Saturday Special: White Women and Oppression Post #2
This piece from Ally Henny resonates with me on so many levels. Not least of which is that I have endured the dynamic, almost on the daily, and from people who are the ‘good ones’ parishioners, colleagues, even friends who say they are ride or die.
The piece stands on its own. I am going to invite you to *not* do the usual contortions to minimize or neutralize the truth of what Ally is stating. Rather, I invite you to believe black women, this black woman in particular, and think about *how* it’s true, and most specifically, how it has been and or is true *for you*.
As well, I want you to employ your fictive imagination and, while keeping your left brain engaged in analysis of the dynamic, employing your right brain in fictive imagination. Imagine yourself sitting in a strange pew, or plane seat, or cafeteria, or meeting, alone. With people all around you, but no one truly seeing you.
That it happens in churches, including my own, is basic.
But those other places. To have to take a hit against your humanity with just enough plausible deniability as to almost make you gaslight yourself.
At work, we have a cafe on campus. I have begun noticing this: that white women, and all too often, NBPOC have no problem walking through the line in front of me; expecting me to cede ground, being annoyed if I don’t move fast enough or at all. I have started looking both in front and behind me to see to whom they might have done the same thing. Invariably, I see a white or white adjacent person. When I do have the presence of mind to stand my ground and they have to go in front of that person, the ‘so sorry’ ‘excuse me’ thanks so much’ runs rapiers through my ears.
This is in no way neutral behavior.
And it hearkens back to when our bodies and the airspace around them, were not our own.
White women like to talk so much about boundaries, their protective bubbles. Again, the lack of or unwillingness to generalize to their black counterparts is stunning. And violent.
Ally left the place of Grace because of the graceless and violent actions of a sister in the faith. I have struggled in the same way with other congregations and even with my own faith community now.
Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about the fact that we need to be armored against daily, sometimes hourly onslaughts, even when we have no airspace, or allies, to stand with us.
Read the comments. Reflect there and here.
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from Ally Henny, September 21, 2019
Story time [please feel free to share]:
White people don’t respect the bodies and space of black people…especially black women. White women are often the worst about this.
For as long as I can remember, I have experienced white girls/women intruding on and claiming my personal space with utter disregard for my personhood.
One particularly jarring incident happened at a church I was visiting.
The church had pews and there was a small pew in the very back that was no bigger than an oversized love seat. It could fit two people, but would be crowded for three strangers to sit on.
There was already somebody sitting on one end and I went and sat on the other.
This white woman comes up to me, and asks if I could scoot over. I looked to my side and back up at her. I was thoroughly annoyed, but not knowing why she was asking to sit there, I obliged.
I was annoyed because this church had a lot of available pews. In fact, the pew directly in front of us was twice as large and had twice the available space. I was also annoyed because there was something in her voice that felt like a command and not an ask coming from someone who needed the seat. I immediately stuffed my feelings and regretted feeling annoyed because I figured she must have had a legit reason for wanting to sit in that exact spot. Perhaps she was disabled or neurodiverse and needed to sit in that particular spot for some reason.
I was promptly disabused of any sympathetic notions I had toward her.
As the woman sat down, she told me that she normally sat on the pew directly in front of us (the pew that was twice as large and had ample space…there was just someone sitting at either end).
She said that she didn’t want to disturb the man who was sitting at the end of the pew. I gave her the side eye from hell. “I guess I could’ve sat somewhere else,” she said sheepishly, half to herself.
The service began and I bit my tongue. I was so angry and I really wanted to tell her off. She was wrong on multiple levels, but where she had me really messed up was the fact that she had more respect for the white man sitting on the end of the pew in front of me than she did for me, an obvious visitor to the church. I was sitting there looking at the bulletin and trying to orient myself before engaging in a worship experience at a new church. The man sitting in front of me was just sitting there.
She thoroughly invaded my personal space because she didn’t want to inconvenience the people on the pew in front of us by saying excuse me or asking them to scoot over into a pew with ample room.
I was fuming mad. I prayed and tried to get my heart in a good place, but I knew that I could not remain there without making a scene. So I got up and walked out.