(NAME-MCE) White Feminists’ Refusals and Commitments: A Call to Mobilize toward Coalitional Antiracist Feminist Analysis, Practice, and Pedagogy

[Chris Clark]

White Feminists’ Refusals and Commitments: A Call to Mobilize toward  
Coalitional Antiracist Feminist Analysis, Practice, and Pedagogy
Ann Russo, Women's and Gender Studies, DePaul University, arusso at depaul.edu
Melissa Spatz, Women and Girls CAN, calltoaction2008 at gmail.com
WE REFUSE….
We refuse a feminism that assumes that “women” are a homogeneous  
group.  We recognize that women identify along a spectrum of  
identities, and that gender is not always the most prominent one.   
Gender is a significant structure, to be sure, but it is not the only  
structure shaping women’s lives.  Multiple systems of oppression and  
privilege, including racism, white supremacy, class hierarchy,  
religious intolerance, xenophobia, anti-immigrant policies,  
heterosexism, ableism and ageism shape women’s lives, identities, and  
experiences.  We need movements that recognize these multiplicities.
We refuse a feminism that pits sexism against racism, that claims that  
sexism is more entrenched than racism, and that the existence of  
sexism means that racism no longer exists.  We do not accept the logic  
that criticizing sexism must be tied to a denial or minimization of  
racism.  Sexism and racism, as well as other forms of oppression, are  
interconnected.  The misogynist spectacle against Hillary Clinton is  
directly tied to her white, middle-class heterosexuality, which is  
different from attacks on women who are not white, middle-class and  
heterosexual.  We are dismayed that when media pundits frame Michelle  
Obama as an angry black woman, or as unpatriotic, or suggest that she  
should be the target of a “lynching party”, there has been no similar  
feminist outcry by white women.
We refuse a feminism that claims to speak for all women, while denying  
and minimizing the ongoing legacy of white supremacy and racism in  
this country.  This legacy includes the ways that women’s movements  
and organizations are embedded in white supremacist structures, ideas,  
and practices.  We refuse to participate in women’s organizations that  
demand allegiance to women with no accountability for privilege and  
complicity in racism, class exploitation, homophobia, transphobia,  
imperialism, ableism, ageism, etc.
We refuse a feminism that marginalizes and undermines young women’s  
voices and perspectives.  We reject the adultism of older women  
activists who dismiss the views of young women as naïve, unrealistic,  
sexist, and based in sexual fantasy.  We reject the presumption that  
if younger women do not agree with older women, it is because they are  
less radical.  We need to create intergenerational dialogues around  
our different political ideas and commitments.
We refuse a feminism that mobilizes white folks by cultivating  
solidarity on the basis of whiteness. We reject any attempt to play  
divide and conquer by cultivating the racism of white middle class  
professional women and white working class women and men against women  
and men of color.  We do not accept the reframing of this racism as  
“racial resentment.” We reject the way that the media and some  
feminists divide people into homogeneous categories that do not  
reflect the complexities of any of our lives.  Everyone has a race,  
class, gender, sexual orientation, nationality.
We refuse a feminism that blames people of color for focusing  
attention on racism as if that focus was the cause of sexism and  
misogyny.  We refuse this zero sum game politics, and we refuse to  
undermine efforts to dismantle white supremacy as a way to bolster  
attention to sexism.  We reject attempts by some white feminists to  
silence people of color and to cultivate white racist bonding with  
claims of “reverse racism.”
We refuse a feminism that confuses a campaign with a movement.  We  
reject the idea that as feminists, we must all agree on a particular  
candidate. As Barbara Ransby pointed out in a lecture at DePaul  
University (Chicago, April 2008), campaigns are not movements, and we  
need to actively engage all candidates around their positions on  
issues and use the campaigns as opportunities to push candidates to  
address our issues and visions for social change and justice.
AND WE COMMIT…
We commit to consistently challenge ourselves to be self-reflective.   
We recognize that we are in process in our work to dismantle white  
supremacy and other systems of oppression, and we do not claim to have  
all of the answers.  However, we are firmly committed to continuing to  
build our awareness of, and accountability for, our own participation  
in systems and processes of power and privilege.
We commit to critically engaging our communities about this historic  
moment in U.S. feminism and progressive politics.  We commit to taking  
an active role in creating community dialogues and town hall forums  
that re-center feminist and women’s activism based in coalitional  
politics.
We commit to holding any and all politicians accountable for their  
politics, rather than their identities.  We believe that identity does  
matter in terms of who is represented in the government, and yet, we  
believe that all candidates must be evaluated based on their  
commitments and actions.  As movements, we need to hold all  
politicians accountable to our issues and goals.
We commit to challenging misogyny and racism and other forms of  
oppression in media coverage.  We will challenge all discourses that  
make women of color invisible, by assuming that gender = white women,  
and race = men of color.  We will disrupt the media’s promotion of  
divisions between gender-based agendas and race-based agendas, between  
different racial and ethnic groups, and between different political  
movements.  We will call out the media’s racism and sexism, as well as  
other forms of oppression
We commit to speaking publicly against white supremacy as it operates  
in our movement and in the upcoming election.  We believe it is the  
responsibility of progressive white women and feminists to  
consistently challenge white supremacy as part of our work for social  
change.  We will insist that white people in feminist organizations  
dialogue, challenge, disrupt, and transform white supremacist  
thinking, ideas, and practices, particularly as they play out in  
creating divides between race and gender politics.
We commit to challenging feminist media activists and organizations to  
use an anti-oppression approach. We commit to consistently look not  
solely at gender, but at interconnected forms of oppression in media  
coverage, and we challenge other activists and organizations to do the  
same.  Along these lines, we call on the National Organization for  
Women’s campaign against media sexism, the “Media Hall of Shame,” to  
include all the forms of oppression that shape the representation of  
women, including racism and white supremacy, as well as heterosexism,  
ableism, classism, adultism, xenophobia.
We commit to creating intergenerational dialogues between women of all  
ages.  Older women need to check adultism when working with and/or  
responding to young women. It is important to learn from young women,  
particularly young women of color and those facing multiple  
oppressions, who do not enter the social justice movement with a race  
versus gender versus sexuality divide.  All of us, old and young, need  
to find ways to create intergenerational dialogues that honor our  
different knowledge, experiences, and frames of reference.
We commit to building a broad-based movement for social justice by  
working in solidarity across differences.  We must build connections,  
not divisions.  In order to build coalitions, we must commit to being  
accountable for our own privilege and complicity in systems of  
oppression.  We believe that accountability is a necessary starting  
point to creating collaborations, coalitions, and alliances across  
identities and issues.
Sign the statement in support of these refusals and commitments:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-false-race-gender-divide
———
Christine Clark, Ed.D.
chriseclark at mac.com
702.896.1527 Telephone
702.896.4529 Facsimile
702.985.6979 Cellular

"What are the standards that we have?  If we're concerned about  
unarmed truth--understanding this condition of truth is allowing  
suffering to speak--and unconditional love--understanding justice is  
what love looks like in public--then the question is, what suffering  
voices do we hear...and what kinds of concerns about justice are made  
manifest...?

									—Cornell West

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