Thanks to many on Mumsnet, and MNHQ

[ArbitersCarbiters]

For showing your true colours.

I’ve been a member of Mumsnet on and off for almost 10 years. It holds a special place in my heart - it got me through the long nights with my DC, bumps in my career, the breakdown of my marriage and helping me finally confront the grief at becoming an orphan far too young. I gradually stopped posting on here precisely because I began to see how hostile a place it could be (and was) for women of colour, especially those who called out micro-aggressions and thinly-veiled racist/dehumanising behaviour.

I wish MNHQ had let my (now deleted) thread stand as it was the perfect example of what so many black women have to face everyday (albeit hidden behind a sheer facade of disingenuous naivety and inclusivity).

Instead, it was deleted. The irony of that is that when people claim so many posters on here are and can be hostile to black women and our experiences, the evidence of that hostility is lost forever, and so those same posters and others can claim that it never existed in the first place.

Perhaps seeing the vitriol in writing might help people understand the reality (and denial) of our day-to-day experiences.

Or not.

And right now, I’m verging towards not.

As you were 🤷🏾‍♀️

Would these people walk up to, I dunno, a white slim woman with long blonde hair and stroke it? You can bet your arse they wouldn't, no matter how much they wished.

Not saying I'm young (or that slim anymore) but I am white and have blonde hair. Since having it bleached even blonder this summer I've had a few strangers come and ask me who does hair and at the same time pick up strands and kind of inspect it. It's very weird.

I'm shocked reading on here how regularly it is happening to some people and I can't imagine how that makes you feel when it's regular ocurrance but it does happen to white people too. In my case I guess I am just meeting those with no idea of boundaries.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that you can't just touch someone?

The post has been reinstated ... but the comments have been switched off

The thread will disappear slowly becuade you can't comment on it which means it won't refresh for others to see unless they're trawling through pages looking for it.

Hmmm

So the thread will die a death anyway.

I reckon closed off threads should be relocated to a specific topic so that they're easier to find again. One would hope there wouldn't be a vast number of them.

Yes Errol!

@MNHQ is that possible?

errol

Thats a good idea

I can't find the thread at all and I would really like to read it. Can someone post a link please?

original thread

Here you go Orchid

Arbiters I am glad to see your thread back up. FWIW, I never cease to be shocked by how much casual racism there is on here - from the stupidly unthinking through the "poster thinks they're cleverly disguising their racism by dressing it up as a fondness for tradition" posts (pro tip for those posters: you're not fooling anyone) right through to full-on in your face racism.

I was on the other thread and was struck by how very keen people were to deny any link to the race of the recipient of the unwanted touching.

Some people said it wasn't about race because it happened to them.

So I wanted to unpick that a bit. When people said it had happened to them or their children, most of the time it was:

• When they were abroad, often a child touched their hair (not always)
• It happened to their a child, and it was an adult who touched their hair
• They or their child have ginger hair

We are talking here about black women in the UK and the US who say it happens to women of colour a lot. A quick google would confirm that.

It strikes me that whenever someone touches someone else's hair it reveals something about how the person views the person they are touching. That they view them as so 'other' that they feel they have the right to treat them as an object - to treat them differently to how they themselves would like to be treated. Or they feel they have sufficient authority or power over them that normal boundaries don't apply. Isn't that the crux of racism?

Thanks Hen.

Fucking hell, that thread's a shower of shite. I'm embarrassed and ashamed. Jesus.

I'm really sorry OP. I agree with you - there is a fuckton of casual racist on MN and it's revolting.

Fucking hell, that thread's a shower of shite. I'm embarrassed and ashamed. Jesus

That’s how I felt too. I’m ashamed to be white when bullshit like this comes up.

Not attacking your response and although it is a good suggestion why have the comments been closed? If we are allowed to talk about it on this new thread why can the original not be reinstated with commenting on?

Why should it be moved? A closed thread removed which people want to comment on, a thread which has been ended prematurely because mnhq have interfered - what is the motive behind closing its comments?

People will still have to search for it if it's moved elsewhere therefore no longer making it relevant, live and fresh on AIBU. But it is relevant and people want to comment on it.

What was said on that thread that resulted in mnhq trying to subtly make it disappear?and irrelevant? Does is cause reputational damage in some way?

I think the idea is - sometimes there's a thread which for whatever isn't deemed 'in the spirit' of MN -so it's felt it can't be left to run but it might contain some good discussion, or examples of the sort of shit which happens which people want to be able to refer to. Typical examples are AIBUs like the one this thread refers to, or threads started by MRAs on FWR, and/ or started by previously banned posters.

