Wednesday, Sep 24, 2014 05:45 PM MST

Feminism’s ugly internal clash: Why its future is not up to white women

From Beyoncé to the Internet to different policy priorities, white and black feminisms are not the same. Here's why

Brittney Cooper
Feminism's ugly internal clash: Why its future is not up to white womenEnlargeBeyonce (Credit: AP/Jordan Strauss)
Earlier this week, I received an email from a reader who wondered what my work might look like if I “included the feminist perspective.” Since black feminism infuses and shapes all of my politics, I laughed. Then I read the excellent debate between Rebecca Traister and Judith Shulevitz about the future of feminism in the pages of the New Republic. I always find Traister’s work to be insightful, compelling and committed to challenging the continued whiteness of feminism.
But here’s the thing: The future of feminism is not up to white women. Not by themselves anyway.
Traister acknowledged this forthrightly, writing: “the two people embarking on this exchange are white, educated, middle-class women who live in New York City.”
Three weekends ago I sat in a church basement in Ferguson, Missouri, dialoguing with local young people about how to build a gender-inclusive racial justice movement to combat police brutality. My refrain to them was that “our generation must learn the lessons of the ’60s.” And even though this political moment – the war on black communities, the police repression of black men, the war on women’s reproductive rights  — feels like the ’60s, this is the remix. And we have the advantage and hindsight of history to guide us to the world we are fighting for. As I listened to young women tell me how they had been sexually harassed and treated with derision by young men in Ferguson, I kindly offered insights that I gleaned from reading black women like Barbara Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, and Pauli Murray – black feminist pioneers — talking about organizing in the ’60s. Several of the young women came to me and said, “these things were happening to us, and we didn’t have the language for it.”
Feminism gives us language to name experience.  Having language that helped me to understand that sexism matters as much as racism was critically important. In a political moment in which we are expending our political energy fighting for justice for Michael Brown and John Crawford, while black men fail to muster sustained cultural outrage against Ray Rice for brutalizing his wife, that language feels incredibly important. When Daniele Watts is harassed by the LAPD, and the local leader of the NAACP calls on her to apologize, or two black teen girls are slain in Florida and almost no one is talking about it, having a politic that melds the two feels like an unequivocal necessity.
advertisement
Rebecca Traister lays out a range of political imperatives that I agree with 100 percent: federally mandated paid sick leave, federally subsidized childcare, federal equal pay protection, repealing the Hyde Amendment, passing the ERA, and electing a feminist woman president. I know that each and every one of those policy mandates would at some level improve the lives of women of color, and in particular black and Latina women who are disproportionately poor and disproportionately recipients of public aid.
But it is the disbelief and anxiety (and myopia) that frames the first several responses from Shulevitz that gives me great pause. Her first response declares that “feminist internet discourse doesn’t do much for me.” And she also cites Michelle Goldberg’s infamous “Feminism’s Toxic Twitter Wars” (in which I’m quoted) as an example of why Internet feminism has nothing to say that she finds compelling.
It never occurs to Shulevitz that Internet feminism is not ultimately for and about her or her needs in any specific sense. Moreover, her stale and unoriginal attempt to cast Beyoncé as feminist straw-woman is seriously bad argumentation. Though I am absolutely here for Beyoncé’s feminism as I have said in multiple places, what I am interested in is the way that women of color, and in particular black women, float in the background of Shulevitz’s responses informing her anxiety about a feminism driven by Beyoncé and the Internet.
As Michelle Goldberg’s piece made clear, Internet feminism is a place where young women of color, black women in particular, hold an inordinate amount of power and influence. This makes many, many white women deeply uncomfortable. Shulevitz, it seems, is one of them. Thus Shulevitz makes clearly problematic claims that seem self-aware, but are ultimately not. She writes:
Would the exclusion of mostly minority home health care workers and others at the low end of the pay scale from paid-sick-leave legislation be grotesque, unjust? Absolutely. Should we take the legislation if we can get it? Absolutely. We build from there.
Those are the kinds of pronouncements that middle-class white women can make definitively without ever thinking twice. But I come from a community where many black women, including some of my female family members, eventually end up as home healthcare aides precisely because job opportunities are limited. They are workers who are most vulnerable to the system and most often in need of sick leave because of the kind of strenuous labor involved in lifting, washing, moving and caring for another person.
When I read what comes off as a kind of self-assured smugness, I think to myself, “The future of feminism can not be left to the hands of white women.” And while I hope that more white feminists have the kinds of expansive knowledge of black women both historically and in the present that Rebecca Traister takes great care to present in her responses, white privilege allows most white women not to have to do this kind of work, not to have to cultivate this kind of empathy for women who are not white.
But there is also the question of how different a broad black feminist political agenda would be. Having endured several days of watching the Ferguson police department use military weapons on largely peaceful protesters, many young black women, particularly those drivers of online feminism, are not great believers in the ability of the federal government to ameliorate challenges facing black communities.
Our feminism looks like an end to police repression of minority communities, access to quality public schools that do not expel our children for minor infractions, and an end to the prison industrial complex, which locks up far too many of our men and women, fracturing families and creating further economic burdens when our loved ones are released. We need comprehensive healthcare and access to abortion clinics, but we also need a robust mental healthcare system, that can address long centuries of racist, sexist, sexual and emotional trauma. We need equal pay, yes. But we also need good jobs, rather than being relegated to an endless cycle of low-wage work.
White women’s feminisms still center around equality, a point on which Traister and Shulevitz converge. Black women’s feminisms demand justice. There is a difference.  One kind of feminism focuses on the policies that will help women integrate fully into the existing American system. The other recognizes the fundamental flaws in the system and seeks its complete and total transformation.
I recognize, too, that Beyoncé’s brand of feminism is also about equality, rather than justice. That is why even though I am a huge fan, she is not my feminist icon or role model. In fact, she could stand to sit in on a few of my women’s studies intro courses. But Beyoncé’s feminism, like all of ours, is evolving, offering her a language to understand what it means to be a black woman in this moment in history with the level of power, capital and sex appeal that she possesses. That she both embraces and grapples with the language of feminism so forthrightly is something worth applauding.  And what I learn from her and appreciate her for is that she provides a grammar for unapologetic black female pleasure in a world that only loves black women’s affect, verve and corporeality, when white women like Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus adopt and perform it.
For feminists or “caregiverists” as Shulevitz calls herself, that kind of talk is scary and beside the point. It’s also “inappropriate” for her young daughter, as she noted on Sunday’s Melissa Harris-Perry. Constructing public displays of black female sexuality as a danger to white children cannot possibly lead us to a just and racially inclusive feminist politic.
So what we need feminism to give a care about is not simply or primarily the plight of white middle-class, putatively straight, American moms and their children, but rather the plight of non-white, non-middle-class, non-straight, non-cisgender, non-American women and children.  Black feminism taught me that.
For me, that means practically, that I do care what happens in American politics, because cuts to food stamps, the defunding of public schools, and the inaccessibility of the full benefits of Obamacare in certain states, affect black women I love. It means I care that the justice department investigates Darren Wilson. It means I care that the president not use his one racial justice program to talk only about the social issues of boys of color. But it also means that when I look to a vision of the world I want to see, I look to young women of color, who meld race, gender and queer politics into an expansive, inclusive,and just vision of the world. This is a world where everyone’s lives are made better, white women included.
Brittney Cooper
Brittney Cooper is a contributing writer at Salon, and teaches Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers. Follow her on Twitter at @professorcrunk.
More Brittney Cooper.
LikeLikeLike
.

