Can white women be allies to BME women?

[missyoumuch]

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.

www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a22717725/what-is-toxic-white-feminism/

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/19/women-deliver-launches-investigation-into-internal-racism-allegations?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/oped-its-time-for-white-female-executives-to-help-black-women-at-work.html

I think WW can be supportive of BW if we are prepared to put defensiveness aside and just LISTEN

What does this even mean? Disagreement is not the same as defensiveness. Just because someone does not agree with an idea it does not mean that they are being defensive. They just think that the idea isn't a good one. And how does one decide which BW to listen to?

What I found really interesting was that a lot of the arguments against OP have been things that we'd quickly shut down if it they were used against feminism

Personally I think the criticisms of OPs ideas equally apply to ideas currently used by the LGBTQIA+ movement and the feminist movement and the BLM movement. It is identity politics and it's divisive and dividing us as people. It's not healthy.

@Signalbox

I think WW can be supportive of BW if we are prepared to put defensiveness aside and just LISTEN

What does this even mean? Disagreement is not the same as defensiveness. Just because someone does not agree with an idea it does not mean that they are being defensive. They just think that the idea isn't a good one. And how does one decide which BW to listen to?

What I found really interesting was that a lot of the arguments against OP have been things that we'd quickly shut down if it they were used against feminism

Personally I think the criticisms of OPs ideas equally apply to ideas currently used by the LGBTQIA+ movement and the feminist movement and the BLM movement. It is identity politics and it's divisive and dividing us as people. It's not healthy.

Why isn’t feminism identity politics? But race or sexual orientation are? Does the size of the group matter then?

I’m in a few other majority white mothers forums and people share experiences of racism without much hostility from other users. MN is a different story.

That's interesting op. Why do you think that is? What about mn is different to the other sites you're on? This is the only forum I really use so haven't experienced different.

And how does one decide which BW to listen to?

It would be good to have an answer to this question.

@missyoumuch I love bell hooks! She is great on education as well. Do you know Lisa Delpit? Her book 'Other People's Children' about race politics in teaching (and the way well meaning white liberals aren't always helpful) was a real perspective changer for me. (a white teacher who teaches mainly black African girls).

“When feminists acknowledge in one breath that black women are victimized and in the same breath emphasize their strength, they imply that though black women are oppressed they manage to circumvent the damaging impact of the oppression by being strong—and that is simply not the case. Usually, when people talk about the 'strength' of black women, they are referring to the way in which they perceive black women coping with oppression. They ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression, that endurance is not to be confused with transformation.” - bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism

@Aesopfable

Mumsnet really is not a safe space

What people normally mean when they say ‘safe spaces’ is they want a space where they will not face criticism, or have to cope with different opinions and their opinions questioned. A space where they won’t be told they are wrong or have to justify themselves. In other words an echo chamber. They might feel ‘safe’ but they are anything but. Such spaces are dangerous for everyone.

Mumsnet is not, never has been and never tries to be a ‘safe space’.

What people normally mean when they say ‘safe spaces’ is they want a space where they will not face criticism, or have to cope with different opinions and their opinions questioned. A space where they won’t be told they are wrong or have to justify themselves. In other words an echo chamber

I don’t think that’s true. Most people can take different viewpoints it’s when posters come on to attack other posters instead of having a reasonable discussion.

Such as a poster who comes on to say that she is being abused by her husband and another poster tells her she should feel lucky because her husband is dead. The original poster was looking for a safe space to look for advice.

I don’t think Missy if looking for an echo chamber she just talking about her lived experiences and engaging through the thread.

Im a 40 year old white women, grew up on a council estate, have black women friends ( since childhood) and I do believe we are allies, never thought we were anything else but that’s obviously through my eyes. Maybe my thought process would be different if I was black.

And before anyone says 'notallfeminists/notalllwhitewomen' take a second to think how infuriating it is when you hear 'notallmen'. (sorry for triple post!)

Why isn’t feminism identity politics? But race or sexual orientation are?

I included feminism. I think feminists are often guilty of using identity politics to make their points. Personally I don't see that as a positive side of feminism.