In this particular case, the OP of the original has specifically asked for it not to be deleted - but leaving comments open would probably have made it a heavy task for the mods and a mass of deletions.

Fair point. Thank you for clearing that one up.

I agree with the OP completely, Fizzy but actually what's the point of the thread staying live for comments? It's been posted on AIBU and it will just be more of the same:

1. Posters blundering in not understanding and being both defensive and offensive;
2. Posters purposely posting to be offensive, doing the 'wide-eyed' thing when pulled up on it;
3. Posters saying that it's not their job to educate and the few erudite posters who do have their posts lost in the endless waves of crappy posts

and

1. Posters piling on to say how 'disgusted' they are and what a 'shower of shit' it is.

.
It will end up in a bunfight. It always does. I think it would be better served to reinstate the deleted posts and mark them in red. That might be some sort of education and at least there would be a full thread so that posters can see what isn't acceptable and it would make sense rather than a thread with holes in it. Hen has had posts deleted on that thread and every post she made was good; it's not valuable to have her contributions deleted, but they are.

We should feel angry when people are racist, no doubt about that. Posters though who blunder in not understanding or recognising white privilege might be willing to read about it. I didn't know about it until I read about it and I think it's unreasonable to lambaste every poster on the assumption that they're being a goady fucker; it quickly becomes apparent which ones are.

Maybe there ought to be some more specific guidelines about what is and isn't acceptable to say in terms of both racism and disablism. At least no poster can then say that they didn't know.

I don't know what the answer is but if this thread just becomes a finger-wagging exercise then it will be futile and degenerate into a bunfight all the more quickly. This board is too fond of bunfights.

... and maybe this should be about wider racism, that way perhaps more posters would understand the points; there have been some really incisive points made on both threads.

This shouldn't become a 'them and us', it needs to be inclusive so everybody understands and buys into the unacceptability of racism/disablism.

This shouldn't become a 'them and us', it needs to be inclusive so everybody understands and buys into the unacceptability of racism/disablism

This should be copied and pasted on MN homepage!

@CrackpotsArePots

Your post makes a lot of sense.

I do find it odd sometimes though when people post sweeping generalisations like " this would never happen to a white person".

No I don't know what it's like to face racism every single day. I can't imagine it. I've witnessed it and confronted it before and sometimes been on the receiving end of vile abuse because I have confronted racist comments.

But that is not the same as facing it every day.

I dated an Asian man for a few years and I did witness a lot of racism then, particularly as a white woman with an Asian man. In some ways I found the "subtle" racism more difficult to deal with because if you called them out on it they could always call you overs sensitive. Overt racism was easier to confront because it was obvious.

But to say no one ever does xy or z to you because you are white denies our experiences too.

My parents grew up in the East End of London. When my son was at primary school he had to do a project about them so my parents took him to Bethnal Green to show him where they lived, went to school etc.

Standing in the park where my dad's house used to be they were approached by a group of young men and told to "go back where they came from"!

Now, maybe these men face this type of comment everyday and have decided to turn the tables, maybe they were just scumbags. I don't know but the feelings that they evoked in my parents (particularly as my mum's family came here as Jewish refugees) wasn't white privilege I don't think.

The "no-boundaries-types" only pounce on certain people, though, don't they? People whose wishes they aren't bothered about disregarding - they don't go round stroking people who are interviewing them for a job they really want, or the judge in their custody hearing, or the scary bunch of drunk blokes outside a pub ...

If black people tell you to stop doing something as it offends them, don't witter on about how you don't mind whatever it is - just stop! If a bloke grabbed your arse and you objected and he said he wouldn't mind if you grabbed his that doesn't make it ok, does it?

It's not hard.

As a white person, and talking with white people, alone or in groups, I encounter casual and low level racism all time. People say things they'd not tell black people or other minorities.
It's likely that I come up with some gems without realising it too.
It can be really pervasive. Like sexism, and other isms.

@Lweji
This is it isn't it? And it was the low level stuff that I witnessed that I found most difficult because the perpetrators often would claim that I'd misunderstood etc. Maybe like the hair touching - it's not overt enough to be undeniably racist so it's difficult to confront.

I guess a bit like men saying "love" or "dear" patronisingly to a woman. If you confront them they claim they were only being nice and you are being over sensitive. It's hard to stand up against it.

My mum's Austrian. I can remember being at primary school and being told that "Your Mum's HITLER!". I imagine those children had got the notion from their parents as we were all young. We did a 'project' on where we were from and where our families were from. It could have been great.

We ALL need to watch what we say and do and think a bit more before doing/saying it.