Solidarity?

This weekend the hashtag #WOCAffirmation was trending on twitter. It has spurred a lot of... well, a lot of everything.

I need to be very upfront and say that I am still in the early stages of identifying and dealing with my own racism. Yes, I have racism to deal with. I don't like it. I don't want to admit it but if I don't I'll never face it and I will never change from the inside out. So there it is.

As I'm learning and, specifically, as I tried to read tweets and learn from #WOCAffirmation a political cartoon I've seen before kept coming to mind:

In this picture (take from this blog post about white privilege) a white man is disparaging a woman of color. I don't think many women would have trouble identifying with the woman in this picture. We know that we face many more obstacles than do men, we also know that we get told we're overreacting or whining or whatever other bs men come up with.

However, as white women, what we often fail to see is that there should be an additional lane in this cartoon. A lane between the white man and woman of color with a white woman preparing to run. This lane would contain some of the same obstacles as the woman of color faces, maybe the crocodile and the spikes stay but the ball and chain, barbed wire and brick wall are removed. Thus, the woman of color faces all of the same obstacles as the white woman plus additional obstacles due to her ethnicity/race. The man's comment is directed at both women but in the new cartoon the white woman repeats his comment to the woman of color.

Why???

We know what this feels like. We know what it is like to have to work harder, to have to prove ourselves better, to be harassed and put down and treated like we are lesser because we are women and then to be told we should really be a "team player."

Anyone ever felt like "um, you're not on my team!"? I sure have.

So, why do we do this to women of color? Why do we call for "female solidarity" (just another way of saying "team player") while refusing to acknowledge the whole slew of additional obstacles women of color face? Why do we do to them what is being done to us?

Why do we participate in the cycle of abuse?

"But not all white women are like that!"

No, but neither are all men and you sure as hell wouldn't let a man get away with that excuse. We expect men to look at their culture as a whole, to conscientiously pick apart their behavior and to acknowledge the systemic patriarchy (and rightly so). Yet, we do not expect the same of ourselves when approaching issues of feminism and racism.

I'm embarrassed and pained by my refusal to see and acknowledge this in the past. I'm grateful to the women of color who have helped and continue to help me learn through friendship and through public advocacy.

Let us disengage from the cycle of abuse.