I Have Nothing To Learn From Another White Woman About Racism

The primacy of “lived experience” is based on the belief that you can’t understand what somebody has been through unless you share their gender or race or sexuality. But this is bizarre. I mean, how much of the human experience is really siloed off in these ways? 

How many of us, regardless of these identities, have never felt as if we were treated unfairly? How many of us have never been misjudged because of the way we look? How many of us have never felt misunderstood or let down or alienated?

Of course, the reasons for these feelings vary. The frequency too. It's undeniable that some people have to face these issues more often than others. But I dare say that everybody has faced them. And this means, with a little effort (and a willingness to listen as well as talk), we can have a conversation about them.

In my article, Robin DiAngelo Is The “Vanilla Ice” Of Anti-Racism, I was extremely critical of one particular white woman’s views on racism. Not because she’s white, but because she’s wrong. Sophie was satisfied with the first reason.

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Sophie:

What happens when you weaponise white guilt?

Not only weaponising it - monetising it. She's raking it in. As a white woman, I have nothing to learn from another white woman about white-on-black racism (or any other kind). The only thing she can teach me is how insidious casual racism is (something you know, and I have to notice) - and how cynical, as it can even exploit its own hangwringing.

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Steve QJ:

I have nothing to learn from another white woman about white-on-black racism

I don't necesssarily think that's true. My issue with DiAngelo isn't that she's white, it's that she's a grifter, her ideas are making divisions worse, and that she doesn't offer anything in the way of meaningful solutions. If what she was saying was valuable, I wouldn't care at all that she's white.

By the way, monetising is so much better than weaponising. I'm tempted to change the sub-header.

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Sophie:

I get you. But how can someone who has never lived a certain form of discrimination fully feel what that discrimination is like at the sharp end of it? For instance - my mother is blind. I see her struggles and do what I can to adapt without overcompensating. But I will never know how it feels to have someone SPEAK LOUDLY AND SLOWLY as though she were stupid, deaf and incapable of agency. I'll never know what it feels like to be unable to read my bank statements (because she went blind late and learning braille is hard). I see her frustration. I feel empathy. But to her...how does it feel?

So back to your point (sorry for the ramble) - I think it's important as a white person to be aware of my privilege, and if the circumstances call for it, remind other white people not to be racist dicks. But beyond that - what?

Re: monetising (monetizing): when I first read about her book, I thought - here's a woman who has found a nice little bandwagon earner. It was no doubt prejudiced of me, but reading a chapter hasn't changed my mind.

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Steve QJ:

I think it's important as a white person to be aware of my privilege

Yes, I completely agree. And I agree regardless of the type of privilege we’re talking about. There are surely a number of ways I'm privileged over you. And likely an equal number of ways you're privileged over me. One of those is that you're white. But it’s only one.

When we talk, it helps if we're conscious of that interplay of priviliges and respond accordingly. But even if our set of privileges aligned perfectly, even if we were siblings for example, we still wouldn't know what it felt like to be the other. We'd still have blind spots and get things wrong. We'd still have to rely on empathy to get to a point where we understood each other.

This is why I think the idea that the only way to understand a thing is to be directly affected by it is wrong. It undervalues empathy and intelligence. I think DiAngelo lacks both these things 😅 which is why I think her book fails so badly. But the colour of our skin doesn't create some unbridgeable gulf between us or our ability to understand each other. And I think if a white person made a real effort to understand racism, they could absolutely talk about it well.

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As I noted in an article recently, there are many ways that black people have suffered that I haven’t. I’m not a casualty of the war on drugs. I didn’t grow up in a community that was blighted by redlining. I didn’t experience slavery or segregation.

And yet I’ve written about all of these things.

But it’s not the melanin in my skin that gives me knowledge of (or insight into) these problems. It’s not some bone-deep wisdom that’s passed down through the generations. It’s empathy and hours of research and a heartfelt desire to repair the damage these evils have caused.

Anybody is capable of thinking clearly about these issues. And, in order to solve the biggest problem we face, more of us will need to do so. Because as bad as racism is, the real goal is stopping Robin DiAngelo from writing these sh**ty books.