You Might Also Like

More from SalonWe Recommend

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

Related Videos

Comments

208 comments
131 people listening
 

 
+ Follow
Share
Post comment as...
Custom HTML Preview
D. W. DuPre 5ptsFeatured
Judging by the oversized photo at the top of this article,you might say that feminism is no longer just about white college educated women. It is also about multimillionaire black women as well.
J.O. Bankole 5ptsFeatured
I invite the readers of this article and this discussion to see two articles on brownfuturedotcom I wrote the first one after ruminating over the VMA's and the new music video, Anaconda. The first is called Cake Porn for Tweens. The second is the follow up, which is still on the home page. I am writing from the perspective  a Black woman critical of the mergence of pornography and pop entertainment. The second article examines my views on domestic abuse and the roll of feminists; who should be stripped of her feminist credentials. I don't consider the gap or differences of race in this analysis…at all.  I hope I've piqued your interest and that you read both then leave a comment.
dcer 5ptsFeatured
Feminism is allowed to be feminism without even bringing race into it.  Feminists are allowed to focus on some aspects of feminism that only deals with women's issues outside of race entirely.  Not all will, many won't want to, but I find that when we do deal with women's issues outside of the prism of race (and particularly race as we see it on the Coasts), we can learn something about how we constantly deal with left-wing issues via race.

Nothing makes me more sad than when I'm talking to women about education and empowerment and someone makes a statement to me that wealthy white women don't deal with sexism the same way, or blonde women don't deal with sexism the same way... and I'm left thinking... do I want to be a mansplainer or do I just shut up now and exit this conversation?

