Can white women be allies to BME women?

It's possible to agree with "black lives matter" as a principle while disagreeing with some of the aims of BLM the movement.

Also, the conversation in Britain gets distorted by a focus on the USA. We end up talking about issues very pertinent in the USA but less so here (for example, police shootings). This can lure us into a sense of smugness ("well at least we're not visibly murdering black people on a regular basis") while ignoring the issues in front of us. Why are health outcomes so much worse for pregnant black women, for example?

How many of the white women who get selected for corporate boards use their positions to create opportunities for BAME women? So many times they choose white female protégés and pat themselves on the back doe breaking the glass ceiling.

I have seen this happen over and over in my workplace, not just with white women but with all senior people bringing up people who remind them of themselves, whether that's the right school, being female, being Asian etc.

When I started my career in one branch of the organisation the structure meant that at level 5 (the lowest), there was about 80% women and around half the workforce were South Asian. By the time you got to level 3 it was half men, with a couple of Asian men but no Asian women. The top man was a very posh white man who was literally nothing like the level 5 workers.

He was replaced by a woman who implemented a strict career ladder system that meant anyone hitting targets was automatically included in promotion considerations without needing to put themselves forward. She made the first recruitment stage anonymous and also put in safeguards on working hours so women knew they'd be able to keep their flexibility if they got promoted. These were all things that she put in place as feminist principles. She also replaced formal qualification requirements with internal standards because she came from a working class background and valued working up. It resulted in a lot of S.A. women who had joined straight after school getting promoted.

The reason I'm telling this story is that this woman did what our organisation claims to want to do - promoted diversity (and also increased moral) - however not a single other department has followed suit. Managers do not want to give up the ability to pick their own hires, they claim that it's not possible to have the needed flexibility in their departments, they think it penalises the ambitious and they claim qualifications are more important in their area. They promote the one extremely elite BAME man (who coincidentally went to private school) and think that's job done. They address one facet (race, sex, class) and then are surprised they only get variations on the posh white man (posh black men, posh white women, working class white men).

The only thing I can do to be an ally to black women is to read a book and nod. How can anyone tell if I've read a book? They can't.

Come on get with the programme - nobody can tell if you read a book, but the important thing is to post a picture on instagram (hygge accessories in winter, beach body photo in summer) and talk about 'learning', as though it was impossible for any white person to notice racism until 25th May 2020. Then you can be an 'ally'.

(Sorry for rant - I have a real problem with 'ally').

FWIW I understand that there are real shamans, real medicine men and women and real healers.

How do you tell them apart from the fakes?

The real oneslive in their communities, know their communities sacred songs (the songs and ceremonies take decades to learn) and languages, serve their communities and heal their communiteis.

They very often live in poverty, some take vows of poverty, they are less concerned about making money and more concerned about taking care of their people.

All the ones with significant social media and online presence running shamanism training courses, charinging $$$$ and providing services to rich white people are fake.

Equality is only achieved when people fight to protect the rights of people who aren't their allies.

That's a great way to phrase it.

Are you really using the Daily Mail, a tabloid known to lie and s--t-stir?

The Mail is a news source I have ambivalent feelings about, just like Marxism, capitalism, BLM and many other things.

On the minus side they publish a lot of stuff I don't agree with and that's putting it mildly, also a lot of sexist stuff about this or that young woman "flouting her curves" and having "wardrobe malfunctions".

On the other hand sometimes they do really good stuff. For example they were brilliant on the Stephen Lawrence murder and helping to bring the murderers to account. They have also been excellent on campaigning against gambling, a subject I have strong feelings about, about the Orwellian insanity of the extremes of the TRA movement and of cults.

Also, have you actually looked into Shaman Durek or just taking the DM at its word?

Of course I have looked into "Shaman" (lol) Durek

He and the various other Rasputlin like / lite figures are central to my interests.

Let's have an exploration of "Shaman" Durek shall we?

He would make a very good example of someone we can look at to make sense of the astroturfing that is happening right now.

Any interested readers can check out his website here:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200619203052/shamandurek.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200619203052/shamandurek.com/

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200605043220/shamandurek.com/about/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200605043220/shamandurek.com/about/

His facebook page is here (ther are others)

www.facebook.com/ShamanDurek

but possibly the best place to start could be this video from This Morning in which Durek gets Eamonn Holmes to void his "negative energy"

This voiding and purging of "negative energy" via self proclaimed "shamans" / psychics, body psychotherapists, and various other quacks, mountebanks and new age charlatans is central to my interests.

We can see this attempt to purge and void badness happening in various relvolutionary movements. This is something that is worthy of further thought and reflection.

Now, from where I stand, if someone claims that they can cure people of illness and "blockages" through communications with spirits and supernatural entities it is up to them to prove that they can do this, not up to me to prove that they cannot. This is just rational.

Believing that someone can purge or cleanse people of "bad energy" is a long term scam used by con men and fake psychics since time immemorial.

It is a central part of the human condition to want to occupy a safe / good space and to wish to void "badness" from the self and the good space. This unconscious preoccuptaion is highly relevant to racism and to genocide and other atrocities.

I have to go right now but I would be very happy to post more about this.

