It really shows. Anyway, I have seen white women trail around after various on line activists looking for ‘cookies’ which are tokens of appreciation for not being racist. Five years ago I was aware of it but now I don’t question WOC when they point it out; they are the ones sensitive to micro-aggressions and the subtler manifestations of overt racism, not me. It is their expertise I need, their voices in my ear as I interrogate the gently steaming structures of colonialism and capitalism. But I DON’T NEED THEIR ATTENTION. That’s the demand that kills.
In the first place, there are SO MANY not authentic humans on line that a WOC doesn’t know whether she’s dealing with a bot, or a paid bad actor in Romania or Russia or China. Why should she literally haul herself out of her bed, where she’s been weeping for half an hour because a family member’s been diagnosed with coronavirus, to straighten out the time-wasting misconceptions of a person who doesn’t even exist? White women assign the emotional labour of being forced to explain themselves to women of colour without a second glance while bots simultaneously chase after them with the tools of bad actors in cyberspace, everywhere. Men do it to women, too, but that’s not where I am right now.
In the second place, so many genuine humans do not look at the available information about WOC. If she says she’s a PhD in some aspect of space science, and her blog has a list of her awards, which are borne out on her UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR PAGE, coming into her twitter feed and telling her how to suck eggs as a grad student is jenyoowine GROSS. DO THE RESEARCH IF YOU’RE REAL.
In the third place, emotional self-regulation about racism should not dissolve into a puddle of fucking tears, demands for ‘civility’ or better ‘tone’, blocking in the middle of a discussion, etc. Not one WOC owes one WW her time. At all. Ever. If she shares her expertise, honour it.
In the fourth place, emotional self-regulation about racism should not make demands on WOC that are textbook examples of WW failing to understand any of this. I have now seen it happen with my own eyes so many times that EVEN IF A WOC turns out to be a big ass fraud, a besmircher of honour, a dingus, wildly unscientific and a rape apologist HULLO NAME REDACTED I SEE YOU, I take no part in the internet mob; I’ll block or mute and pass on. The communities that surround women of colour will uphold or scold them and half they time I can’t even understand the terms the scolding is delivered in and I spend half my morning on Urban Dictionary trying to figure out if that means what I think it does. But at least I’m not asking a Black woman who’s a disability activist ‘exactly what she meant by that’ when I was never supposed to be part of the discussion.
In the fifth place, WW want to control the discussion (its course, tone, subject-matter, how speedily people answer, it’s just fucking gross, watching it) most of the time and I’ve learned that it’s puerile.
Too Long? Busy this AM?
Hey white gals: regarding women of colour, bring money, material support, respect or silence.
Do basic reading and corrective thinking without a metaphorical shepherdess.
Don’t ‘piss your woes out’ over WOC.
palate cleanser
