Feminism for women of colour...

[AnotherEpisode]

As a black woman, I quite often feel sidelined within feminism.

I don't feel feminism addresses the difficulties faced by women of colour in western societies and quite often I feel I am drawn to race issues over feminist issues because of this.

I absolutely have more difficulties in this society because of the colour of my skin than I do because of my sex.

I feel that the lack of understanding towards racism amongst feminist circles gives me a stance of one over the other in which racism usually wins, which is unfortunate really!

This article, although written in a strong, comical and sometimes rude tone, gives a good insight!

thegrio.com/2015/02/23/patricia-arquette-blacks-gays-white-women/

Not sure why I'm posting but I'm interested in a wider perspective especially people's thoughts on the article!

I am watching th thread on aibu and it does seem like a lot of posters take the raising of the subject as a personal attack which is frankly odd.

It is nice to see posters from this thread quoting the stats. I honestly don't believe the posters are being malicious but like I said previously how many white mn know a woc to bounce these concepts around with in the real world and I think the answer is not many which in lot of cases It cannot be helped. However it does seem to lead to the situation on the thread where posters do not see any issues. But to be fair to everyone the conversation is on beauty standards which is a more nuanced conversation than this thread.

There seemed to be a few white mums of mixed race children saying there were zero issues which was frankly odd and would be interested to hear their opinions as their children enter the world of work and report back from the coal face. Because to be honest that is when they will truly know. But if I was in their shoes I would want to believe that my child will face a bright future. The alternative is profoundly depressing.

Oh dear that thread.

Tbqf my friends who have mixed race children or mixed race siblings are much more aware of racism than those from wholly-white families. Even if the children are still young.

Based off that thread though, the stuff about 'oh only 4% of people here are POC' - I live in a village in Scotland and it's probably even whiter than that but it's still fairly common for me to have spoken to half a dozen people of colour (some good friends, some vague acquaintances) after picking my kids up from school. Is it not partly a case of deliberately ignoring or avoiding the people of colour who are in your life? Surely most of the white population is aging and younger groups of people are more diverse?

Those stats are used to justify not offering specialist services to BME communities which seems kind-of a shame considering that isolation would be worse in an area when you're in an extreme minority.

But to be fair I know a lot of people but I wouldn't chat to most of them about these issues because a lot of friendships are quite superficial. So I don't think people are segregating their friendships. As we get older a lot of new friendships are based on convenience. So if woc are not right in your immediate circle then you cannot have that type of relationship.

Yeah I can see how that would work.

From my experience, I've ended up having more in-depth conversations with friends about racism because I've brought something up, or because they have and I've been supportive (for example with the opinion that they're right that reverse racism doesn't exist). I think it can be fairly intimidating to open up about a form of oppression you face if you don't know how the other person will react so sometimes things go unsaid.

I know I have quite a few people I talk to where they've seemed quite uncomfy about me being a lesbian, so I don't tend to go out of my way to mention anything related.(I know it's not the same thing, but just that feeling of 'oh ok you don't get it')

Buffy that's really exciting. I didn't even know this was happening.

Popping I have half a dozen close friends and these conversations come up in the context of family planning and progressing our careers.

Woman president would be a great way to end up with a woman on the $20 but it's a brilliant campaign.

So if woc are not right in your immediate circle then you cannot have that type of relationship.

I've been thinking over the last few days about just how white my social, family, work and cultural environment is. I don't have friends who are poc. I can think of only 2 maybe 3 people at work who aren't white. My street in over 20 years has had as far as I can recall one family who wasn't white.

The restaurant I was in on Saturday afternoon had East European staff but all were white as were all the customers. A concert on Saturday evening was a sea of white faces.

But SuperLoud Do you think I cannot understand BME people in the UK face difficulties I will never have to deal with? Do you think I don't think that is wrong?

But I live in a part of the UK which at the last census recorded, as a whole, 96% of its population ,and where I live, 92% as white and that is reflected in my day to day life. I'm not deliberately avoiding or trying to ignore woc; I rarely meet woc.

I'm one of the white mums with mixed race DCs from the other thread, but I do completely agree there's an imbalance in basically almost global standards of beauty.

However, to me it seems like there's a simple reason why. I think beauty standards follow where the power is. At the moment the perceived world seats of power are mostly in majority-white Western countries. I think when (not if) that changes, standards of beauty will change too.