Do rich white women get beaten by their husbands?  Were they ever cheated on, forced to endure imbalanced relationships, where they were forced to smile and pretend everything was ok, but then turned to pills or booze to self-medicate?

If one went to a high powered college and was stuck in a good job, but not the great job they wanted, how is that not also misogynist?

I do believe that the more we spread out and combine issues that we want to combat, the more we diffuse the issues so that none of them are tackled effectively.  Focus on one issue you want to change, change it, then it's not an issue, then go to the next.

We will die before we reach true equality.  That is a done deal, it will not happen in our lifetimes.  But we may successfully open women's clinics, defeat a bill, reach a year where there were no sex assaults at a college, start a scholarship for young women.  Focus on one thing and focus on success and those goals will be met.
doloresflores_d 5ptsFeatured
@dcer You want feminism without race brought into it?

Ok--what if feminism tomorrow began to include all races of women in the world--except white women.

Feminism wouldn't talk about race at all. it would simply address the needs of all the women in the world--who are not white. white women who complained about this state of affairs would be accused of "playing the race card." And someone would step up and say over the white women's protesting voices, into a microphone "feminism is about women. It's about women's concerns. So please stop distracting us with your worries. This is feminism."

Would you feel at all frustrated? As a white woman I would. So why are white women so defensive about listening to the ways in which "feminism" by ignoring race has left out the voices of a LOT of women...?

It's not about getting so defensive and saying that you're not personally racist etc. etc. If you aren't racist and you care about feminism, you simply need to listen more to women who are all manner of color. It's not rocket science. It's feminism(s).
jazzy515 5ptsFeatured
As an African American male observer of this discussion(which has been at times,potent,polite and petty),I do believe the commonality of oppression(a guarded term as the oppression is not always of a common level) would be the universal uniter to all involved here.I know that on the male side of the equation,the united front of African and Hispanic(this is no 'slag on the exception/exclusion,of Asian and Native Americans,but a mere difference of obstacle)Americans,though not always unbreakably bonded,presents a 'face and force,definitely more sturdy than were it not so combined.I believe the immediate future portends great things forAmerican women and feminism distinctly.The election of the first woman president of the United States would make a powerful statement in progressive politics,of which America is decidedly(my opinion) behind in female Commander-In-Chief stature.The first step is always the hardest,yet I do believe women of all sections of the American community can coalesce behind this one political thrust.I do believe we Americans have to see a woman president of the United States to believe it actually can be done(it will be).With that accomplishment behind,I thinks Americans would be righteously proud to continue with this political experiment we call America.
Graham Clark 5ptsFeatured
I kindly offered insights
"Kindly"?
In fact, she could stand to sit in on a few of my women’s studies intro courses.
An ideological Russian doll here: White feminists protest sexism while practicing racism, Cooper protests their racism while practicing classism.
BrainDrain 5ptsFeatured
Could we agree that it is possible for two people to disagree about some issue involving race without one of them necessarily being racist?
And while some liberals are too quick to "play the race card", many of their opponents are just as quick to play the "you played the race card!" card.
morocha 5ptsFeatured
I just saw this on a blog post and I thought it fit well with the tone of the [unfortunately] majority of discussion here: "Having a seat at the table is not the same as having a voice. After all, it was not long ago that it was customary for American children to be seen and not heard at the dinner table. Under the pretense that modern laws and institutions reflect our sacred phrase “all men are created equal,” we often assume that seating brown, black, gay, and female bodies around some symbolic table is the same as inviting them to speak. Easier said than done. Even when they do speak, and others at the table pretend to listen, polite nods and buttery phrases like “hmm we will consider it, thank you for your input” suffice as enough consolation that they’re making an effort to be inclusive...[<--this is an adequate description of feminism in its current state]...The polite nods are followed by statements about unity, the common good, mutual security, true mission, progress — all of which create the sugar that helps the medicine go down. Even in the midst of discussion about racism, the conversation is always brought back to the majority— its defenses, its intentions, its comfort level, its wants, its needs [<--in this case, the majority=white feminists]. So goes the process of objectification: the winner is he[/she] who makes his[/her] world seem necessary. To me, anyway, it is blatantly clear which people remain in the lead." --Emma Northcott (http://emmanorthcottblog.wordpress.com)
Oliva Does It 5ptsFeatured
@morocha "To me, anyway, it is blatantly clear which people remain in the lead"

Yeah. It's a race (pardon the pun). A contest. By Emma's construction. 

She wrote that it is offensive to be ignored. Yet if she hears that "hey I'm a white woman and I notice that you only use the term "white feminist" as a slag and I think that's bad." She ignores her.  But God forbid anyone not black define black feminism.