I live in Scotland and my job doesn't involve hiring or promoting anyone, in fact I have one colleague.

The only thing I can do to be an ally to black women is to read a book and nod. How can anyone tell if I've read a book? They can't.

White feminism is a sexist, toxic concept used to blame women as usual. We're meant to sort everyone else out before we address our own oppression. No other social justice movement is expected to do this.

Equality is only achieved when people fight to protect the rights of people who aren't their allies.

Well Said!

The term 'Ally' allows you to disregard the experiences of Diane Abbott, or Priti Patel, depending on your political views.

Equality is only achieved when people fight to protect the rights of people who aren't their allies.

A really thought-provoking thread thanks OP.
I have only recently read Renni Eddo-Lodge's book WINLTTWPAR and found her points about white feminism really challenging. And the phrase 'white feminism' in general.
But it really helped me understand different perspectives, so that when I read a thread like this, whilst most of the time my brain is whirring trying to process all the different perspectives and what I truly feel, the thing that leaps out at me is the defensiveness and the hurt that people might consider white feminists racist; whilst we at the same time heartily agree that our society is structurally racist, we don't think that can apply to US.
#notallwhitewomen indeed...

I think that you can recognise that racism exists and be a feminist without having to pick a side.
It just seems an excuse to divide and conquer.

OP I cannot see what's wrong with the criticism of BLM as a movement, in so far as it centres trans (so not women) and anti capitalism. What about those of us who are feminists and don't want to pull down capitalism but also think it's abhorrent that blacks people are being killed?

Black trans people are still black so why wouldn’t they fight fo them as well?

Allison Bailey is a black woman who has received huge support from both white and BAME feminists this week.

Well feminism was only brought to me again, when I came to a space with predominantly female voices in. without the white static noise of mens views that is everywhere else. Being able to listen and discuss women's experiences from only women's points of view has been what opened my eyed.

I understand racism I understand that conscious and unconscious racism is abundant here in the UK.

But I don't know what to do other than what I already do in my own small way.

Just as you have ask where do you go if women here are saying don't support BLM.uk. I don't know the answer.

I'm going to go and read and lurk on lipstick alley, because like MN it is a large forum of prodomantly women, (mainly black women) talking about many topics including feminism. less whitenoise from men and white women.

I googled it, and its seems there are lots campaigns against the forum. calling for its removal and it is a hate fill transphopic homophobic cesspit. which has been infiltrated by white supremacists.

quite shocking really.....

But then MN is too touted as man hating, transphopic, nasty, bullying, platform too, with many people wanting it closed down.

So I'm going to go anyway just see for myself, and see if I can learn and understand more, like I did with feminism here.

I won't be registering though just reading.

@roarfeckingroar

Thanks for proving OP right.

So we can't worry first and foremost about being murdered by men, discriminated against at work, losing our safe spaces to men, without making our campaigns intersectional? Or we're toxic. Yeah, that can do one.

Minority women endure the same things yet are easily and quickly dismissed and shut down. Feminism is supposed to include all women anyway. Is it really feminism then?

OP I cannot see what's wrong with the criticism of BLM as a movement, in so far as it centres trans (so not women) and anti capitalism. What about those of us who are feminists and don't want to pull down capitalism but also think it's abhorrent that blacks people are being killed?

OP, thank you for starting this thread. I too find MN to be a difficult space to navigate on issues of race - any time you raise issues where race is relevant, you have posters shouting you down and telling you it's not. It's a form of gaslighting really, because you're told that when you experience something that you're misjudging or seeing something that isn't there. And the #notallwhitewomen response on this thread is really quite amusing, you'd think on this board people would see how problematic this type of response is!

For what it's worth, I really enjoy reading threads on this and other boards, but as a Muslim woman I don't feel white feminism accommodates me. In fact, I feel condescended to and not heard, told I'm brainwashed, my choices are anti-feminist and invalid etc. The thread on niqab really exemplified that.

"Toxic" white feminism?

Right.

So we can't worry first and foremost about being murdered by men, discriminated against at work, losing our safe spaces to men, without making our campaigns intersectional? Or we're toxic. Yeah, that can do one.

@hoodathunkit

Are you really using the Daily Mail, a tabloid known to lie and s**t-stir?

Also, have you actually looked into Shaman Durek or just taking the DM at its word?

Pinpointing for later.

This is actually proving ops point. This is what men say about us man hating feminists. It is quite combative, which made me feel uncomfortable, but actually OP has a valid point and my discomfort is my problem. It's not up to her to manage my reactions to something she is angry about.

Fair point - but I still think it isn't helpful to start with the assumption that people's views are set in stone - and vague statements about men being irredeemably sexist don't help women much either.

An alarming number of white people find it difficult to take racism seriously, however I have never heard anyone say that women's issues should supersede ethnic minority issues (in what context would you say this?), perhaps partly because most people don't think much about either issue.

I have heard frustration that people who understand the problem with 'I don't see race' don't understand the problem with 'sex is a spectrum', but that does not imply that they think one issue is more important than the other.

White woman here. A feeling for black women of having to ‘pick a side’ is unacceptable. I hope we can keep talking.