“These students often spoke with the universal understanding that "woman" meant white like them. When race was discussed, at least one white woman would start crying out of white guilt. We could all exist as "women" in the classroom but not within our differences based on race, class and cultural identity. I felt that these crying spells frequently functioned to mask white women's racism about issues affecting women of color. White middle-class women who had been socialized by the dominant culture to be quiet could speak out in their women's studies classes. But time and again, they could not see that while their participation could be personally liberating, it could be silencing for women of color (and the few men of color), who because of race and gender often did not feel entitled to speak.”
—Siobhan Brooks, “Black Feminism in Everyday Life”“But I often think about the harsh life my mother and many Black women like her have lived in this country as a result of slavery, economic exploitation and systematic violence. Women's studies classes do not have to be a struggle for power between white women and women of color, yet that is often what they are because of white women's racism. White women must understand that the anger women of color express in and outside of the classroom toward them is not an issue of "hurt feelings" or "misunderstandings." To reduce our experience of that racism to "misunderstandings" is both racist and reductionist. It is akin to men telling women that we are overreacting to their sexism. The anger of women of color is a rational response to our invisibility. It is a rational response to a racist, sexist, capitalist structure. It is not constructive for white women to tell us that our anger is making it hard for them to relate to us, that our anger makes them feel uncomfortable, that we are not willing to find common alliances with them. This is a classic example of white women's racism. They fail to realize that in telling us there is no place for our rage, they are becoming a part of what is colonizing us - the denial of our reality. They have to accept the fact that they don't understand our experiences and have an opportunity to learn something, maybe even about themselves, as opposed to wanting to shut us up. Only then can any true understanding result among us.”
—Siobhan Brooks, ”Black Feminism in Everyday Life”
This is articulated far better than I ever could have said it
