Mad Gastronomer

Right, then. Listen up, white feminists.

We gotta talk about this shit. I mean it. This has gotten completely fucking ridiculous. We cannot, not one of us, be doing this shit, and we cannot be let others of us do this shit.

Look, I hear you, SlutWalk is this fantastic idea, and you’re all super excited about it. I get it. Rape is bad, and victim blaming is bad, and we’ve found this flashy way to try to get the word out.

Only the way we’re doing it sucks ass. First of all, a whole lot of women of color really, really aren’t happy about our flashy new thing, and I don’t blame them a bit. They find no room in our happy shiny exciting fun SlutWalk movement for them. They don’t want to reclaim the word slut, because they get called it all too often. And so they, once again, feel pushed out of feminist demonstrations, as they have felt many times. And they have let us know. And we keep ignoring them. SW NYC organizers, instead of engaging with the critique or the women who presented the open letter to them, treated it as fucking damage control.

And then, at the SlutWalk itself, after white feminists have already ignored WOC and treated them as if they are the opposition or the ignorant public, some white woman goes around holding up a sign with the N-word on it. The only black woman in the organizing collecting was the one who had to ask her, ever so nicely, to please put it down because it was offensive. None of the white women around her bothered. And the white members of the collective and the white woman’s friends have gone on the defensive. There’s been deletion of comments on SW’s facebook, there’s been a member of the collective going around telling black women off for criticizing the sign in their own blogs, the girl’s friends are all insisting she’s not racist. The whole thing is a clusterfuck.

White women using that word are being racist. That quote, that line, is erasing of black women, and is racist. Defending the use of the word, trying to silence black women talking about that sign, trying to tell black women they should just understand and stop making such a fuss is fucking well racist. And after all that, calling on black women to be in solidarity with white women on feminist issues? That’s racist, too.

The WOC on my Tumblr feed keep saying, “White women, come get your people.” OK. I’m coming. I’m making a commitment to telling off these racist white feminists, to challenging them, to calling them on their racism. I’m coming to get them.

And I’m declaring myself in solidarity with black women on this. I’m calling on other white feminists to do the same. Don’t ask black women to be in solidarity with you if you’re not willing to be in solidarity with them.

By declaring myself in solidarity with black women, I admit that they know more than I do about their lives and about racism, and I commit myself to sitting down, shutting up, and listening to them when they talk about it. I admit also that I am going to fuck up, and when I do, I will be told about it, and that it is my duty as a feminist and a social justice advocate to listen to that, to apologize sincerely with no explanation, and then to go educate myself so that I don’t make that mistake again. I will not ask WOC to educate me.

And I admit, no, I declare, that it is my duty to come get the white women who are being racist, and tell them myself when I see them, and not wait for a WOC to do it first.

I call on all white feminists to do the same. Step up, women. Be in solidarity.