mobileCategory: feminism
09/05/07 10:47 - ID#40943
Ok So
I was in my Black Women and US History class yesterday and she had opened the course with a book called Black Feminist Thught. Basically from a very broad perspective it addresses the various interlocking oppression that women of color are faced with including but not limited to race, class, and gender. Now, keep in mind that within this class there are not only a wide variety of disciplines represented incluing History, Enlgish, Political Science, and me, Women's Studies, but there is also everyone from 2nd semester undergrad to almost done with their PhD. This makes things interesting to say the least.
Getting to the point, I was sitting next to a pretty, young, blonde haired blue eyed white girl during our discussion of this book. An it became quite obvious that she didn't get it. I can't say exactly what she said, but she basically said that she gets discriminated against and she is really white so why does race matter? I wanted so badly to sit down with her and have an extended discussion about white priveledge and whatnot but I just didn't have the time. I think, now, looking back I could have given some really good examples that perhaps would have made more sense than what I did say. Either way, when we were walking out of class I said to her, ya know its great to ask questions, and then let her say her little speal about how a lot of this stuff is over-arching and why its a question of race, and I said well, white women have talked for a long time with out talking about race and now it is black women's turn. This obviously doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the ice berg...how could I tell her that she was being so completely ignorant and that it was exactly that kind of thinking that marginalzes women of color from feminism and many other realms of academia, let alone social and instituional systems.
The point here is not to rant about some dumb white girl. The point is to say that I used to be her. When I first came to New Paltz and had a real, up close look at my own white privledge, my own racism, it was scary as hell and I wasn't exactly open minded about it. I wanted to be but there is something that tells us that its ok.
Alright, I am rambling.../anyway the thing is...the ONLY way to move beyond this kind of thinking is to talk about it, so I walked down the hall with this girl, trying to make some type of small coalition. Can I fully explain to her what it is like to be black and female? Hell no, and I have no intention of taking that voice from those women, but I can talk about what it means to be a white feminist in a racist world. Why we have to talk about color, about class, sexuality, ability, citizenship, the list goes on..SO if she will talk to me, I sure as hell am gonna talk back.
Getting to the point, I was sitting next to a pretty, young, blonde haired blue eyed white girl during our discussion of this book. An it became quite obvious that she didn't get it. I can't say exactly what she said, but she basically said that she gets discriminated against and she is really white so why does race matter? I wanted so badly to sit down with her and have an extended discussion about white priveledge and whatnot but I just didn't have the time. I think, now, looking back I could have given some really good examples that perhaps would have made more sense than what I did say. Either way, when we were walking out of class I said to her, ya know its great to ask questions, and then let her say her little speal about how a lot of this stuff is over-arching and why its a question of race, and I said well, white women have talked for a long time with out talking about race and now it is black women's turn. This obviously doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the ice berg...how could I tell her that she was being so completely ignorant and that it was exactly that kind of thinking that marginalzes women of color from feminism and many other realms of academia, let alone social and instituional systems.
The point here is not to rant about some dumb white girl. The point is to say that I used to be her. When I first came to New Paltz and had a real, up close look at my own white privledge, my own racism, it was scary as hell and I wasn't exactly open minded about it. I wanted to be but there is something that tells us that its ok.
Alright, I am rambling.../anyway the thing is...the ONLY way to move beyond this kind of thinking is to talk about it, so I walked down the hall with this girl, trying to make some type of small coalition. Can I fully explain to her what it is like to be black and female? Hell no, and I have no intention of taking that voice from those women, but I can talk about what it means to be a white feminist in a racist world. Why we have to talk about color, about class, sexuality, ability, citizenship, the list goes on..SO if she will talk to me, I sure as hell am gonna talk back.
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the thing that happened witht the vote was a very complex process. the big problem, in my opinion, was hypocrisy of (white) women saying they wanted the vote for "women" and as soon as black women wanted to be part of that category some white women were like, oh no, we didn't me you! There of course was a split and some women retained their "let the white women get the vote and then we will work on the blacks" and some of these white women even joined forces with blatantly racist black men in order to gain power, while other women stated that ALL women must have the vote.
And of course, to make things more complicated, their were issues about black men, immigrants, poor men, etc. that were not allowed to participate in suffrage.
Things are never black and white, pun intended.
So fun I wanted to do it in person some time.
I understand what happened with the Blond and she isn't dumb at all. There is this thing that happens with some minorities or even clutureal group. They think that they are the only minority and look down on others. I have seen this so many times and it all ways amazes me. I think the best example I can give I was on a bus and this hispanic (or at least he looked that way) and this white guy made the typical cat jokes. See this guy thought it was funny to make fun of the vietamanese to bad the sterotype is about Chinese people what a fool. But what he didn't get is that the white guy would be saying stuff about him with his other buddies. I've seen other examples of things like this to.
What you said is right that when white women wanted rights they only fought for there own (white women). But to be honest that is a good thing. Yes there where men who wanted women to have the same rights and some who didn't. But if you tried to bring black women in then the fight would be almost impossible to win. Anyone who didn't think blacks where equal would now become an enemy instead of an a friend. And to be honest I bet a lot of those white women didn't care about blacks.
I had something I wanted to say about privlige but kinda forgot my point. The thing I don't like is that when people are priviliged it implies that people think that they didn't work hard to get to where they are. Yes often times they do step on people and do bad things but that doesn't mean that they didn't work hard.