Two-word answer from me to your question, OP.

Of course!

@NearlyGranny thank you!

*I have seen many posts on MN saying not to support BLM because it’s pro trans which is anti-woman.

*I am a BAME woman and I don't support BLM UK the movement because it's pro trans which I don't believe in, also because it's Marxist which I also don't support. However I am in full support of 'black live matter' - of course they bloody do. The problem here stems from the movement, which has multiple aims, being named after the statement. It's all too generalising. It's like a few weeks ago when people were saying if you voted Tory you hate the NHS - it's more nuanced than that isn't it. Political parties deal with hundreds of issues and ive never found one for which I agree with all their ideologies and strategies so I pick the one I can most reconcile with which I think will be the least - bad option.

so where does a black feminist stand in this situation? If she’s pro BLM she’s anti-woman

It depends - if she's pro BLM UK in all specs including pro men in women's spaces I'd say she is anti-woman. However if she's pro their aim to end systematic racism but anti trans rights tramping woman's rights then of course not.

I'm pro some labour policies, some conservative policies, I even liked UKIP's policy on filling in potholes. Doesn't mean I support all of the thinking from any of these parties.

White women have sometimes been the strongest allies I've had in feminism. When other women in my family have told me to be respectful to the men because they're men and that I must dress conservatively to be a good Indian girl my white feminist friends have empowered me to resist it. It's not a part of my culture that I agree with and I feel it is rooted in misogyny. In others ways white feminists have failed to support me. When I complained about racism in the workplace I was told to check my privilege because I'd been to uni and have a good job - of course I recognise that privilege but doesn't mean if I was white I wouldn't have got even better opportunities, I wouldn't have had to send out twice the number of applications as my fellow white graduates, I wouldn't have been thinking about how to look as western as possible to make myself more appealing at interviews.

I feel white feminists absolutely can be my ally, as can BAME men. But they do need to listen. I am BAME and I am a woman and at different times in my life in different situations one will affect me more than the other so I will be more concentrated on fighting that side in that moment. However I will never be choosing between the two as they are both intrinsic to who I am.

Wow, a lot of frankly embarrassing NAWWALT and deflection/diminishing on this thread.

OP, I'm sorry. On MN generally and the Feminist pages especially, those of us benefitting from white privilege should take a back seat and listen. I personally don't like the phrase White Feminism because it seems a term for men to belittle the work of feminists in the West. However is our BAME sisters say we need to acknowlege more fully that western feminism is getting it wrong, my discomfort doesn't matter and White Fewminism is a thing to be challenged.

I recognise that UK feminism has not listened to BAME voices as much as it should have and that things that benefit exclusively BAME women aren't given as much support as those that affect white women too.

Other than listening and reading, and challenging racism when I hear it, I don't know what I should do as a white woman. I don't want to presume, overstep the mark or play White Saviour. So mostly I listen.

I have occasionally seen people say they think that if we tackle sexism, it will have more effect for more people - including those affected by things like race or disability etc - than tackling those things individually.

I don't entirely agree with that, I think it's too simplistic, but I also don't think it comes out of a place of racism or thinking racial justice isn't important. It's more that they think this is the most efficient way to actually get things done. A really simple example might be, would the US government help more people if they put in a program to help a particular race group with medical expenses, or all women and their children? Probably the latter really, it would help people across the board and might well help marginalised groups as much as a targeted program would.

So from the POV of making actual concrete policy differences, agitating for women might, in that case, be most effective.

What I think this points to is something more serious as a problem in a lot of anti-racism movements, in that they are largely these days shouting after abstract and vague goals. Asking people to admit that they are racist, to say, yes, I believe systemic racism exists. etc. Largely with no clear material explanation for what that means, how it is transferred in society, and what should be done about it concretely. Really, who gives a shit if some woman says yes, I believe in toxic white feminism, it accomplishes zero. What would make a difference is to say, police violence is a problem, this is what causes it and how it is distributed, these three changes to how we train/fund/use the police, or bringing poor people out of poverty, or improving low income housing, will make a difference to that. That will really concretely address racial disparities, and other disparities too, unlike white women admitting they are racist.

