Page 5 | Can white women be allies to BME women?

missyoumuch · 2020-07-02T02:18:26+00:00

It feels like while women want black women to prioritize their sex over their race as an identity and seem incapable of accepting that BME women have multiple identities. And they often do not behave as allies insisting that their experiences of sexism mean that they can’t be racist (untrue) or that because women are 50% of the population then women’s issues should supersede ethnic minority issues. [[https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a22717725/what-is-toxic-white-feminism/]] [[https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/19/women-deliver-launches-investigation-into-internal-racism-allegations?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other]] [[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/oped-its-time-for-white-female-executives-to-help-black-women-at-work.html]]

Bluebooby · 06/07/2020 17:52

I saw the 2+2 = 4 tweet too. Is all this stuff postmodernism? CRT and QT I mean, not sure if there are other types? I've seen similar language sneaking into conversations around disability and autism but as far as I know, they don't have a specific theory.

Whoever invented it is probably the one person I'd cancel if I could.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/07/2020 17:20

Thinking more on that it gets scarier, but isn't really along the lines of the OP.

I don't want to derail, but thanks for the irritation, eye opener and thought of the day

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/07/2020 17:07

Oh!!!!!!!

That wiped out a lot of history, didn't it?

TheRealMcKenna · 06/07/2020 16:53

Don’t know if you can open images....

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/07/2020 16:52

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound quite that dismissive. I'm still trying to get my head around 'knowing'...

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/07/2020 16:51

Oh! Supremacist blather!

That wasn't quite what I meant.

And history doesn't really support maths being a white construct either!!!

TheRealMcKenna · 06/07/2020 16:46

CuriousaboutSamphire

To put it simply, the foundations and structures which underpin western society are based on and uphold white supremacy. These include science, mathematics and other enlightenment values. We can only destroy white supremacy by rebuilding society based on new ways of ‘knowing’. Hence, the idea of no biological sex. Biology is a white supremacist way of knowing.

I know this sounds ridiculous. However, here is a reply to a tweet which James Lindsay posted stating that the idea of 2+2=4 is a white supremacist idea.

“Nope the idea of 2 + 2 equaling 4 is cultural and because of western imperialism/colonization, we think of it as the only way of knowing.”

People actually believe this shit. People teach it at university. Parents take out mortgages so their children can learn this crap. Society if fucked if we don’t counter this shit.

Signalbox · 06/07/2020 16:35

Here is a very good starting point:

Just listening to James Lindsay.

I didn't know "brown fragility" is a thing. Identity politics must eat itself eventually.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/07/2020 16:21

Sorry, I'm on the app. It doesn't like many links.

TheRealMcKenna · 06/07/2020 16:12

Something has gone wrong. Women set against women? Who does that help? Who is engineering the othering? Why?

Here is a very good starting point:

newdiscourses.com/

CuriousaboutSamphire · 06/07/2020 15:57

I'd have to translate that as

Shut up
Go away
Go now

Which would then leave me, and all white women, doing nothing.

The same nothing we are being berated for.

Could I have a note please?

Curious is doing nothing for black women, she is doing so under explicit instruction.

Something has gone wrong. Women set against women? Who does that help? Who is engineering the othering? Why?

Signalbox · 06/07/2020 15:50

This BBC clip says it all...
If white women want to be allies to black women:

Don’t be so loud.
Get out of the way.
Leave.

I’m not entirely sure why these white women don’t take their own advice.

mobile.twitter.com/BBCSounds/status/1279837698769825792

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 06/07/2020 15:22

@DJLippy

I no longer think its possible for anybody to be an ally to another oppressed group.

I've been reflecting a lot about race. People often talk about being a good ally and raising the voices voices of people of colour but I feel what they actually mean push my political agenda. Because if I responded with a Candace Owens video to someone arguing about defunding the police I'd be accused of cherry picking someone who confirms my own bias. We can all play that game. Why is it OK for a white liberal to 'raise black voices' who back up their argument but not OK for a white conservative?

It's a rhetorical device. To argue against that paticular view point becomes silencing, centering white voices and denying racism. At its worst its literally white supremacy.

I've reflected about my own approach to feminism because of this. Am I comfortable when Glinner attacks women who support trans rights on Twitter? Why do I allow him to speak over women because I have bestowed him the title of "ally." Radfems are very fond of saying men can only be allies and not feminists yet they give certain male allies platforms over liberal feminists. If they followed their logic fairly then Glinner wouldn't be able to mansplain feminism to any woman.

I've watched the vidoes online of white liberals bereating black cops and educating them about white supremacy. Its so cringe. And they get defended by many black woke folk on Twitter. Lets be honest - allyship is about politics not defending (insert oppressed group.)

