Black Women and (or vs.) White Women: Are They Really Our Allies?

Yeah, she is off the chain crazy-talented! And thank you for providing the link to SLS's MySpace because hopefully people will check them out. I've been actually trying to get a hold of her for an interview.

Funny how you mentioned her singing style because not a lot of people ( men included) can pull off both the death growl and actually sing and the band nicely incorporates it into the music. Thanks!

Contributing Editor - Race, Ethnicity & Culture

Blog: Writing is Fighting: www.lainad.typepad.com ( http://www.lainad.typepad.com/ )

Writer: Hellbound:

Laina,

A bit off topic, but have you heard of Straight Line Stitch? I saw them in Ohio a few years back and then in Indiana. Their lead singer, Alexis, is simply AMAZING. I really think you'd like her! Back when I was into that music scene, my friend and I absolutely adored her. It's rare that screaming can so perfectly blend with melodic vocals.

I found their myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/straightlinestitch

Amanda

It's super tough to be a woman in the metal scene. Period.  I used to front a prog-metal band, and I swear I got more respect from the men at the shows then I did from the women. While race does have a roll in female to female interactions,  I would argue that class, education, and mental maturity play an even bigger part.  I've been treated with similar disrespect by that same sort of woman and I'm a tall, white, blonde female myself.  It's that mean girl B.S. and it has to do with cliques, clubs, and insecurities even more then any more generalized division. 

Anyway, what your doing takes an incredible amount of, well, for lack of a better term, balls. So long as you truely have passion and interest in the music, you will always be welcome to any music scene.  People who show up thinking money assures their acceptance will be dissapointed time and again with how little anyone actually cares about them.

Alright Sarah, we're on! just let me know where you live and we'll party (and hopefully avoid fights)!

Contributing Editor - Race, Ethnicity & Culture

Blog: Writing is Fighting: www.lainad.typepad.com ( http://www.lainad.typepad.com/ )

Writer: Consequence of Sound:

I for one cannot imagine what the color of one's skin could possible have to do with liking metal, but maybe that is just how I grew up.

I'm not blonde, but I would be happy to go to a death metal show with you and push all of the bitches out of your way so that you can get good pictures. Actually, that sounds like a lot of fun!

:)

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Sports and Fitness ( http://blogher.org/topic/sports-fitness ) Sarah and the Goon Squad ( http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/ ) Draft Day Suit ( http://draftdaysuit.com/ )

These are wonderful comments.

One of the reasons why I was compelled to tackle this issue (besides the number of blog posts that emerged within the last week) was in part because of the disappointment I felt during the 2008 election. Where in theory, there should have not been divisions, as in yes, when Hillary Clinton ran for office it was clearly because she was qualified to do so and had noting to do with her gender, it became a divisive issue between Black and White Women.

It was ugly, and there were comments from people who to this day, I still have a fuzzy eyeball towards. All of a sudden, allegiances were demanded, and it wasn't pleasent - or fair.

Also, Megan, Kimberly, Suzanne and Nordette, I do agree with you. It does depend on the individual and blanket statements are not fair.....but real easy to make! People often say that you 'let' the behaviour of others bother you - that you do have a choice as to whether you let people's attitudes affect how you feel about yourself, but when they happen time and time again, what do you do?

Yes, the couple at the show obviously felt something, and they are entitled to their opinions, but what got me was the physicality of the situation. Fine, you have an issue, but don't touch me. Do not interrupt my work. That is where I draw the line.

About our relationships with "our own:" While I do have wonderful black female and male friends, overall, my relationships with black folks has been difficult and in some ways even more painful, as as I am often labelled as a "weirdo." These days, I'm just feeling really tired.

Contributing Editor - Race, Ethnicity & Culture

Blog: Writing is Fighting: www.lainad.typepad.com ( http://www.lainad.typepad.com/ )

Writer: www.hellbound.ca ( http://www.hellbound.ca ), www.exclaim.ca ( http://www.exclaim.ca )

I had an similar feeling once when a young white blonde-haired cheerleader cut the line somewhere public other than her school, but then I checked myself because I didn't want to adopt the same nasty self-absorbed attitude she had and start thinking that I was superior to her because I've suffered in black skin and she apparently thought the world belonged to her. I identified my resentment and like you started examining it more.

