Renee at Womanist Musings tells it like it T-I-S is again.
Below you will find the image of a woman holding a sign at a New York
Slutwalk that has led to a great deal of controversy online. I am late
to this issue but feel the need to discuss it, though it has been covered remarkably well by Latoya of Racialicious.
[Image]
As I understand it, there has been quite a bit of controversy over this image on Facebook, as well as tumblr. The organizers of slutwalk have released an apology that left a lot to be desired.
You may recognize that Woman is the Nigger of the World, as a reference to the John Lennon/Yoko Ono song.
It was problematic when they first performed it, and it is problematic
today. Though Ono is indeed a woman of color, she is not Black, and
therefore has no basis from which to attempt to reclaim this word. A
White woman attempting to do so, is layered with a history of so much
active oppression, that the racism in this sign amounts to a slap in
face to all Black women who were in attendance, and have had the
misfortune to come across the image online.
Unsurprisingly, it was a Black woman that asked her to take down her
offensive sign. Note that she is surrounded by White women, and yet no
one bothered to take offense to this. When she was asked to remove her
sign, she did immediately comply however, that does not in anyway
mitigate the racism of her action.
Recently, I have attempted to have several conversations about slurs,
because I believe the degree to which they are actively still in use is
damaging to marginalized people. Unless you belong to the group which
the slur has historically been aimed at, you cannot reclaim the slur.
This means no matter her intent, woman as nigger is racist. There can
be justification or explanation of her behaviour that removes the
offense and in fact, the purposeful nature of her actions adds a further
layer of contempt.
Woman is not now, or ever will be nigger of the world. Nigger is a slur
that applies specifically to Black people. This saying also implies
that there is a similarity of experience between White women and Black
women and nothing could be further from the truth. We have not forgotten
that White women wielded the whip alongside their White husbands. Many
of the gains White women have made, are specifically because the
heterosexual ones have been paired with straight White men or being
related to White men has given them economic advantages that have not
been offered to women of colour. When White women weren't benefiting
from their interactions with White men, they were using women of color
as support staff to achieve their goals. Woman can never be a
monolithic identity.
Some have claimed that the woman in question did not have the benefit of
learning about intersectionality and I call bullshit. It does not take
a sheep skin to know that the word nigger is unacceptable. This is
beneath 101 level. This is about the fact that equality for many White
women is not about true sisterhood with women of color, but having the
power to oppress in the same manner as their White male counterparts. I
think it is further important to note that there are plenty of
resources from which to get a firm basis in intersectionality today. If
one is not able to attend university as I did, then there are blogs and
libraries that are chock full of resources. Ignorance today is a
purposeful act. It is privilege to decide that one does not need to
educate oneself on the plight of historically marginalized people.
Finally, I would like to address the Slutwalk apology.
We regret that the woman who was carrying this sign felt it
was appropriate for our space. We regret that it took so long for
someone to tell her how wrong it was; and that this woman was a Black
woman, a woman of colour, as we know that anti-racism is not the sole
work of people of colour. We sincerely apologize for the emotional
trauma this sign has evoked in everyone who has been affected by it. We
apologize for not making it clearer to everyone who attended on
October 1st that racist, or indeed any oppressive language
or behaviour, is unacceptable. We apologize that this space was not
safer for Black women, Black people, and their allies.
It is unfortunate that this young white woman’s
voice has been amplified through media and all over the internet, and
the voices of our intelligent, passionate speakers and MC’s, many of
whom occupy marginalized identities, or are allies, continue to be
ignored. In an effort to break this silence, listed at the end of this
letter are the names of all our speakers, with links provided where
available.
We find it saddening that three of our
speakers who are trans women of colour, two of whom are Black women,
are being erased from public dialogue around SWNYC. This speaks to a
deeply rooted cissexism, which we are committed to interrogating. We
thank all of our speakers for their passion, for challenging and
empowering us.
I like to call the tactic that they
employed bait and switch. Here look over here, that is the real
problem. There can be no doubt that cissexism needs to be specifically
addressed in women centered spaces. This is especially true when it
comes to feminism, which has a history of attacking or actively erasing
trans women. It was not that long ago that feminists were re-writing
history to deify Mary Daly upon her passing. Radical feminists still
attack trans women whenever they get a chance and blogs that are
supposedly intersectional rarely write about trans issues or have trans
writers.
The outcry was about race, and to say the fact that the volume of the
response is cissexist, is meant to shame and silence those who are
complaining. As terrible as cissexism is, it does not trump racism. No
ism trumps any other ism; they are all equally terrible. I also think
it is worth noting that they mention that two of the trans women who
spoke were Black women. As Black women, the racism expressed by that
sign was directed at them. You cannot separate people's identities at
will to prove a point. These women did not leave their Blackness behind
when they decided to transition. They are not Black and then trans,
they are Black trans women. I absolutely abhor gottcha politics.
Furthermore, why were these women not given the opportunity to address
the issue personally? I think that a Black trans woman would have an
insightful nuanced commentary to add to this situation that is sorely
missing in the response. To me, the response of the slutwalk organizers
smacks of othering these women. They were used as a tool to distract
from the conversation at hand, and that in and of itself is minimizing.
There are plenty of Black trans women who are extremely politically
active, who they could shared their thoughts and experiences about the
ways in which race, cissexism, and sexism intersect.
I have largely stayed out of the Slutwalk debates, though I have
actively read the thoughts of many women of color regarding it. The
truth of the matter is that whenever there are cis, straight White women
are at the forefront of any organizing endeavor, there are going to be
problems, because they have been immersed in a culture that specifically
centers them. Sexism is terrible, but it is far from the only
marginalization that women face and until intersectionality becomes more
than a cool buzz word, failures like this will continue to happen. I
can never again conceive of taking on the label feminist, specifically
because it others my various identities, and those of women whom I love
and respect.
Waiting for a Black women to complain about the sign, though it was
highly visible, speaks of a collusion with the poster. Deciding to use
Black trans women as a tool to distract from racist actions is both
cissexist and racist. Stop apologizing and clean your house. Women of
color have been listening to the apologies of White women for
generations, and we are now immune to the White women's tears and empty
promises.
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"Dear Slutwalk, Woman Is NOT Nigger Of The World"
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