Why is it socially acceptable to stereotype and vilify white women as a whole?

[TheTERFnextDoor]

I've seen this a lot recently, often from other white women bizarrely, and I don't understand why it's socially acceptable?

I think it goes without saying that in most groups, you get good and bad people. White women are surely no different in that respect? Yes, many of them are privileged, and they don't face the discrimination that other categories might. I accept that. However, that doesn't change the fact that they aren't some homogeneous mass of people, surely?

I am genuinely trying to learn here, so I'd appreciate all responses, particularly those that disagree

Look at D’Angelo’s Wikipedia page. She looks like a joke. ‘Whiteness studies’. 😂

That is something I also wish to see improve. I just disagree that your approach will be productive beyond quite a small sector of wealthy liberal society, and will probably in fact be counter-productive and divisive.

I agree.

The idea of being born with some sort of original sin that can never be expunged and that you must make amends for throughout your life?

nah, not for me thanks.

Exactly, it's an ideology.

The argument seems to be that anyone who disagrees with them is morally suspect and automatically racist. Any counter-argument, now matter how well constructed, is therefore dismissed (with vague insults that don't make contextual sense). It's a Manichaean view of the world, with a hint of Mao.

In the town where I live, the poorest ward has a female life expectancy at birth of 52 years, whilst the richest ward has 68 years. The poorest ward is almost exclusively white. Any analysis which ignores class is massively flawed. The main contributors to that gap are heart disease and cancer. It isn’t drugs and crime killing these women early, it’s poverty. It is just so hard for people to escape this level of disadvantage. There are places like this all over England. Some of them are white, some of them are black. If you think telling someone with a life expectancy of 52 years that their life would have been even worse if they were also black, I don’t think that message is going to be very well received.
When you live in a region where the colour of poverty is absolutely white, and the only black people you see are professionals, then systemic racism is something you recognise intellectually as being true on average, but absolutely don’t see happening in your own life and region. If you live in one of these areas, I’d imagine you’re probably less likely to have travelled widely in the first place. What’s the actual point of telling white women from places like this that they are part of the problem? I still hear kids from those places using terms like Karen. The image of the “chavvy slapper” is far more ingrained round here than that of the aggressive black woman. The women here get all the prejudice and misogyny, with none of the structural advantage.

can you - hand on heart - say that you have no ingrained bias?

Everyone has biases. So what?

of course people are going to dismiss White Fragility. That that will happen is a point well made within the book. This kind of stuff makes people feel shame and they want to get straight outta that pan.

Yes one of the absurdities made within the book is that if you disagree with the author’s racist position that just proves her point that you are also a racist. Didn’t they also use that argument with alleged witches before drowning them? I felt zero shame when reading WF just perplexity that such a poorly argued position is apparently being taken so seriously by so many people.

Apparently you don’t believe in reparations because every post you make is all about how it cannot be done and conflating reparations for war with reparations for genocide/atrocities like slavery.

On a side note, the US has paid reparations to Iraq and Afghanistan. $60bn to Iraq and $100bn to Afghanistan.

Vietnam, I agree reparations should be paid as well, especially due to agent Orange.

Since you think it’s too tough to figure out how to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves US-wide, I recommend you start following the California task force that has been set up to do exactly that. You could also read on how Germany is doing the Holocaust reparations program.

Again the 75% this and that is meaningless because unless it is post civil rights era (1965) any DNA tests showing European ancestry will be the result of rape and so should not be used to reduce eligibility for reparations from slavery.

White Fragility was published pre-BLM so not jumping on the bandwagon. ‘Zeitgeist’ is just more dismissal.

Di Angelo has made numerous tv appearances to address the issue of her middle-class whiteness. She gives some profits of her book to black equality groups.

but hey let’s all look at her and dismiss everything she has to say and make vile jokes about her being next in line to change her pronouns and dye her hair blue

This covers the whole of Scotland too.

but it seems to me that DiAngelo is making the 'irredeemably tainted' argument is she not? She makes generalisations about the behaviour and feelings of a group of people based on their appearance.

and of course I have biases. I have what may be bad news for you - so do you.

what I am not (and no one else is), is born bad. I have no duty to make reparations to anyone simply on the basis of who I am

@Nellodee , great post, and also shocking. 52, jesus wept.