Hard topic to tackle, Laina. I once wrote a four-piece post that's now offline along similar lines when certain white feminists early in the campaign were saying women should automatically vote for Hillary Clinton and singled out black women. Some white women will never be allies just as some black women will never be. I'll have to read all of Melissa's piece and those comments too.

Your pictures are great! I'm an idiot with a camera. I think on some level I have camera-phobia.

Nordette Adams ( http://www.bookotopia.com ) is a BlogHer CE ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... ) & you can find her other stuff through Her 411 ( http://her411.com ).

I hope you don't mind I say that, Laina! I think the test of a great post can be in its comment thread and I love having the reader reactions to help me think about what you wrote, which I agree with everyone who said it was thought-provoking.

Some of the commenters know of my struggles w/learning about being an ally and practicing being an ally. I'm an enormous fan of Tami's writing, she always seems to hit just the right pitch - she's very gifted at that.  But I loved your writing in this post - I could really understand what you say was going through your mind and informing how you acted and all that.  It's so helpful.

I'm in the camp re: Kimberly et al re: can depend on the person.  And I'd urge folks who haven't followed the situation in Cleveland about a standout voice, Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, who got depicted as Aunt Jemima by the African-American paper here, the Call & Post. Some serious intergenerational, gender-based and race-based struggles over leadership and direction are going on and although I've not gotten a post up about it (I haven't blogged about anything in over a week!), it's a situation rich with stereotype-breaking examples of who supports who, what and when.  The comments in this Facebook group ( http://www.facebook.com/jillmillerzimon?ref=name#/... ) in support of Nina reveals a lot, but I will say one huge disappointment that I've voiced is that so few allies have come forward. 

And when I said that? I got emails from people, off the record, saying that because they were white, they didn't feel they could speak out against what was going on.  Frankly, I think that shows how behind Cleveland is, but also how much work is left to do here, in a city that has a sizeable and formidable African-American history of leaders.

Anyway - thanks for taking the time and energy and emotion to write this post. I really appreciate it.

Jill Writes Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

Hi Laina,

Thanks for a very thought provoking post.

I have to agree with Kimberly.  I think it depends on the women.  Just like all women, black and white, haven't had the same experiences, all black women haven't either.  I've had white women who were great allies and black women who not only didn't like me, but actively worked against me.

But I absolutely understand how you felt when that woman knocked into you as if she had every right to do it because "she belonged" and "you didn't."

BTW, your pictures are fabulous!

Megan

TV/Online Video Contributing Editor ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/megan-smith )

Megan's Minute ( http://www.megansminute.com/ )

Meg's Rad Reviews ( http://www.megsradreviews.com )

The feminist movement has been horrific when it comes to understanding the needs of the full spectrum of women (I nearly stopped identifying as a feminist during the Democratic primary, when mainstream feminist organizations insisted that it was my duty as a woman to support the women candidate merely because she was a woman), but if you look beyond traditional organizations, I think there is a lot more realization that things have been done badly in the past and must change.  I've come across enough feminists who understand how white privelege affects the "movement" that I have hope that feminism can grow.  However, it can't become more diverse if people don't want to join it, which then makes it a self-fulfulling prophesy that it only includes some people.  So while I understand why you don't call yourself a feminist and respect your decision, I hope that enough feminists can make the changes we so badly need in the movement that you will feel comfortable one day using that label because the movement represents you.  Although really, at the end of the day, it is just a label and it is actions far more than labels that count.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post.

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne-reisman ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://blogher.org/topic/feminism-gender ) Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Oth ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )

I'm not African American, but I am a woman of color, and I find Gone With the Wind's racial politics willfully ignorant. What's interesting to me is how some women identify with Scarlett, a spoiled, narcissistic, shallow southern belle. The book (and/or movie) is a relic of its time, but I believe with thoughtful framing by a committed anti-racist feminist critic, it could be an unsettling and powerful exposé of white women's sometmes all-too easy accommodation to the way racism operated in the plantation system and Jim Crow era.

