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!

Thanks for the reading recommendations and the various links, TheXxed. I'm not ignoring the thread but simply trying to listen to the experiences of others instead of interjecting with my own.

I would like more positive images of woc generally. I think the one dimensional stereotypes keep feeding the notion that there is this hive collective.
I intend on telling my child that they need to be twice as good to get by and give them the tools to make sure they can be. I cannot see how to avoid this.

Xx, the reason certain woc feel it is possible to talk about the experiences of other women is because it is their job to represent their client group in grass roots organisations.

I don't see a bunch of white women sitting around sitting around 'listening' to you denying the work of woc any more helpful than when men sit around listening to any woman go, 'we don't need DV shelters for mothers. DV in pregnancy hardly ever happens. Academic studies show most DV happens to men. People just want to make out that pregnant women need saving because they are sexist.'

I'm with Buffy's earlier remark about reading and learning. However - while I do think it was an odd direction for Arquette to take, I also have to applaud her saying something. I've seen a lot of quite heavy bashing of her today (not on here) and I do think that's a bit sad, although unsurprisng - someone says something and because it wasn't the right something, the condemnation is fiercer than it would've been of someone saying nothing.

I don't think she's individually going to change anything, but I was glad she said it. If it starts a conversation about WoC then that's even better because that's important. But I'm not sure that I like the way everyone's jumping up and down about how wrong and racist she was - she was definitely less racist than Sean Penn, at any rate!

LOL! I am not denying that it happens I am questioning the scale. Also you forget I am a black woman. Also who gives these groups the authority to speak on behalf of others. Why do only certain women of colour talking about certain subject get any attention.

I have given evidence, I am not plucking this out of the air, this is a subject matter I know a lot about. I also know how unpopular this perspective is and how difficult it is to deviate from accepted narrative.

Coming to this late as usual - Thanks OP and everybody for contributing to this thread.

I love to read FWR when I get chance but I usually only lurk, because often I feel like I'm watching something like a white girls' senior common room at Roedean (if such a thing exists...). I'm often thinking "just try saying that/doing that/being in that situation with dark skin, and see what you get", but I don't post that because I don't want to be 'playing the race card' all the fucking time.

But just one thing I'd like to point out (from much earlier in the thread) - African black is not the same as American black or Caribbean black.

On the Benedict Cumberbatch thread, when I said I was happy to describe myself as coloured, someone came back and explained that it was offensive because of racist usage in the American deep south.

Well that's fine for black Americans - but it's no part of my history or culture.

I'm sure that there are things that offend white people in Vladivostok - but you would think I was mad if I assumed that white Londoners were offended by the same thing, just because you have the same colour skin

crescent moon I love when you pop up on threads.

I believe there several reasons why FGM is being highlighted and why black women are at the forefront. Black people historical have had to make themselves available to others. Also its easy 'other' black women and make it cultural rather than examine the patriarchy that underpins it.

If you look at FGM policy one of the things that pops out to me is increased surveillance of cutting communities. Communities the home office have been monitoring already.

I can think of lots of black women who are agitating for prison reform, welfare reform, wage equality, dv, education etc. However, unless you frame yourself in a certain way, a way in which white people/men don't have to confront the complicity in your pain its unlikely you will get anywhere.

Fanon, Cesaire, Arundhuti Roy and James Baldwin saved my sanity.

'To be a negro in this country and relatively conscious is to be in rage almost all the time' James Baldwin. This quote from Baldwin always reassures me when I find myself being consumed with anger. My anger is normal and healthy respect to my environment.

There is a great clip here where arundhuti Roy explains why the way malala has been framed is problematic.

www.dailymotion.com/video/x27wf7s_arundhati-roy-on-malala-yousafzai-kailash-satyarthi-nobel-prize-winners_news

*response

There is definitely hypocrisy within feminism. I agree with moon and xxx on that. But we have to call it out each time we see it. I wouldnt rely on feminism to keep its own house in order if all the woc just keep quiet.

100 TIMES YES about the requirement for woc to prioritise and salve the men for their struggles. Get out and march for our men, when it's the women they are busy that day.

A final word on coloured because it does really annoy and i am British. You can call me coloured if you think car seats are new fangled and chicken Kiev exotic. If you think Zimbabwe is still Rhodesia ans Sri Lanka is ceylon. If you have left these items of 70s groupthink behind you can move with times on this one. I dont care if you friend from blah calls herself coloured do not call me that.

Xxx your point on only certain messages from woc being given a platform. Absolutely I hear you. There is always a danger of creating a woc supplicant state because only the policies and campaigns that fit a downton abbey world view get any traction.

That is why little hobby horse is financial independence and education. I don't trust men or anyone else for that matter to look out for me and consistently put my needs first.