Wherever men flagilate themselves about how awful they are (as a class) I just loose respect for them. Its not a get out of male free card. And how many so called feminists and allies end up doing awful misogynistic things? Thats how I feel when I see white feminists proclaiming about their anti-racist credentials.

I like to argue and debate but identity politics doesn't allow me to do this. If a person of a certain oppressed group challenges me I have to give way, even if what they are saying is factually incorrect, I just look like a dick arguing about something which I do not experience. I understand why. If someone is explaining an actual event in their life I have to respect that and I do like to learn and be empathetic.

But if someone is arguing about tactics or politics I should get to speak. Becuse the actions of identarians directly impact me. Its the reason why we are doomed to decades of Tory rule. Which materially effects my life. And its dumb to think that I have no black or brown mates and I might want them to be safe. That people haven't got the capacity to have human empathy for different groups.

Is it posssible to be a good ally in identarian terms? It just seems like such a contradictory and illogical concept. Because it assumes that members of an oppressed group all think the same. Many black people are socially conservative. Why are these voices not more mainstream with identarians? I am not supposed to take up space but then I am also asked to do the emotional labour of educating other white people. By sharing that book written by that white woman with the blackfishing name Robin DAngelo. Its a paticular narrative that I must push. And never question for fear of rejection from the "in group."

I've seen a lot of this online. I've been watching lots of videos, from both sides of the argument but what I've noticed is that when a black person, with conservative views, speaks out they are very quickly subject to some vile insults and name calling - by white people!!! I cannot get my head round this at all.and it feels supremely uncomfortable.

Much earlier in this debate a poster on another thread told me that I needed to educate myself about BLM and that it was up to me, as a white person, to.identify ways in which I should be making the world better for black people. Except, is that right for me to decide what will make things better for a group that I'm.not part of? I don't know what the right thing is at all. I'm a woman. I also have a disability so they are that is what I have experience of. I really would not want a man, nor an able bodied person, to decide that they knew what was best for me and to set about campaigning for that, on my behalf. To me, that just feels all kinds of wrong so how can it be right for white people to do the same to black people? But then maybe I'm.wrong in thinking that.

Goosefoot · 06/07/2020 14:59

@Justhadathought

Yes there are now open air slave markets in Libya. This constant meddling by western powers in the region has directly led to this. I don’t care if it’s a different ethnicity doing it to another. Our governments have caused this, we are complicit

Is this suggestion that everything, including the wrong-doings of others, is ultimately the fault of the West, not a bit similar to suggesting that Israel has its hand in everything, including in the killing of George Floyd?

If the whole basis of your stance is an implicit anti Westernism then you're not going to get very far. It is also patronising in that it denies agency or responsibility of other states and their individual actors, for their own actions or policies.

I agree with you, it is true though that when you destabilise a region, you typically end up with a sort of strong gang leader in charge, or warring gang leader, situation.

But yeah, it kind of rankles, the implication that by meddling the west caused this, and nothing to do with the exploitative and immoral local gang leaders.

Goosefoot · 06/07/2020 14:54

@HepzibahGreen

However, mentoring like this seems to be exactly the kind of thing the OP is saying white women aren't doing enough. I guess it is. I just feel that , sometimes, this and all the D & I stuff in the workplace often serves to single out people because of a characteristic. I suppose I just think, as I said earlier, that actually getting to know people, as individuals, and listening, yes, but not in a head tilt "I'm listening" way, just having normal conversations, is what creates real change.

Yeah, I think you are right, but that's not what is going on now.

I had a personal experience that was a surprise to me at the time - I had started to question a lot of the narrative that I was hearing around CRT and such, but it seemed to be really the only game in town, I didn't see other viewpoints in the media (mostly progressive left) or anywhere really. So I didn't really have anything to replace it with.

Then I widened my reading a little, and started to see some other ways of thinking, forms of analysis, some of them seemed much more interested in looking closely at empirical situations. And they seemed a lot more convincing to me, rooted in material reality, in history, than the identity politics stuff.

The surprise though was what a relief I found this to be, particularly in terms of actual interactions and relationships with non-white people. I hadn't had any idea that I found them to have tension, but I sure noticed it once it was gone. There was something about that identity politics lens that was a real barrier to being just open and taking people as people - even people I knew and liked, it seemed to inset all this baggage.

So I guess what I am saying is I worry that the pushing of identity politics is really making these kinds of conversations difficult or impossible. And that in a certain way, the old "colour-blind" approach was more likely to facilitate that kind of open discussion of experiences.

DJLippy · 06/07/2020 14:52