With some ( http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/243825973 ) exceptions ( http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51944311 ), naming this "Cult of True/White Womanhood" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Domesticity ) seems like an area of feminist anti-racism poorly understood outside English departments. Probably because without the scaffolding of literature, we're forced to name some really unsavory and yes, pathological, dynamics. (How did white wives of plantation owners rationalize being married to rapists--their white slave-owning husbands? What mindset is required to overlook this? Frankly, in some ways I find this more pathological than what Harris-Lacewell carefully documents as the historical underpinnings of "unmarried African American motherhood.") And Harris-Lacewell's unstated and tangential observation that Sarah Palin ambiguously fulfills some of these updated ideas of "True Womanhood"--Palin's piety trumping the Jerry Springeresque details of early grandmahood--is probably why readers went a little crazy in the comments; they lacked this crucial context.

But for every Margaret Mitchell who writes Gone With the Wind, there's also a Harriet Beecher Stowe who writes Uncle Tom's Cabin as her contribution to the winning hearts and minds of 19th century white women over to the abolitionist movement. Or a Pearl Buck who writes The Good Earth (1931), about the plight of Chinese women, similarly directed at her white sisters.

I definitely believe there's a place for allies to stand alongside or behind their sisters (or brothers) in struggle. I think it also helps to be in an already diverse setting where you can have thousands of casual, informal interactions. And finally, we can always be emboldened and inspired by examples of people who find the courage to do the right thing even though they're surrounded by all the wrong things ( http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article... ).

Cynematic

P i l l o w b o o k ( http://cynematic.wordpress.com )

MOMocrats ( http://momocrats.typepad.com/ )

I think feminists, black and white, have been trying to deal with racism in a deeper way than women who do not identify as feminists. We have a ways to go but there is an on-going dialogue among feminists.

I just retired as Professor of Women’s Studies and Coordinator of the Women’s Studies program at Community College of Phila and every year I attended the national Women’s Studies conference. I can attest that that much attention was paid to issues of racism (as well as sexism, classicism and homophobia.)  All the texts commonly used in Introduction to Women’s Studies courses address the issues of race and ethnicity. Most of us try to help the students in our classes grapple with these issues in a way which avoids simplistic generalizations and stereotypes.

When I recall the bad old days when I was a young women and our society was hideously racist and sexist, I’m heartened by the  progress we’ve made.  I believe that women have made greater progress  in interracial understanding than have  men. Women in general, and feminists in particular,  have certainly spent more time trying to build bridges.

For anyone interested in exploring this, I recommend  The Trouble Between Us. An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement   by Winifred Breines.
She  analyses the difficulties of creating a multi-racial women's movement in the US and describes  how black and white feminists finally achieved some success in working together.
 Karen Bojar

http://www.the-next-stage.com/

Yeah Laina!!! I really liked Tami and Harris-Lacewell's posts. Thanks for the great links.

I try to be a decent ally and I think part of that is if someone is pissed off at me over my privilege, or gets mad at me and there is an aspect of racial politics there, I have to deal with that without freaking out. White people if criticized or the target of anger need to not cry "reverse racism" and be all butthurt. And apologize if they were being jerks and if they weren't, deal with it without then *becoming a jerk* and throwing that privilege around. And just go on being an ally.

Anyway, thanks for an amazing and substantial post with so much personal story and thoughtful commentary on the links. I appreciate it a lot how you complicate things and write in a way that follows the path of your own thought process.

Cool link for you back, Elizabeth Columba ( http://www.elizabethcolomba.com/ )'s oil paintings of black women in various historical periods (and painting styles), thanks to a post by skywardprodigal ( http://skywardprodigal.dreamwidth.org/924249.html ). They're really good and I think important.

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Liz Henry ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... )
Composite: Tech & Poetics ( http://liz-henry.blogspot.com/ )
lizzard@bookmaniac.net

As a Black woman, I must say that (in my opinion) it depends on the woman - not the race.

There are Black women who have been my allies, but there are also Black women who have been my "haters".  The same goes for White women (as well as women of every other race/ethnicity).

Kimberly/Mom in the City