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

Dare I mention...Meghan Markle

I have got to agree with you there.

a lot of the rhetoric around white women seems to me to be an excuse to hate women. Its the whole karen thing.
There is apparently no way that a white woman cant be a massive racist no matter what as there will be some way she has benefited from being white in the UK.
I personally find it very hard to navigate, so I will just carry on as I was, speaking up if I see racism and try to check any inherent biases in myself.
I dont know if it makes me enough of an ally, but I like to think im anti racist and just doing what I can

Yes, verybritishproblems, I too find it very uncomfortable to see these tick boxing exercises, the narrative that a proportion of jobs and roles and opportunities must automatically go to a BAME person. I like the term mentioned in some of the videos I posted - it's called the soft bigotry of low expectations. I think this sort of identity politics does more harm than good in the long run for people from a BAME background. And I don't particularly like the BAME label.... It's like a catchall phrase that doesn't distinguish the variety of opinions that black, Asian and other minorities have on these topics.

Re doxxing of Pragna Patel

It was actually targeting of a female MP for supporting an event with Pragna in, on the basis that Pragna has spoken at a WPUK event.

Text from Julie Bindel’s tweet is below:

‘I have worked & campaigned alongside the formidable
@SBSisters
@ Pragna Patel since 1990. SBS holds the police & other state agents to account and are the best feminists and human rights activists imaginable.
@CatherineWest1 is my MP & I applaud her for supporting the event.’

@QuentinWinters

However, the combative way that you have phrased it invites disagreement, which isn't helpful. This is actually proving ops point. This is what men say about us man hating feminists. It is quite combative, which made me feel uncomfortable, but actually OP has a valid point and my discomfort is my problem. It's not up to her to manage my reactions to something she is angry about.

I agree with this.

@Gwynfluff

The vast majority of the population here is white. Why do people act surprised that therefore most groups and organisations and networks will be predominantly white?

80% white now. In some urban centres, where a lot of the U.K. population live, more 55:45 and many Universities in London, Birmingham etc have similar percentages for their student cohorts.

So it’s simplistic to say white peoples are the vast majority in all contexts. NHS is one of the UKs biggest employers- it’s is not vastly white.

Very good point, Gwynfluff. The proportions do vary by region and sector as you say. If racism was as rife and entrenched as it's said to be, would it be possible to have such variations in the first place? (That doesn't mean to say that instances of racism and prejudiced behaviour never occur within society of course.)

Dare I mention...Meghan Markle?

I am no fan of anyone who is part of the new elite linked to the New Thought movement

Meghan Markle's circle of friends are central to this new elite and it needs to be noticed.

Also see, Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Catherine Oxenberg, Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and various jade egg promoting, plastic shaman endorsing, brainwashed celebrities.

You don't get a pass for promoting batshit cults just because you belong to an oppressed minority.

Branleuse I think you would really like the Triggernometry interview with Ayishat Akanbi.

a lot of the rhetoric around white women seems to me to be an excuse to hate women. Its the whole karen thing.

The Karen thing is not about all white women though only the racist behaviour of some who are suspicious of minorities. Anyone using it any other way than that is using it incorrectly, often purposely. It’s more of an American term anyway and happens there more often than it does here.

@missyoumuch Thanks for posting, and I'm sorry you're getting some dismissive responses.

I'm a white woman, and would never suggest that feminists are incapable of being racist. That's clearly nonsense. Nor am I stupid enough to insist to myself that I am incapable of unconscious bias. Everyone is, and we all need to challenge ourselves on this.

I would never ask you to pick a side. You can only fight on so many fronts at a time, and it's up to you to decide what is most important to you, and where to focus your energies. I would, however, think it was ok for me to respectfully question your choices.

I now live in a very white area. Unlike when I was a child, I don't have any black friends, and my understanding of racism is the poorer for it. I'm listening OP, and other PPs. Please tell me more.

Should we all admire "Shaman" (lol) Durek just because he is from an ethnic minority?

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7682775/Norwegian-Princess-shaman-lover-say-lived-past-life.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7832243/Princess-Martha-Louises-bisexual-shaman-boyfriend-fire-flirting-girl.html

There's a thread on here at the moment where a BAME woman from a deprived is talking about being downgraded in her professional job.

She has been questioned as to why her ethnicity and her background are relevant by many posters. It's really depressing.