It's a race. There's got to be race winner. And Emma knows who is in the lead. She keeps score. 

In feminism there has got to be winners and losers to Emma.

But imagine a world where feminists didn't slag on one another for their race. 

Where it is inappropriate for a feminist of one race to say "you know this is how bad those over there are."



doloresflores_d 5ptsFeatured
It's not inappropriate in this case. As a white feminist I want to hear all the voices in the room, and when white voices are dictating instead of listening to what is said it's not an equality party.
The defensiveness around race of many white feminists is worth criticizing. Where are white feminists on ferguson? And I'm sad that white upper or middle class feminists are willing to throw caregivers under the bus when it comes to rights.
Either everyone is a woman or none of us are. Women's rights are human rights. All women.
Gayleg 5ptsFeatured
You pretend that there is a feminist movement going on right now, led by white women who are ignoring others? Please. Truth is, there hasn't been any type of women's movement (unless you count backwards, as in losing ground) in 20+ years. This nonsense is an internet creation.
dcer 5ptsFeatured
@Gayleg  So... the Girls Rock Camps are what, either anti-feminist or not a creation of the last 10 years?
dcer 5ptsFeatured
@doloresflores_d  Where are the white feminists on Ferguson?  Like, everywhere.  How did you not hear them or read their posts? 
moxieminx 5ptsFeatured
What's really sad is instead of recognizing and appreciating the work of the home health aides of this world, Ms. Cooper brushes it off as "low wage".  Caring for people in need is a noble and needed service.  So instead of diminishing the people (men and women) who do this, how about we work to see that they are compensated fairly for the value they bring to our world.  There will always be some people for whom this is the kind of work they can or want to do.  There will always be, and we will always need garbage people, and someone to clean the bathrooms.  There is no shame in that kind of work, but they should be able to earn a living wage doing it.  THAT would be justice.
susan sunflower 5ptsFeatured
@moxieminx  The "over represented well-to-do white women" of the 1960-1970s, came about because aside from having the time and freedom to work tirelessly for feminist causes -- much of the emphasis of early (1970s) was in getting women elected to public office and fundraising and development in support of their campaigns. Many of these women had experience in being politically active - in party politics, in the civil rights movement, and local causes. My mother's best friend was on the ground floor of the "Women's Political Caucus" back in the 1960's. She was a university chair's wife. Yes, there were plenty of upper middle class (don't need to work) "professional" volunteers, often then supplement by employed professional women again disproportionately white. 
I advise everyone to get active volunteering in your own "free time" and then get back to me about just how your dedication and enthusiasm are holding up in 6 months. 
I've never been very interested in the in-fighting of the "feminist movement" -- the 1970's turned me off righteously -- and my experience of working as a volunteer and with volunteers has been that, like everything else, there's too often a lot more petty personal bullsh*t than I have patience for. 
However, I've never seen evidence that the dominance of well-to-do volunteer ladies who lunch, joined by various members of the professional classes and the "intelligencia" (writers, academics, emerging professional feminists)  was deliberately exclusionary. 
It's always hard to join a movement that has already largely set their agenda (getting women elected to various offices). I will be interested when Cooper's new brand of feminism settles on an agenda and a path to its success.


susan sunflower 5ptsFeatured
Oh, and Cooper's still flailing at Michelle Goldberg ...
"" As Michelle Goldberg’s piece made clear, Internet feminism is a place where young women of color, black women in particular, hold an inordinate amount of power and influence. This makes many, many white women deeply uncomfortable.""
Show me all this power and influence -- power to do what (tweet more?) and influence (over an army of anonymous pseuds?)  -- I remain skeptical of the actual power of internet activitism beyond crowd funding and having 1000 internet petitions bloom.
I'm not sure how uncomfortable Goldberg might be.  I'm not uncomfortable, but I sense an "emperor having no clothes" aspect in which all that "activism" is a feel-good-moment that salves that feeling that one should, may, actually do something -- see also Zizek on Starbucks' activism and philanthropy.
dcer 5ptsFeatured
@susan sunflower  My gosh, how accurate Susan.  I am a man who has spent 25 years working on feminist issues.  But I'm like a stereotypical man (and I recognize it), and so I focus on pinpointed, achievable goals and am not interested in the process. All I want are results- women elected to office, women in CEO positions, women in 50% of positions of all kinds of power from the factory to the boardroom. 

I want my boys to go through a high school where no girl is assaulted the whole 4 years they attend it. 

