Dear White Women, It's Time to Confront White Supremacy
I can’t help but think about the 53 percent of white women who voted for the man who invoked the terrorist act in Charlottesville, Virginia. That same man, 45, didn’t outright condemn white supremacy in his response to the event. In fact, those white women were the main thing that I thought about because I couldn’t help but notice their deliberate silence. It was those same white women who advocate for “free-the-nipple” feminism on a regular basis. It was the same white women who campaign for a feminism that isn’t inclusive, a feminism that indirectly emphasizes white supremacy by putting the issues of white females ahead of others.
I can’t help but think about the mothers, sisters, wives, and girlfriends who’ve supported the white nationalists that conducted the heinous act. Hell, those men probably went home to full-course meals and woke up to breakfast in bed from their significant others this morning. There were probably a bunch of soothing conversations held and words of comfort initiated by those women who pose as feminists.
I can’t help but think about Kendall Jenner’s tone deaf Pepsi commercial and imagine her handing a Pepsi to a white supremacist in Charlottesville to ease their pain. Then I thought about white women similar to her who are oblivious to the threat of white supremacy while being loud and clear on social media about women wearing whatever they want and unsurprisingly appropriating black culture from time to time.
I can’t help but think about those two white girls at my school who, when having a discussion about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, blamed black people for not being successful and deeming affirmative action as unfair and having the audacity to say that all black people have to do is get a job so that everything will be alright. She said it as if that was the jackpot solution for years of being subdued under systemic racism. I can imagine those same girls being outspoken about women’s rights.
I can’t help but imagine how quiet those white girls in my dorm last year would be on matters involving racism. It’s those same white girls who flaunted their black boyfriends as if they were the next best thing. I remember those same white girls not being discrete in blasting their hip-hop music in the shower. Now, I’m not saying that white girls can’t do these things, but it’s hypocritical for them to do them when they are oblivious and/or silent to the oppression experienced by Black people and other minorities of color.
This isn’t a post intended to bash white women. I am only criticising the hypocrisy of white feminists who are nowhere to be found when it’s time to confront white supremacy but are clear in their support for gender equality . The burden is almost always placed on the backs of women of color when denouncing hate and racism, and that shouldn’t be. In fact, the deliberate silence of white women makes them complicit in acts of white nationalism, and women of color, especially black women, always have to clean up their mess. While there are many white women who are freedom fighters and advocate for intersectionality and attempt to make it work, the election results reflect that there are more who’d rather settle for white supremacy.
It’s time for white women to stand up and condemn racism and oppression done by white men. Actually, the time has been passed for them, but I’m just tired of black women always doing the work.