On a smaller scale for example, take thinness. Being thin is aspirational when it's a marker of the wealthy/powerful classes, despised/ignored when it's a marker of the poor/powerless classes. I think we see the same power dynamic influences played out on a global scale when it comes to racial characteristics.

"That's an interesting point about thinness. I know In parts of Africa, Northern as well as sub Saharan, thinness is associated with poverty and being fat is associated with wealth."

Agreed, have spent fair bit of time working in Sub saharan countries, the big advertisement boards with skin whitening bars/soap/creams. Though similarly in SE-Asia where they are going through the dark skin = peasant farm worker, fairer skin = professional that we used to have in the UK.

That thread just adds to the fact that we need to hear the voices of more WOC generally, as we wouldn't expect any one white woman to represent the experiences of all white women. I realise of course that I'm not saying anything new or different from what any WOC have been saying for decades!

The campaign in the US to get a woman on the $20 is interesting, but my first reaction is that some of them would be far too political, and therefore, too polarizing, to be chosen. I actually think Rosa Parks could well be the most popular choice nationwide. We'll see.

'But SuperLoud Do you think I cannot understand BME people in the UK face difficulties I will never have to deal with?'
I wouldn't make an assumption like that. Personally I've learnt just as much from conversations online, or workshops with relative strangers, as I have from my friends.
I was just genuinely surprised at the 'the population here is statistically v white and so I don't know anyone who's not white' thing, because it doesn't tally with my experience or that of my friends.
I'm happy to be corrected.
I suppose on that thread it was being used as a way to dismiss a need for representation for people of colour, and I don't think that's valid. That was what I was pondering.

I was thinking about this today popping and keepit and I don't seek out new friends at all and outside of my immediate concerns of work and home I am not that engaged with issues affecting anyone outside of my household. I am just busy. I imagine most people are the same.

It was seeing a random article about r Kelly last year that gave me the rage. Otherwise my life is rather nice. But once I saw that I started reading more and thinking about things. I reckon we on this thread and elsewhere on mn operate on a need to know basis.

I am fundamentally quite passive I don't feel strongly about many things because there are so many crap things to worry about. I am now aware of more things so I am speaking up more in my friendship group and I am learning a lot from others on this thread.

I was just genuinely surprised at the 'the population here is statistically v white and so I don't know anyone who's not white' thing, because it doesn't tally with my experience or that of my friends.

You did not come across as expressing genuine surprise. Your post was dismissive and disbelieving of other people's experience. The bit about deliberately avoiding or ignoring people of colour was unwarranted.

The I am sorry for going off topic again, needed domewhere to vent. Netanyahu snubbing Obama has just given me the rage. Politics aside, this would never have happened if Obama was white!

www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/02/netanyahu-insult-republican-blacks-wickham-column/24223595/

Oh and then there is this
So many things are wrong in this that i don't know where to begin!

This is why racial equality is more important to me. This is why it was important to me that USA sees it's first black president before its first (white) female president. Cannot write too much right now as am at work!

May i rant some more please?

Why do you have to prove your loyalty if your skin colour is not white?? In the UK, I have to prove my britishness, despite being born and bred here. It seems that in the US, blacks have to similarly prove their loyalty to America. Why does skin colour render you disloyal somehow? Why does wearing a hijab warrant suspicion and the accusation that you have somehow let down womankind?

America is crazy though, some think hes some kind of Muslim Communist sleeper, its like the Daily Mail on crack.

Actually, Doesnot, I think Bibi would have done this to a white president. The astonishing degree to which that man is an atrocious self-serving cunt really cannot be overestimated.

is a personal affront to America's first black president.

I agree with Ratbag . The affront is to a Democrat president who would not support or agree with him. Other than the fact I wouldn't call anyone a cunt, can't quarrel with the other comments.

I have to agree with Monstrous too - I don't see any evidence of Bibi being racist in that story, he's just throwing a hissy fit because he's not getting his own way as usual.

This is a great thread, I'm finding it really interesting.

America is crazy though

Well, NAA (not all Americans). President Obama was elected twice and in 2008 carried three Southern states (he carried two in 2012). Also opinion polls show that a majority of Americans (myself included) disapprove of Congress inviting Netanyahu without consulting Obama.

Sorry, I should have thought that lots of people don't like that particular insult. Picking up on something I've just read on another thread, how about 'atrocious, self-serving skidmark'?