So when I see people focused on "the process" or "inclusionary voices" or "spreading awareness" or basically talking instead of acting, it goes completely against my worldview- I also sense the "Emperor had no clothes" and I avoid those timewasters like a plague.
Oliva Does It 5ptsFeatured
@susan sunflower The 1970's were almost 50 years ago. 

If you've accepted microwaves, cell phones, and streaming tv and the internets, accept that white feminism is not the same.

In fact, new white feminists are being born all the time. Too bad they walk into "feminist" conversations being told what current "white feminisms" are by Cooper who is neither white nor an inclusive feminist, nor ever holds out the hope that "white feminism" would be anything other than a slag term. To do different wouldn't suit her brand.

It's like telling a black boy they will be a criminal because...that's what they are. Guilty before charged. And the teller would know because he knew that bad one one time and paints the whole race.

"White feminist." You can be white. You can be feminist. We should have more of them. It should not be a slag term.

Feminism is about everybody. Everyone is of equal value. 
susan sunflower 5ptsFeatured
Oh, I agree -- it's just that the "whiteness" of feminism's roots was not racially based, so much as reflective of the socioeconomics  and a tradition of activism and volunteering that went with it.  And it was never "lily-white" or concerned only with getting women candidates elected -- although many of the most important "steps" that have been won have been the result of laws and court-rulings.
The Civil Rights movement and Johnson's War on Poverty were not ancient history, however, the poor -- of all races -- have largely vanished from the public conscience. 
I agree completely that there are many campaigns that should be undertaken that -- while disproportionately improving the lot of the poor and people of color -- will bring us closer to equality, and that in our crazy class-infused materialistic culture, the currently privileged will unashamedly fight any and all changes tooth and nail. 
Don't get me started on celebrity culture, cough, Beyonce  ...

doloresflores_d 5ptsFeatured
If you don't want the slag listen more carefully to why the slag is there and try to be different. A more accurate example is a white man being born today and being told that he's a sexist. I hope he isn't a sexist. But part of what he needs to learn in the world is the history of what white men have done to women and to people of color and try to acknowledge that and live his life differently. If he doesn't understand history he can't find his place in it or transcend it.
Ditto white feminists. I'll say this incindiary thing which is that many white feminists do not acknowledge that part of the reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2008 wasn't just because of sexism. She lost a lot of the left by making borderline racist dog whistles. The same with many of her supporters who made disrespectful comments toward women of color.
dcer 5ptsFeatured
@doloresflores_d  I was once called racist when I tried to stop two black men from "hollering" at a woman on the street, or, essentially, sexually harassing her.  Parse that one out, it's bothered me for 20 years.

I don't have to acknowledge race or history when I fight sexism and it makes me a better person for it. 

Look at how fear of being labeled racist stopped authorities from acting in the Rotherham child abuse scandal.  Google it, it's enlightening.

Sometimes achieving women's rights is more important than the process.
doloresflores_d 5ptsFeatured
@dcer @doloresflores_d  "I don't have to acknowledge race or history when I fight sexism and it makes me a better person for it.  " Ha. 
That's a tautology. How do you know it makes you  a better person? Because it conveniences you say so?
Because you find it easier? 
 
Intellectual laziness has rarely made anyone who I know, including myself, a better person in any way. But feel free to elaborate if you've found some sort of breakthrough in how a lack of knowledge or listening to other people has caused you to achieve more for the women of the world.
As for "fear of being labeled racist" --I don't need to use google to know that fear of being labeled racist is not the fault of black people who talk about racism. It's in part a white narcissism problem.
Which would you realistically rather experience? Being labeled as a racist only on rare occasions by people you don't know particularly well? Or experiencing structural racism on a daily basis? 
I think that for we lazy people, being labeled as a racist (however unfairly) is a WHOLE LOT EASIER than experiencing real world racism. Yet you see quite a few white people on these boards going crazy trying to figure out ways for themselves not to ever be labeled as racists...maybe making tee shirts for themselves with "NOT A RACIST" labels on them...rather doing the easier or the more direct thing, which is: trying to listen to women of color describe ways that we can help to change structural racism in our society.

The fact is that demographically alone, white women aren't enough to keep feminism together. We're on our way to becoming a minority.  Feminism is a global thing and listening to women of color lead the way on women's rights sounds like a refreshing change of pace to me.

Viva la revolution.


Benthead 5ptsFeatured
I didn't see Cooper diminish health aides at all. The fact is, those are low wage positions, aren't they? I didn't see anything in the article that suggested she, too, doesn't wish to see workers receive better compensation.
This comment has been deleted
RichardRick 5ptsFeatured
Here is where I have a problem with this story (beyond the fact that I'm not real sure feminist are even effect rather than stirring up the emotions and insecurities of their own base).... 

