Saturday Special: White Women And Oppression
This is the final post for Saturday Special.
I commented on Ally Henny’s post. Breaking it out for further discussion.
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All of these comments, and not once did I see whiffs of wipipo’s self reflection.
Hear this.
Every white person here has done a variation of this. Every one of you.
Rather than externalizing and virtual shaming of the white perpetrator, perhaps it just might be profitable to use your fictive imaginations and *see yourself as the perpetrator*. To see the unspoken but daily enforced violation writ larger than this one incident.
Nope. What I have seen here is a plethora of women either denying the experience, ‘helpful suggestions’ that refuse to take into account the dynamic that you all perpetuate, or think saying ‘that’s terrible’ or ‘ I’m so sorry’; all of which is self indulgent. And all of it is arrogance in thinking you would never commit such an act.
Let me assure you, on a generalized level, you all have. Period. And the refusal to not only own that, but also the refusal to say what steps you will take to do less harm *after the fact that you have perpetuated violence* speaks to that.
A few, only a few people managed to talk about the character that garnered almost no attention: the silent seatmate in the pew. That silence was violence as well. Did you locate yourself there?
On my Page, I shared this post and also told a small story of my own, where white people have no problem charging past me in a queue at our company cafeteria, or reaching past me wordlessly to get a tray or a bag of chips, and the fact that now I look before and behind me, and always there is a white or white adjacent person whom they have decided not to bother.
When I stand my ground waiting for the small courtesy of an ‘excuse me’ or ‘may i pass through’ they do go to the person behind me or in front of me, and then they find their voice. The small courtesies you afford yourselves, which you go out of your way to deny to us, is not just an aggression, it’s a slap.
And the silence of the person who did ‘rate’ the courtesy is just as fetid.
Never, in the seven years i have been at the worksite, has anyone called out the perpetrator. Never. No they get the nice white people courtesy, and they exchange nice white people smiles. That courtesy is not just to grease the wheels for themselves; it is to make plain that I was not worthy of the same consideration.
It is reinforcing supremacy.
Full stop.
This was a big deal, and the fact that white people here are seizing on the sliver of plausible deniability is a gaslighting tactic.
And every one of you has done it, either as the perp or as the silent, reinforcing bystander. Most probably, you have been both.
I could soften this by saying that you all have been socialized ‘not to see us’. But I won’t because after 500 comments, I don’t feel the need to be either that generous or that naive.
A challenge, really go back in your mind over the last year. Think about the times you were that woman in the pew, in the interactions you had. Think about your silence when you witnessed the behavior and how that turbo charged the harm. Think about that before you take too much pleasure about excoriating the antagonist in this scenario.
Because you have.
A small historical note. I read somewhere about segregation in the South in the 50’s and 60’s when overt aggression toward us was not only allowed, but encouraged. The story talked about a bus driver who said a simple thing to white people walking off his bus: ‘Watch your step’. That’s it. That’s all. Small meaningless courtesy right? Not so much. He made a point of never saying it to his black passengers.
Sometimes the harm is not in the active act. The harm lies in the negative; in what didn’t happen.
What happened mattered. And to those of us in the faith, it’s not just a matter of saying something in the moment, although that’s crucial; it’s a matter of confronting the unspoken mores and attitudes of your congregations and your denominations; it’s about treating race as the crucial matter it is in the pulpit, in your exec boards, in your deaconate, with your elders. That is going to mean a deep analysis of people of influence and power in your churches on every level. That means really talking about what it means to be church.
If the culture of your church is supremacist, the veracity of the preaching doesn’t matter; nor do your programs, nor does your faith statements. The onus is on the church, both on the congregational and the national level.
Again, this is a big deal.