My problem starts with the concept of 'allies' and how they are expected to behave. You see it in transideology - allies are expected to promote someone else's agenda above all else, to not question the narrative set before them, to follow instructions regardless. Allies are expected to be subservient to the decisions made by those in charge of the cause and to recognise their inferiority.

Ultimately allies will fail, they will not be pure enough. They cannot be pure enough.

White woman here. A feeling for black women of having to ‘pick a side’ is unacceptable. I hope we can keep talking.

This is actually proving ops point. This is what men say about us man hating feminists. It is quite combative, which made me feel uncomfortable, but actually OP has a valid point and my discomfort is my problem. It's not up to her to manage my reactions to something she is angry about.

Fair point - but I still think it isn't helpful to start with the assumption that people's views are set in stone - and vague statements about men being irredeemably sexist don't help women much either.

An alarming number of white people find it difficult to take racism seriously, however I have never heard anyone say that women's issues should supersede ethnic minority issues (in what context would you say this?), perhaps partly because most people don't think much about either issue.

I have heard frustration that people who understand the problem with 'I don't see race' don't understand the problem with 'sex is a spectrum', but that does not imply that they think one issue is more important than the other.

Pinpointing for later.

@hoodathunkit

Are you really using the Daily Mail, a tabloid known to lie and s**t-stir?

Also, have you actually looked into Shaman Durek or just taking the DM at its word?

"Toxic" white feminism?

Right.

So we can't worry first and foremost about being murdered by men, discriminated against at work, losing our safe spaces to men, without making our campaigns intersectional? Or we're toxic. Yeah, that can do one.

OP, thank you for starting this thread. I too find MN to be a difficult space to navigate on issues of race - any time you raise issues where race is relevant, you have posters shouting you down and telling you it's not. It's a form of gaslighting really, because you're told that when you experience something that you're misjudging or seeing something that isn't there. And the #notallwhitewomen response on this thread is really quite amusing, you'd think on this board people would see how problematic this type of response is!

For what it's worth, I really enjoy reading threads on this and other boards, but as a Muslim woman I don't feel white feminism accommodates me. In fact, I feel condescended to and not heard, told I'm brainwashed, my choices are anti-feminist and invalid etc. The thread on niqab really exemplified that.

@PopsicleHustler

I think your comment above should say how SOME white women are behaving. Not all. Dont tar us all with the same brush. I'm a white women and I stand up with all my black sisters in whatever they face!

Sort of NAMALT NAWWALT, you mean ?

OP I cannot see what's wrong with the criticism of BLM as a movement, in so far as it centres trans (so not women) and anti capitalism. What about those of us who are feminists and don't want to pull down capitalism but also think it's abhorrent that blacks people are being killed?

@roarfeckingroar

Thanks for proving OP right.

So we can't worry first and foremost about being murdered by men, discriminated against at work, losing our safe spaces to men, without making our campaigns intersectional? Or we're toxic. Yeah, that can do one.

Minority women endure the same things yet are easily and quickly dismissed and shut down. Feminism is supposed to include all women anyway. Is it really feminism then?

Well feminism was only brought to me again, when I came to a space with predominantly female voices in. without the white static noise of mens views that is everywhere else. Being able to listen and discuss women's experiences from only women's points of view has been what opened my eyed.

I understand racism I understand that conscious and unconscious racism is abundant here in the UK.

But I don't know what to do other than what I already do in my own small way.

Just as you have ask where do you go if women here are saying don't support BLM.uk. I don't know the answer.

I'm going to go and read and lurk on lipstick alley, because like MN it is a large forum of prodomantly women, (mainly black women) talking about many topics including feminism. less whitenoise from men and white women.

I googled it, and its seems there are lots campaigns against the forum. calling for its removal and it is a hate fill transphopic homophobic cesspit. which has been infiltrated by white supremacists.

quite shocking really.....

But then MN is too touted as man hating, transphopic, nasty, bullying, platform too, with many people wanting it closed down.

So I'm going to go anyway just see for myself, and see if I can learn and understand more, like I did with feminism here.

I won't be registering though just reading.

Allison Bailey is a black woman who has received huge support from both white and BAME feminists this week.

OP I cannot see what's wrong with the criticism of BLM as a movement, in so far as it centres trans (so not women) and anti capitalism. What about those of us who are feminists and don't want to pull down capitalism but also think it's abhorrent that blacks people are being killed?

Black trans people are still black so why wouldn’t they fight fo them as well?