Brittney states : "So what we need feminism to give a care about is not simply or primarily the plight of white middle-class, putatively straight, American moms and their children, but rather the plight of non-white, non-middle-class, non-straight, non-cisgender, non-American women and children.  Black feminism taught me that."
By stating "rather" and then excluding white women from the new list she actually states that all of those other types of women are MORE important than white women. That is not an inclusive statement. It's the opposite. And it's not equality. It's bitterness. And she's intelligent enough to know what she did there.
BrainDrain 5ptsFeatured
@RichardRick  She also says "not simply or primarily" which indicates that she does mean to keep white women in the mix. I am concerned that you may be a concern troll.
danaseilhan 5ptsFeatured
Part of the problem is that very intersectionality we all need to be talking more about, because your average white feminist with a national platform is an academic feminist, meaning they (not always she) managed to get a university degree, placing them in a higher socio-economic class than a lot of the white women who also have to contend with these economically unjust laws.  Working-class white women are not as bad off as working-class black women, obviously, because then the racism comes in, but we're definitely not in the same class as the feminists with the platform.  We're left to pretty much figure things out on our own.  You might not see as many working-class white women in the scut-work jobs if you live in the city, but they very much exist in that work sphere in small towns and rural areas.  And where we are not so much exploited for our housekeeping skills, we *are* reproductively exploited.  It's gotten to the point I occasionally issue snarky tweets with the #NotYourHandmaid hashtag, the sense of entitlement of rich and middle-class white women to poor white women's children has gotten so pervasive.  Yes, now they're going after poor WOC's children too, but for a long time that wasn't so.

So yeah, we definitely need intersectionality, we need to be working together on this and take everyone's experiences into account.  Otherwise we wind up playing a perpetual game of Political Whack-A-Mole--we might solve a gender issue, but we missed a loophole and now there's a new race issue;  squash that one and here comes a new class issue.  It's exhausting.
proudfemme 5ptsFeatured
Once again, Professor Cooper, you nail it. 

But as a white feminist I have something to say. Not as a critique (because I have no issue with what you're written). I agree that white feminists, in their desire to define feminism as it's own distinct civil rights issue, unwittingly fail to grasp that this inherently poses a problem for women of color, who already HAVE a civil rights struggle that they are already waist deep in thankyouverymuch. 

Forcing women of color to engage in a dialectic that necessitates them to pitt their identity as women in competition with their racial identity in talking about matters of justice and equality is wrong on every level. The progressive agenda is built on the notion that no one should have to deny any part of their identity in order to operate in the world effectively. 

What I have to say unfortunately borrows from that really irritating appropriator of black culture, the rapper Macklemore. (even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes....) "No freedom 'till we're equal." A line that in turn borrows heavily from an idea offered first by 60's civil rights activists. The idea that it does not matter if I am a white person. If my black brothers and sisters have an incomplete and inferior justice to my own, as an American, my justice is incomplete as well. If you are a man, and women are not treated equally, then your equality as an American is incomplete as well. If we're not all living in a free and just society, then none of us is. And we need to get busy fixing that. 

I'm not sure how that works its way through the dialogue, but I do know that if more white people really felt that way in their bones, we'd have a chance to get someplace with this. I don't have all the answers, only a few stray thoughts.

Daniel H 5ptsFeatured
@proudfemme Macklemoor didn't appropriate black culture.  He raps about his own life and experiences, and while I don't necessarily care for the guy's music he's not appropriating anything by rapping.

I'm not going to let a white women (or anyone else for that matter) define what I am allowed to be interested in or enjoy because of my ethnicity.  That is racism right there in your post.
Q Public 5ptsFeatured
@Daniel H @proudfemme Daniel H, really? that's your take-away from proud femme's post....?
Daniel H 5ptsFeatured
@Q Public @Daniel H @proudfemme I'm not going to respond to all of it, as I am in agreement with many of her points.

My response was to one of her points I do not agree with, and I will call out people whose politics I sympathize as often as I call out people whose politics repulse me.  Deal with it.
Problematic Privileged Pillbug Ally 5ptsFeatured
@proudfemme So, you understand, and if only more (white) people felt just like you...?

This exemplifies the self-aggrandizing attitude of the prototype identity politick-"Ist." There is no communicating with the Privilege Theory spouters, as there is no rigor in any thought beyond utter self-assuredness.
Q Public 5ptsFeatured
Great column, Ms Cooper. You are exactly right. I was excited to read the exchange because I really like Rebecca Traister, but couldn't even get 1/3rd of the way down into Shulevitz first letter. It was so off-point, self-satisfied, and annoying I was very quickly done with her. 

