RobinsonTheory (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} robinsontheory) wrote,@ 2009-06-12 09:30:00 |
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White feminists
Interesting post in![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
debunkingwhite about white feminists specifically, Jessica Hoffman's Open Letter to White Feminists.
White feminists have difficulty hearing letters which address them as a racial group, because white women don't usually see their whiteness as relevant. That's part of what makes it a privilege--that thinking of it as relevant is an option, rather than a necessity of survival.
I recently interviewed forty bisexual women in Toronto, a city that reports a visible minority population of 42.9% (with all the ensuing white panic that entails). Only 15% identified themselves as visible minorities. Of the remaining 85%, only 12.5% self-identified as white or Caucasian. The women who used these identifiers did not give additional details (e.g., British, or German) with one exception, who described herself as having a “boring WASP background.” This suggests that those women who receive white privilege may not see whiteness as a significant or even accurate identity themselves.
I wonder how white feminists can hear themselves addressed by a letter to white feminists if they have difficulty seeing their whiteness as anything other than politically neutral.
Interesting post in
debunkingwhite about white feminists specifically, Jessica Hoffman's Open Letter to White Feminists. White feminists have difficulty hearing letters which address them as a racial group, because white women don't usually see their whiteness as relevant. That's part of what makes it a privilege--that thinking of it as relevant is an option, rather than a necessity of survival.
I recently interviewed forty bisexual women in Toronto, a city that reports a visible minority population of 42.9% (with all the ensuing white panic that entails). Only 15% identified themselves as visible minorities. Of the remaining 85%, only 12.5% self-identified as white or Caucasian. The women who used these identifiers did not give additional details (e.g., British, or German) with one exception, who described herself as having a “boring WASP background.” This suggests that those women who receive white privilege may not see whiteness as a significant or even accurate identity themselves.
I wonder how white feminists can hear themselves addressed by a letter to white feminists if they have difficulty seeing their whiteness as anything other than politically neutral.
