racist white girl

a proposition for my fellow white people

In 2018, I was invited to a Harry Potter convention (I do not support Rowling in any way; if you are TERF, this is enemy territory). I, being a devoted Percy Jackson child, had skipped out on the Harry Potter hype train for most of my life--in handsight this was a blessing. I had a boyfriend force me to watch all the movies, and I think my mom read me the first book, but ultimately I thought the Greek gods were far cooler than some kid with a wand (My proclivity for Greek mythology as a child has nothing to do with this story, but I feel a strong desire to distinguish myself as such for the sake of you understanding the kind of person I am: Greek myth nerd, not Harry Potter nerd). Despite this, I dressed up in my cutesy Ravenclaw uniform and went to the convention in the hopes of talking to cute boys and buying little trinkets--both of which I did neither.

Instead, after an hour of wondering around the convention hall in search of food that wasn't butter beer flavored, i stumbled into some sort of panel for something I can't remember for the life of me. The panelists were primarily women, as was the crowd, but the MC was not--something I didn't think about deeply at the time, but could write an essay about now. After scanning the flurry of raised hands, the MC selected one of the only men in the room to ask a question. Surprisingly, after some hesitation, the guy simply replied "I think men have said enough, so I'd rather you picked someone else." The crowd erupted in applause and the panel continued on like nothing had happened, but the mood in the room was significantly lighter than before. The women surrounding me were put at ease by this random white dude deferring his privilege to them, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

This concept of openly acknowledging privilege and moving to make room for women spurred me to research and read more about feminism as a whole. I was enamored by the idea that power had been transferred from this one "woke" dude to me simply because he felt like it. So I read about it.

I read Wollstonecraft.

I read Dworkin.

I read Butler.

I read Solnit.

Do you see a theme? Because I didn't at the time.

All I saw was patriarchy and how the men in my life upheld it.

I eventually tried to broaden my reading as the years went on and attempted to tackled things like Women Race & Class, but I didn't really connect. I still felt much more impassioned by toppling the patriarchy in a way that was limited by the perspective from which I experienced it: as a white woman. It had never occurred to me that my whiteness was obscuring my vision or that race played such a huge role in the overthrowing of the patriarchy. Of course I knew of intersectional feminism and agreed with it! I read the words and repeated them to my family and friends! But I didn't truly get it.

How could I?

My whiteness had been benefiting me since the day I took my first breath. It had afforded me opportunities to learn, provided me places to speak, and shielded me from uncomfortable truths that didn't frame me as one of the Good White Girls. So, in typical white girl fashion, I didn't think about it much--because I didn't have to. I focused on the things that clicked for me. I learned about Marxism and leftism as a whole. I pursued my interests in history and all the ways in which the CIA had sobbotaged my comrades. Men were very much still the problem in my eyes, but now I also grasped the nuance of class dynamics. It wasn't just patriarchy that oppressed me, it was the rich men. And yet, nowhere in these strings of revelations and intellectual pursuits did the layer of race truly click for me, and it wouldn't until much much later.

In the past few years I have been forced to reevaluate my stance and understanding of the role I play in white supremacy due to my whiteness and social conditioning, but it hasn't happened without an insane amount of resistance.

When I was first told "every white person is racist" the words "not all of them" immediately left my mouth. I mean...how could I be racist? I definitely agreed that everyone should be liberated and deserved the same opportunities so obviously this person was just too radical and couldn't possibly understand me. Because I was a Good White Girl, I went on with my life.

The second time I was told "every white person is racist" I was scrolling through tiktok comments discussing intersectionality. People were going back and forth about how poc women suffered at the hands of white feminists, but I had poc friends, so obviously I didn't do that. Because I was a Good White Girl, I went on with my life.

The third time I was told "every white person is racist" I was talking with a friend who was expressing a fear of white women due to the power they could weaponize at any time against her. I felt deeply uncomfortable because I started to question whether or not I was racist. Did she think I would hurt her? Was she trying to let me know that I had offended her? Was I coming across as racist? There was no way...right? Because I was a Good White Girl, I decided I would read more about this topic.

I finally accepted that every white person was racist on a random Tuesday night. What did it for me? An offhanded comment on the internet about how every critique of men under patriarchy could be applied to white women in feminist spaces. A comparison to something I agreed with on such a fundamental level broke through my white defenses. There is a lot to unpack and examine about that alone honestly (it's giving men only caring about women when you highlight the man's relationship to them ie mother, daughter, sister, etc.), but that's when it all clicked firmly into place, and my whiteness could not be ignored.

In the same way all men are misogynistic due to patriarchal conditioning, I was racist and perpetuated racism due to my being raised white in a society built on white supremacy. Truly sitting with this was far from easy and reminds me honestly of something akin to the stages of grief. I just truly couldn't believe that I was racist because my idea of what a racist was included hate crimes, slurs, and just believing that white people were inherently better. It didn't include microinvalidations or me prioritizing sharing my own ideas in a group setting while my poc friends awkwardly waited for me to finish. It didn't include the moments where I subconsciously preferred the religion, movies, and music of colonizers. Unshockingly, the more layers I pulled back to examine, the more I realized that I was definitely part of the problem. Every time the words "not every white person" left my mouth I was echoing the "not all men" argument I detested. I wasn't a Good White Girl. I was a Racist White Girl.

And you are too.

So what do we do about it?

If you are white and uncomfortable with me saying we, as white people, are all racist and perpetuate racism, then its time to take the first step towards accepting that.

The burden of educating and deconstructing racism in white people is on other white people. It is not the job of poc to do this, especially not when our end goal is the liberation of the oppressed. So, I guess, this essay is my start to a series on educating and deconstructing racism in our community together. Whether that be essays on Sabrina Carpenter or personal moments where I caught myself perpetuating racism in my daily life, I hope you will join me in doing the work we so desperately need to do.