She's a self-confessed racist. Why are you defending her? Do you think giving money to charity makes racism OK?

I know there is always this argument, that no matter how bad things are for you, there will always be someone worse off. We are often told that as kids when we are being made to put up with something horrible.

It seems like D’Angelo took that idea, racialised it, and ran with it.

It would be impossible to be unaware of racism if you’ve lived and worked in a cosmopolitan place. ‘Not suffering certain unfair disadvantages’ is not racist. It is not racist to refrain from flagellating yourself daily for the shame and guilt of having certain un-earned privileges. Inequality persists.

Yes one of the absurdities made within the book is that if you disagree with the author’s racist position that just proves her point that you are also a racist. Didn’t they also use that argument with alleged witches before drowning them?

No it’s not such a crass position as you describe, the point is that there are layers of self awareness when it comes to realising the privilege you were born with and some people will go way down deep to try and understand this about themselves and others will dismiss the argument altogether and not even begin the search. But nice try at the forced teaming.

people do seem to believe that life 'should' be 'fair', particularly those who have enough comfort and leisure to spend time agonising about things.

bad news people: we're just animals that got lucky and the universe doesn't give two hoots about 'should' or 'fair'

but what's the point of this self flagellation? what does it achieve?

does people feeling bad make things better in some way?

would it not be better to talk about what people can materially do rather than how they should feel?

The answer to systemic ingrained racism is ‘life is unfair, get over it’.
sigh.

yes indeed, I don't care about racism and am intrinsically bad <twirls moustache>

So why should we try to improve women's rights? Why should we try to do anything to make life more fair? What is wrong with believing we should try to make things fair?

White Fragility was published pre-BLM so not jumping on the bandwagon.

It was published 2011. At that point, it was very Zeitgeist-y.

It was all about intersectionality back then (well quite a bit earlier - but it had really come to the fore by then). Also the beginnings of blaming white and middle-aged women was taking hold too. ‘White Feminism’ was coined and caused a fissure down the feminist movement. Feminists on news programmes would be grilled on why they were taking up a platform, when surely they should step aside and let a woman from ethnic minority speak out instead - if they were white. Also if they were middle aged “shouldn’t younger voices be promoted?”.

nothing wrong with it at all

it's just not some platonic ideal. there's no right way the universe should be. we're not that important in the scheme of things, although we're each incredibly important to ourselves.

individuals decide how they want things to be and work towards that, but there's nothing intrinsically correct about what they have decided (and for that reason when asked to explain why what they want is right, they should be prepared to explain).

but hey let’s all look at her and dismiss everything she has to say and make vile jokes about her being next in line to change her pronouns and dye her hair blue

I wasn't making a joke about DiAngelo at all. I was referencing a specific phenomenon, and somewhat had Amanda Jette Knox in mind.

I am intrigued about why joking about someone dying their hair blue and changing their pronouns is 'vile'

it didn't have me clutching my sides with mirth, but it is an observable phenomena, no?

The US has not paid reparations to Iraq, though campaigners argue that it should. It certainly hasn't paid reparations to Afghanistan. To do either would be to acknowledge that the US was wrong to invade those countries, which it is highly unlikely to do.

It is ludicrous to suggest that every American of African/European heritage born before 1965 is the product of rape. Rates of interracial marriage were much lower before the Loving v Virginia ruling, but they did occur. There were about 300,000 inter-racial marriages at the time of the Supreme Court over-turning those restrictions, and we are 3 generations on, so those people will have 2.5 million descendants, for a start (not all of whom are African/European, but many are).

I am in favour of reparations to address the ongoing effects of slavery and colonialism. I am opposed to individual financial compensation, as are over 40% of black Americans. Are they all racists too?

We can try to make the future fairer. We cannot provide redress for all the wrongs of the past, both because it is impractical, and because it would create more injustice.