Personally, I believe that as long as we have capitalism in it's modern form there will always be people at the bottom, there will always be disparities, and there will be populations defined as the ones it is ok to treat poorly and to disenfranchise. That need to define such people has always been behind the idea of race, and even if we make sure that PoC or BAME people are as likely to be rich or poor as white people, that will be true under that system. So I think racial and all other forms of economic justice require changing that system - but it's not fundamentally about race. Race will disappear when it is no longer associated with the outcomes of that system. I resent being told that that is a racist POV, and I should embrace the race essentialism of identity politics - it's something I've thought about a lot and arrived at as a result of careful observation, thinking, and reading, and it has nothing to do with ignoring black women or anything else. (And FWIW I reject BLM as an organisation mainly because I think they cater to race essentialism and empty gestures, and because they fail to take their supposed marxism seriously enough to look at the mechanisms of race. They are really just anarchists.)

But there are others who believe capitalism is not a factor, and they are also entitled to that opinion. I don't know why they would be expected to embrace a movement that claims to be marxists either, or why not doing so would make them racists.

I feel white feminists absolutely can be my ally, as can BAME men. But they do need to listen

Who to? Do all black women speak with one voice? If not how do white women know which black women to listen to?

Can some one explain to me why BLM is pro trans? What have a missed?

Wait...it seems it’s only BLM UK that’s advocating Marxism? And not the original movement that came from the US? Is this correct?

Personally, I believe that as long as we have capitalism in it's modern form there will always be people at the bottom, there will always be disparities, and there will be populations defined as the ones it is ok to treat poorly and to disenfranchise.

I agree with this. I'm not sure what the alternative to capitalism is & if that alternative would work & be better but I do think capitalism relies on other countries dominating others & their populations & is racist. I'm not sure what the answer is.

Who to? Do all black women speak with one voice? If not how do white women know which black women to listen to?

To anyone who's speaking - especially in person. To actually hear it and digest it before responding - not just clapping back.

Tbh I feel we all need to listen to each other more. Questions should be exactly that - questions to learn more, not little underlying micro aggression to undermine a movement and not rhetoric.

I actually do feel there's to much telling your must agree with me' from every single side right now. Of course everyone thinks they're right, that's why they think that way, but doesn't mean people who don't agree are abjectly wrong about everything.

My grandmas used to say to me the vast majority of people want the same things ultimately, just believe there's very different ways of achieving those things, that's why we must listen to and questions everyone's ideas in order to find to best solutions to problems.

This shouldn't be taken as question everyone's experiences. When a person says X is racist/sexist it's not your place to go oh but it's not because Y. But you can ask 'why' and listen to their response. Then when they say this is how to fix this you're allowed to go 'what about this, would that work too', and then they can go 'that'd work in this way but fail to address this aspect', then you go 'ok, so how about we adapt it this way'. And this goes on for a long time.

I think that BLM UK has been thoroughly infiltrated by white Middle class socialist worker types. They had a massive anti-Jewish twitter rant the other day which didn't seem to fit with the priorities of the average protestor. I feel like the 'momentum' of the movement is being taken advantage of by people with very specific aims which don't have much to do with black lives mattering.

All those saying which Black women should we listen to, they don’t all agree on everything, are presumably fine when men ask which women they should listen to, they don’t all agree on everything.

I am also gobsmacked at the posters here who are using well-known tactics of anti-feminist denial (not all men/loads of women aren’t feminists/there’s nothing we can do about it anyway, etc etc) but aiming them at race. If systemic patriarchy exists why is it so hard to believe that systemic white supremacy does too?

@QuentinWinters

I personally believe that white women often don't incorporate black womens experiences into the feminist narrative I agree. But I don't know how to incorporate black womens experiences, as they arent the same as mine and I don't know any black women well enough to ask.

I feel like I need to hear more experiences and more specifics about what black women need in feminism to be able to help.

I totally relate to this.

I'd describe myself as working class and I've often found feminist forums and bits I've read to be very unrelateable. At university the women who belonged to feminist societies were universally affluent white middle class women and they did not speak for me at all.