To quote a Latina blogger: "my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit!" 
Oliva Does It 5ptsFeatured
@Q Public Yeah. And to be intersectional, you don't slang on any race.

You may disagree with Shulevitz, but to conflate she to speak for all white feminists is wrong.

It's racist to take someone's ideas and say not only are they wrong, but that it is representative of "that whole group over there...you know how THEIR kind are." 
danaseilhan 5ptsFeatured
@Oliva Does It It is not racism unless it is backed by political power.  If you want to call it racial bigotry, that would be more accurate, IF you could show that it is racial bigotry.  I don't happen to agree with you there, however.  And I'm white.  (If it matters, and it doesn't.)
GTWilson 5ptsFeatured
@danaseilhan @Oliva Does It 
 " It is not racism unless it is backed by political power."
Nah, one can be racist without practicing institutionalized racism. 'Bigotry' evokes discrimination not limited to racial bias.
Problematic Privileged Pillbug Ally 5ptsFeatured
@danaseilhan @Oliva Does It

"It is not racism unless it is backed by political power. "

Why are post-structural Privilege Theory folks so hung up on this? You win no one over by arguing pedantics, especially when you are, in effect, telling the bulk of the country that they don't understand the meaning of simple words.


BrainDrain 5ptsFeatured
@Problematic Privileged Pillbug Ally @danaseilhan @Oliva Does It  Also, just to be pedantic, the word you wanted was "semantics".
morocha 5ptsFeatured
@Oliva Does It Shulevitz's thoughts are actually in line with what I've heard/read from many white feminists within the movement. And I believe she is speaking about white feminism as a collective not every individual white woman who happens to identify as a feminist--there is a difference.
Q Public 5ptsFeatured
@Oliva Does It I hear what you're saying, but unfortunately the history of white female feminism has not always been something to be proud of when it comes to inclusion. In fact, it's contained a lot of racism and a lot of the notion of "once we get ours we'll just have to accept that's all we can get" and women of color's needs left behind. 

And unfortunately, Shulevitz's essays basically epitomized that kind of thinking. 

So, yeah, I think Brittany Cooper's column is right on target. Unfortunately. 
Oliva Does It 5ptsFeatured
@Q Public @Oliva Does It No group of thinkers have been 100% pure and wonderful not even black feminists. 

When I ask for names of current white feminists who are exclusionary, I get blanks or references to white feminists who were in their 50's in the 1970's and are dead now.

However it is clear that to always use the term "white feminist" as an insult, it is racist.

There are white people. There are feminists. Maybe some being born today. 

They wonder...what is feminism? If people divide feminism by race, what is mine? 

Oh. It's a curse word. "white feminism" or "white feminist" is always used as a negative. Never even as a neutral. But white is what some people are born to. And it's racist to put them guilty before charged. 

When I ask, what organizations are excluding you now? Who are the non intersectional currently alive feminists? 

No answers.

But the picture of the evil white feminist powerful ones with the power to shut down black feminists, it keeps getting painted with no names. Like the Japanese were made into evil cartoon characters during world war II. 

And like on Fox news, who also loves to define feminism, the people defining current "white feminism" aren't white. 


Oliva Does It 5ptsFeatured
 People who want to create hate and division always set themselves up as the "Definer." You know. Like you always hear what "feminists" are from mainly nonfeminists. If you do a Google search on the term "feminist" you'll get more returns higher on the search from people who aren't feminist who are saying what those women over there are and what they stand for. 

Similarly, if you do a Google search on the term "white feminist" you get no positive returns. You'll even find bloggers who put in the description of their blog that they are against "white feminism."

It's their brand.

You'll never hear them using the term "white" for anything positive. And imagine the young white woman who is trying to decide if feminism is for her. Immediately they are told "white feminism" is awful. They are also expected to apologize before any comment they make. They are expected to join the slanging on any white woman who gets a top selling book, tv show, etc, as "who does she think she is?" You'll even hear that it is impossible for a white woman to be feminist.

Yet - 

There is a diversity of white women. To take the opinion of one and say that she stands for all white women and to say "see! see! I indict all white feminism" is being an asshole.

How dare a white woman say -- "Would the exclusion of mostly minority home health care workers and others at the low end of the pay scale from paid-sick-leave legislation be grotesque, unjust? Absolutely. Should we take the legislation if we can get it? Absolutely. We build from there."

WHAT AN AWFUL THING TO SAY! SEE! SEE! WHITE FEMINISTS ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE!

