I'm to sure what to do with myself! I feel a tingling in my toes ;p
But seriously. I only discovered BMN a month ago and it rounded off a pretty racism-free year (due to being at home on lockdown of course) with a huge racist slap in the face.
I'm going to count my chickens here and just let rip, I hope that's ok.
I honestly can't understand why white women are all over this section. I have my thoughts, but it's so different from my own behaviours, I keep discounting my theories on it. Take one of the white women who killed off my thread on friendships. Her last post 'oh, should I not be here?' the fact I made it clear I was hiding is plain to see. Pretty unequivocal. Also, her contribution was 'I have tried so hard in my relationships with black women'. Note, she didn't write 'My SILs and I have tried in our relationships', instead SHE tried hard with them. This just leaves the impression that her SILs (black women) were the problem. And she's writing this, on black Mumsnetters in response to a post about difficulties in friendships with white women. So sick of this. Do they not realise that even if they just love being in black spaces, that their very presence makes it a mixed space, no longer a black space and that therefore they have never experienced said black space. Just like my post. You're ruining the party that you crashed.
Then this mixed race thread. From what I understand the gist is: 'I am not black' (ok, got it, understood and support you in that. Though, I do have to point out - you are in Black Mumsnet, but ho hum); 'black people do not consider me to be black' (which seems to be in line with how you feel about yourself); 'and I don't like that' (now I'm confused). But I'm not going to interject with that because it sounds like a nice safe space for them right now, and I don't really have that lived experience. I say 'really' because I have often been mistaken for being mixed race, and hell, probably being Jamaican I am (to my constant chagrin). I've found myself in many a screwed up conversation where mixed race people have started talking about being better than either black or white because they are mixed. Which always made me want to puke a little in my mouth. But I just excused myself, because do what you have to do to affirm yourself I this racist world, I get it... However, I do find this attitude scary because in general I find people who glory in whiteness, or their proximity to it, quite scary and for good reason. Mixed race people are, in my view, being progressively manoeuvred into the 'white' category, partly I expect because racist white people have seen the number of mixed race people swelling so fast that it is threatening and to have those people consider themselves black might just tip the balance of power, and they can't have that.
Another thing, and I'll be brief on this one. Can someone tell me what is so damn special about being in an interracial relationship? I have had the experience and it was entirely run of the mill, pedestrian, garden variety, unremarkable. Why are those white women always popping up saying 'my black husband'. Honestly, so what?
Anyway, what we should do in threads where we feel it is important to have a black space that is not tainted with centering by non-black people is just to leave the thread and start a new one, like this, gobbledegook title or whatever and just carry on. If they follow us we move on again. But let's not stop talking. Soon they'll tire, I mean, they are just mothers too like everyone else, with kids to look after, families to raise, and better things to do.....