I grew up in a very white WC environment and the first black women friends I had, I was about 20 and I was living in London. I realised how little I understood about their experiences. Even now I would say I have black female friends but not close friends. My DH is black so strangely I feel I understand many black male struggles far more than female.

I've always read books on this like Emma Dabiri don't touch my hair and BRIT-ish by Afua Hirsch but I can definitely do more.

Wait...it seems it’s only BLM UK that’s advocating Marxism? And not the original movement that came from the US? Is this correct?

The thing is BLM UK have become more of a group, akin to the suffragettes vs the feminist movement, with actual leaders, clear aims, they've got an official website, Instagram, Twitter ect and are shaping into a political group to be supported. BLM in the US is still more of a grassroots movement and although there are key people speaking out it hasn't been politicised into an actual group with verified and published aims beyond ending systematic racism in the same way BLM UK has. There's no BLM USA pages saying they support Marxism or are pro trans, although some activists say this vs the U.K. where some activists have taken it upon themselves to be the advocates with more aims which they say are tied into the movement.

I think the BLM movement in the US was started by women who describe themselves as Marxists, though I don't think it's the same as Marxism based on my (limited) understanding of it.

I know that one of the women who started the BLM movement in the US was a supporter of Maduro in Venezuela. A couple of years ago I had a work colleague who was from Venezuela originally who told me how bad things were for Venezuelans with Maduro, so her support of him made me suspicious or think she is a bit naïve perhaps.

Of course white women can be allies to BME women. The first (very America centric) article says as much - effectively some women responded as allies and some responded defensively.

Most activism is single issue. Black Lives Matter is most powerful as a message when it's about black lives, but when people dig down to the queer theory and anticapitalism they get confused or doubtful.

Feminism centers women. That's all it is really. Black women should be as centered as women of any other ethnicity, because your ethnicity is not relevant to whether or not you are a women, any more than your social class or income or whether or not you have children or your nationality or educational level or whether or not you have a disability has any bearing on whether or not you are a woman - it's just biology.

However obviously different women have widely different experiences - being black impacts lived experience in an all pervading way comparable to the way being female does. Being born with or aquiring a significant disability (a subject close to my heart) also impacts lived experience in an all pervading way, as much so as being female does IMO.

www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/issues/women-and-girls-with-disabilities.html

"Women and girls with disabilities experience double discrimination, which places them at higher risk of gender-based violence, sexual abuse, neglect, maltreatment and exploitation. The global literacy rate is as low as one per cent for women with disabilities, according to a UNDP study"

Feminism should center all women. Sometimes unconcious bias means it centers non disabled middle class degree educated white women. That's not great. Some issues impact all women, and they shouldn't be dismissed as unimportant because they are not centering the right women.

There is a danger of everything being shot down by endless "whatabout"? "Why are you campaigning for better maternity provision in the UK generally and not focussing on the fact black women have the highest rates of maternal mortality in the UK?" it's a valid point, but should it mean the general campaign which doesn't mention race is bad? I don't think so, at all.

Everyone should listen to one another's experiences, and nobody should be dismissed, attacked, or told her experience is wrong.

That doesn't mean that women who enjoy white privelige aren't allowed to shout about the ways in which belonging to the sex class woman impacts them though. Just as rich black men can still talk about their own experiences of racism without being told to talk about poor black women's experiences of racism instead...

I think feminism centers women for being women first. That should mean all women, and the main issues are those related to being female. However we should listen to one another talk about how being black, or middle eastern, or asian, or regarded as "foreign", or poor, or disabled, or a mother, or gay, or a combination of those, have intersected with the core similarity of being female, and care about that.

That's what I think - internalised and institutional racism (as described in the second article posted in the OP) can coincide with feminism. That's a bad thing but it doesn't make feminism bad, it means that like every big, unfocussed, decentralised "movement" in vinverted commas it has problems which are hard to solve because it isn't a movement really, in the sense of having leadership and a structure or anyone in charge, let alone a company or political party or charity from which you can fire or expell anyone!

Your comment on posting "to let the record speak for itself" confuses me missyoumuch - do you mean you are gathering screenshot evidence for something?