Thank you to the OP for this discussion, and to those who have contributed. It is fascinating. I am a white UK man married to a black UK woman, with two mixed race teenagers. This perspective the society my kids are growing up in is a real eye-opener.

As for foreign policy there is always a set of other objectives and outcomes from any intervention or non intervention. But everyone will prioritise different aspects (Caribbean parents here not Muslim). I will probably gloss over the collateral damage in ME because I am not looking for it. If crescent didn't just spell it out for me I wouldn't have noticed. I am not a mean person but I need to be shown other perspectives I won't know just because I am a woc.

OOMK looks interesting

I love OOMK!!!!!!!!!!!! I think they are on there 4th edition now.

So, a tale of two women.

Mary Beard, a white woman, is harassed online and the police investigate. She later signs a letter objecting to suppression of feminist speech. People claim that she is too old to understand and has been duped by younger feminists who are using her. The MN FWR response is to have a long 'Mary Beard' appreciation thread.

Nimko Ali, a WOC, is harassed online because she speaks up as a FGM survivor about FGM happening to girls in the UK. She is shunned by some and receives death rates, and has to maintain a constant relationship with the police because of this. She also thanks MN for allowing her a space to speak. She later signs the same letter Mary Beard did: people claim she is a WOC who doesn't understand and is being duped by white feminists who are using her. The MN FWR response is to start a thread where her organisation is specifically named and then has numerous posts with allegations that certain black women are being used over FGM and that one of her main campaigning issues - FGM in the UK, is being over exaggerated.

Because apparently MN's 'we believe you' stance over child abuse and violence against women only applies to white women.

And Nimko Ali has asked white women to keep speaking up about FGM, and I will continue to do so, directing people to her expertise of being a survivor and working with the children it is currently happening to.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/after-speaking-out-against-fgm-i-faced-backlash-thats-why-we-all-need-stand-togethe

That isn't mn or feminism that is the world I live in. Woc are not worthy of the same respect or consideration.

White woman attacked. Response concern desire to protect from other women.

Woc attacked. Response what did she do. Is she a good enough victim to warrant mainstream concern and protection.

Woc are considered tougher. Our pain or discomfort are not empathised with to the same degree as white women. Hence the needing to be twice as good in order to merit decent treatment.

To me this isn't about fgm this is about the raw gut response of white society to woc.

unless you frame yourself in a certain way, a way in which white people/men don't have to confront the complicity in your pain its unlikely you will get anywhere

Yes to this 10 times over. And I agree with whodrankmycoffee on 'coloured' too. Threads elsewhere on MN about this kind of thing "Is this racist?I couldn't possibly make that moral judgment for myself so others will have to help me it's so difficult isn't it and they ARE so sensitive" and golliwogs etc are depressing. I don't read them now.

I have been grappling with one thought prompted by this thread. All of us posting, pretty much, agree about listening to each other and not making assumptions. But the corollary of that is often a kind of passivity and disengagement: people feel they cannot make a judgment or have any kind of position on it, it is up to the affected group to take up the cudgels on something that affects them only.

Sometimes this is very convenient-you can see eg anti-Semitism happen in front of you at work and not say anything about it because somewhere in the building there are a couple of Jewish employees and it's up to them to decide whether what has been said or done is wrong or offensive to them personally.

This has happened to me in education -someone comes to report to me something another person said in their presence (but my absence) that they think is racist and which they feel I ought to complain about. They, of course, don't want to get involved.

In fact, and following on from what I said earlier in the thread about FGM, all of us have to have our own moral positions about what we think is right and wrong and act accordingly. I can quite see that there will be occasions where that is difficult-no one wants to be seen as elbowing e.g. a Sikh colleague out of the way to take the Hindu colleagues to task for discriminating against her, but there is a middle ground. If we fail to find it the outcome is often that people who are in a minority feel completely isolated and friendless and devoid of support.

And her MN post is here - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/a1848333-Guest-blog-from-an-FGM-survivor-the-government-must-act-now-to-prevent-more-girls-being-cut

I agree with you ratbag. I call out my own family and dp. I don't care if it makes me a gobshite. There are certain lines in the stand and if you say nothing you are complicit. We are adults here.

I also maintain a personal shit list of those in rl who I conciously avoid because if not racist /sexist / homophobic they are definitely rude. Life is short why spend time with arseholes

Almond I think that post was directed at me. So I am going to re explain myself again.

Policy/Public discourse doesn't exist in a vacuum, FGM policy is problematic they way it is being framed is problematic.

Who is given a platform is political, how it is discussed is political. Nimko Ali is one piece of a much larger discourse. There have been women discussing/agitating for change for several decades. She is not the only one.

Also you appear to fixated on this single narrative. Here Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains why the single narrative is so dangerous.
www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en