Only a troll would say the sentences about not excluding minority people above are racist and somehow is about all white women feminism. This is the hateful division she speaks of: sentences like the one above.

One woman striving to work to make the world better, well, you may disagree with her, but no one elected her to speak for all white feminists. 


What would it be like to create a movement that accepted all comers? That celebrated the achievements of women? That was not racist? Not shame based for race. 

Currently, reluctantly, Cooper admits that there is one white feminist that sometimes says things she likes. You know. "One of the good ones." But continues to paint the term "white feminist" as a broadbrush negative. Kinda like white people once said there was "good ones" of other races and that was racist.

What does "not being racist" look like? Well, when you enter into a conversation with feminists, no one of any race is expected to apologize for the race they are. Also, their opinions are not expected to indict the whole race they are a member of. There is no "See! see! see! that's how all (white, black, asian, hispanic, indian) women are!!!!" 


You'd see the race of a person (including men) not as an indictment to what is possible for them now. Is it impossible for a white woman to be a feminist? A man? Yes. However, some people are building media brands just about "See, see those women over there with their ...white race and being feminist!"


It would be wrong to say that Cooper speaks for "Black feminism." And God forbid that a white woman made a career out of defining what black feminism is for everyone. It would be like one of the Fox news talking heads defining what feminism is. And they must define it as a war on 'Merica. However, this is how it is when Cooper defines "White feminism." And she must define white feminism as a war on black women. Or else she doesn't have a brand. 
danaseilhan 5ptsFeatured
@Oliva Does It The stuff that is just called "feminism" is assumed to be white feminism by default--by white, temporarily abled, cisgendered, straight feminists.  Feminism by people (not just women) of any other race is modified with an adjective.  Radical feminism or queer feminism or disability-rights feminism or what have you.  Those aren't official terms, no, but that's how people think, especially white people.  Again, I'm white, if it matters, and it doesn't.
Oliva Does It 5ptsFeatured

Who assumes this?

I don't know of a single feminist group or site that doesn't seek to be inclusive. Not that there are huge powerhouses.

Ms Magazine? Um. No.
Feministing? Um. No.
NOW. Um. No.
Academics? Um. No.
Salon? Um No.
Gloria S? Um. No. and never did.
Maybe Wikipedia...um. nope.

Maybe it is at the secret feminist club meetings we have that I totally missed. They are supposed to have great money and power that they withhold from women of color and the white feminists just roll in the power and the money in their liberal advocacy groups. Or so I've heard. 

Lemme see... when I look across the feminist foundations that I know, they actively seek to be diverse.  

It's not like we have elected feminist government.

Oh...do ya mean feminism back when Betty F was active? Or a 50 year old reference in a high school book? 

Oh, I get it. There was that one white feminist that wrote that book about Leaning In or something and it made the best seller's list.

HOW DARE SHE! ....write about her own experience and include studies..or use her connections to get on TV talk shows...
Patrick McEvoy-Halston 5ptsFeatured

I don't know of a single feminist group or site that doesn't seek to be inclusive. 

I agree, but that doesn't mean that they aren't. My guess is that it owes to part of their psyches not being able to shut out the fact that women of colour tend to be more conservative than they are -- Brittney Cooper's discussion of childrearing "styles" brought this out in full bloom last week. 

Their conscious selves may be blithely insisting that they are no more progressive than other "sisters," but their unconscious awareness of it is why there is fight to institutionalize their own voice and ultimately arbitrate what feminism is to be about -- i.e. whitesplain. 
BrainDrain 5ptsFeatured
@Oliva Does It  "People who want to create hate & division always set themselves up as the 'definer'". That is an important point, but it's more difficult than that. Everyone who states an opinion has a tendency to set themselves up so, it's the way we learn culture & language use. You really don't want to have to say "as I understand it" several times a sentence. My advice is to do your best to remain aware that your viewpoint is limited, and better flexible than not; and be ready to defend your definitions calmly rather than hotly. Not saying you're wrong, just adding a perspective. 
doloresflores_d 5ptsFeatured
@mystery princess- no. Do you hear how condescending you sound?
Listen to black feminists including this one more respectfully. Then try again to respond.
Show More Comments
advertisement

follow salon

brought to you by

Most Read

From Around the Web

Presented by Hexagram
advertisement
advertisement
Copyright © 2014 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited.

SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.

Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone. See the Facebook Help Center for more information.
SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone. See the Facebook Help Center for more information.
0%
 
10%
 
20%
 
30%
 
40%
 
50%
 
60%
 
70%
 
80%
 
90%
 
100%