I admit I'm not expert and just giving my thoughts from what I have seen personaly.
Please don't take my comment as being directed toward you for any purpose other than responding to your comment. My intent was not to imply that you said that white gals aren't priveleged. I was simply compelled to expand on what I think was important to the overall. And trust me, history is far from my strong point, but out of respect for my discipline I have taken the time to get familiar with the history of women and the feminist movement.
But, next time we are within talking distance we should discuss. You can school my ass as my knowledge of Feminism is mostly couched within historical interpretations.
I think it is a common reaction for women of color to be, uhh, put off by white women because white women feminists, for the most part and to put it lightly, ignored the issues that faced women of color. These white women talked about the proverbial "woman" as if their experience was the only one that existed. This resulted in many women of color rejecting feminism as a whole. Also, white women benefited not only from the skin color, but also their generally middle class station, as well as their ability to depend on and possibily share white men's power. Many white women were not willing to give up this access to power that they had or refused to acknowledge that they indeed had this form of power at all.
This is especially for you (e:james)
What blows my mind is people's lack of knowledge of the PAST. Feminism has gone through a huge amount of change is the last hundred years and so and people remain so ignorant to what it has become. Maybe, just maybe, if women's history was included in the canon of historical knowledge in this country, your everyday dick and jane would know a little more about these struggles and victories.
Do I digress? Probably.
Recognizing your privilege is one thing. Acknowledging that you have it good is very important. I think its sad that most people who have it absolutely fantastic probably wouldn't do well if it were all taken away.
White guilt plays an absolutely enormous role in our country - in particular with respect to politics and how white people address social issues. I think it has everything to do with white privilege because its the primary emotional reaction. There are people in our country who feel that their own personal well-being should be mitigated because of something they couldn't help, which is the fact that they were born a certain color. Some people mitigate their own well-being and do so of their own volition as a reaction to the race they were born as - this mindset is one that I'll never reconcile with.
Agreed James, 'African American' isn't an appropriate term.
In a related and in some ways opposite situation, I was in a Latino/a Literature and History class once. I was one of three white folk in the class, the 30 other students being Latino/a or Black (I don't like African American as a term, separate rant). Well, a Latina woman in the class said that White women do not experience sexism. Siting the privileged life house wives of rich men experience on TV.
While white privlege lessened her discrimination and so blinded her to the relation between sexism and racism so too did this women's experience blinded her to the same.
Moving on, I think guilt brings up a very interesting point. I think it is easy for (priveleged) people to say that they feel guilty, in some bizarre attempt to make their priveleges seemingly disappear, without actually losing them. I think what a lot of people have said in response to that is that they don't want sympathy, they want empathy. Sympathy, like Drew said, comes out of wanting to help or feeling bad for someone else because you are priveleged. But sympathy is limited because it allows, for example, the oppresor to maintain their position of power while perpetuating the oppressed's position by relegating them to someone who is in need of help. This gets us nowhere, however when you have empathy for someone you can acknowledge your priveledge and maintain your identity while simultaneously making an effort to deny that priveledge in order to understand and ultimatly empathize with the oppressed, which allows for transformation of these seemingly innate roles.
My apologies for ranting and writing in run on sentances. Perhaps you have guessed, I don't talk much until you get me going about feminist stuff. Obviously this conversation could go on forever, but for the sake of everyone's jobs and personal lives, I will cut it short.
Usually, discussions like this inevitably descend into strict ad hominem, because most people aren't prepared to separate emotions from logic, and I hope you can have a good discussion with her without anyone going off the deep end insulting the other.
Unfortunately, we're not yet at the point where race doesn't matter. We're making strides, and I don't think people should ever feel guilty about being white, black, or whatever, but people should be able to, at least in the academic sense, understand why race IS still relevant.
Sociology classes/discussions and befriending people in life who have lived substantially different lives than mine have probably had the most effect on me thinking about my privilegs and how to respond to it.
I think listening to her and gently asking her thoughtful questions in a very non-confrontational manner will get her mind slowly moving. Also, I think showing her that you accept her without affirming her beliefs is really important-even befriending her to some extent. I think slow-downs in progress on social issues happens when the two sides fail to see each other as human because they're on different sides of the fence on x,y,z issue.
The first temptation to reject is to use the privilege for our own personal gain. I think that's pretty easy to see, even if a whole lot of people don't do this.
More tricky is the temptation to use our privilege to do good. I can understand why some might do this, but I think it re-enforces the old ways. It's kinda like using violence, or the threat of it, to bring peace. It might seem necessary sometimes, but it doesn't really work in the long-run.
This is one of the reasons that I like Jesus (sorry to preach again, but I read your comment while writing next Sunday's sermon). As God, he had all privilege, and had it legitimately at that, but he put it all aside, to the point of dieing a criminal's death. And his movement goes on, despite the complete rejection of privilege.
Of course, Christians don't always do a great job of following our leader. Ok, we suck at it. But that's why I am doing what I am doing, because I believe that when we do, things will be totally different, and there won't be as many clueless white girls in your class.
Of course, am I using the privilege of my education/ordination to get this message across to the people in my congregation? Am I a hypocrite? Sometimes, I probably do slip into that, but my hope is that I can convey the message by living it more and preaching it less, even as I accept the job to preach it.
Just a window into the crazy and conflicted world I have, inspired by a good post. Now I need to get back to work.