Thread by @karlajstrand

At a session about #whiteness @nwsa. Full house. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

"This is not a social justice training session."

Session panelists include Catherine Orr, Susannah Bartlow, Shelby Crosby, Kelly Macias, Phyllis Burns.

Panelists are sharing their first experiences w white feminism. Dr Burns relates feelings of women feeling obliterated, invisible. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Orr: "Feminism," "waves," "women's movement," coded as white. At Beloit, the program is called Critical Identity Studies as opposed to GWS. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Burns: Feminism as a term she is hesitant to use bc of its relationship to whiteness, etc. Seems antithetical to her. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Jennifer Nash's Beyond Intersectionality makes things even more beautifully complicated.

Orr: As a white person, feminism has let me down. It's a continual developmental process. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Note: I believe Kelly Macias is not here, apologies for the mistake. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19 #whiteness

Bartlow: More work in the body has helped her deal with feminism, race, power issues. Stopped lying, be raw and honest about the layers of development that goes into the work of deconstructing white supremacy. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Bartlow: It's our work as white women to own it, undo the problems of white feminism.
Next question: What is behind white women's violence?
Orr: Attachments to innocence and aversion to shame. Read Learning to Be White by Thandeka. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Thandeka talks about a split self that happens to white people as effect of shame. The white child as the first victim of white supremacy. There are some things we need to work out w the thesis but the idea of connecting it to rage of our shame, protection, fear. #NWSA2019

Crosby: Black people can sometimes react to white supremacy by shrinking back or making themselves smaller but for white people the reaction becomes explosive and larger. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Burns: "Whiteness cloaks itself like a Klingon warship." Quote of the conference. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Burns: Whiteness is not called out - example: the first woman president - but if she was the first woman president she would be referred to as the first Black woman president. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Crosby: White supremacy is a family affair. Mothers are complicit; they train their children in it. Love entangled with hatred; this is the legacy left to the children. Uses as example of teaching Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin. #NWSA2019 #nwsa19

Crosby: Mothers of Massive Resistance by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae talks about role of mothers in white supremacy.
Orr: White women's project was continuing legacy of white supremacy. Part of white women's genealogy. #nwsa19 #nwsa2019

Crosby: Have conversations about the complicated nature of feminist, suffragist, etc. movements. #nwsa19 #nwsa201

Bartlow: Let's talk about the reproduction of white feminism. How white women constantly choose whiteness over women. White feminists need to align with path of feminism over path of whiteness. We must reexamine history - do we really want to claim it as it is? #nwsa19 #nwsa201

Orr: Used to teach White Women's Rights by Louise Newman. What historical genealogy do we want to claim? The canon has been a lot of white women and Dr Orr has abandoned much of this to ask who's not on the list? Acknowledge history but don't protect it. #nwsa19 #nwsa201

Crosby: Set a boundary to only do intellectual duty and hold onto integrity as opposed to just reinforce other person's false sense of security. If a conversation leaves you feeling like you just cleaned a room, avoid it. #nwsa19 #nwsa201

Crosby: It is a violence to ask Black women how they are subjected to white women.
Burns: And then the tears come. It's exhausting. I am not here to heal you. It's dismissive.
#nwsa19 #nwsa2019

Bartless: White women pretend they don't know how/why of white feminism/supremacy. We pretend that bc it is not conscious, it is not purposeful. We have to own the ways we repeat the violence, even if it is not intentional. We play an active role. #nwsa2019 #nwsa19

Orr: Whiteness trains us not to see impact of our actions. We're taught to have ready excuses as to how it's not my fault or I didn't intend it, etc. #nwsa2019 #nwsa19

Burns: White culture wants to use Blackness to make it look good but in the moment, Blackness is completely ignored. Self-congratulatory. #nwsa2019 #nwsa19

Sorry, Bartlett not Bartless.

Audience member: What about the students? I'm almost done with the academy. I'm done being an academic nanny. #nwsa2019 #nwsa19

Audience member brings up keeping people safe in the midst of ignorance, discrimination of campus safety, admin, etc. Worried about violence. Call on community orgs, alumni, etc.