriate way to treat another woman should think that she has the right to call herself a feminist. What has struck me most about this is the fact that the white ‘feminists’ have responded to Jennifer’s truth-telling is exactly the same as the way that men react to women who tell them the truth. With defensiveness, anger, justification, intimidation, name-calling etc, etc. Really, really shocking.

All illusions that women are better at working through issues like racism better than men have been very definitely shattered for me as I watch white ‘feminists’ trying to tear strips off Jennifer. Trying to paint her as mad and delusional. A few clues women. Black women have the right to be angry about racism. Black women have the right to be angry at white women who demonstrate racism, either politically or personally. Black women need to be supported in their truth-telling. Even when that truth hurts us. Even when that truth is directed at us. We have no credibility as feminists if we don’t.

Please take the time to read Jennifer’s story and support the incredibly important work that she is doing for ALL women. There is no sisterhood, no feminism, no herstory without Black women, there is no point in a struggle which excludes the voices and the truths of women of colour. The white women from the Off Our Backs collective have some serious explaining to do.

Me wasting some time

So I was called crazy and racist and anti-feminist over on the Feminist SF Blog and for some reason I couldn’t help taking the bait.

White Women and Self-Obsession

I am really saddened by the recent events that have happened on the feminist blogosphere, between radical feminists (so-called), whom I mistakenly trusted to do better by their sisters. I am writing this post to address a particular issue that I am having with the white feminist bloggers that have proposed self-flagellation as their method of combating racism. I want to let everyone know that I no longer feel safe in the community of white women who have decided to jump on board the self-flagellation boat. I don’t feel safe when multiracial/biracial women are not allowed to have perspectives on race. I don’t feel safe when the mothers of biracial/multiracial children are not allowed to have perspectives on race. Right now, in the climate of the white feminist blogosphere, I do not feel safe.

And I don’t know what to do about it. I want to tell my white sisters where they can stick their self-flagellation antics. I want to let them know that I no longer feel safe to express myself on their blogs. I want to ask them, while they are doing their clueless white guilt dances, how they could dare do them on the backs of multiracial/biracial women. How they could dare do them on the backs of mothers of multiracial/biracial children. Because it shocks me silly to see these women who should bloody well know better all race to stomp other women into the mud to get points for working on their white privilege.

Not okay.

We are women. We have suffered. We have had our trust betrayed and our loyalties questioned. We suffer from guilt of things we have done, the guilt of things we haven’t done and are blamed for Every. Single. Bad. Thing on the planet. ‘Working’ on white-privilege by promoting guilt, self-flagellation, self-obsession, misdirection (blaming other white women) etc is doing shit all for the rights of people of colour.

I wrote a poem a while ago called Raped Down to Almost White and this quote seems appropriate: my grandmother has the darkest skin but this does not drive a wedge between us./I will say this bond is more than blood and more than skin and you diminish me by trying to deny it.

I don’t know how else to conclude except to say that when you deny Heart’s reality: her sacred bond with her children, you diminish her. You diminish me by making grand statements about people with white skin privilege, assuming that all of us are similarly situated to yourselves. My sacred bond with my grandmother is more than blood and more than skin and I feel as though you are trying to diminish me. Would you deny this as well?

I don’t know. I’m too afraid to ask.

I’m not all that interested in a sisterhood that carries on like this. I’m not interested in a sisterhood which involves itself in denying the lived realities of other women. If you come here onto my blog, please leave your guilt, self-obsession and woman-blaming at the door and let us get on with the revolution.