When I 1st was on twitter "solidarity is for white women" was trending. I knew f*ck all about anything but jumped to defend a white woman being attacked for tweeting something like "women should stop attacking each other". Unsurprisingly she & I got our arses handed to us...
...it wasn't an easy experience to be so roundly schooled - especially for someone who'd always considered herself an anti racist, a feminist, & reasonably clued up & enlightened. My ego took a bit of a battering. But reading the messages and links I was sent was an education...
...a much needed one. I listened & learned. I understood the tag much better, felt embarrassed at weighing in so ignorantly, & ate a much needed slice of humble pie. I didn't agree with everything everyone said to me but I understood I had to listen to a different perspective...
...it wasn't enough that I (& the other woman) had "meant well" &that we were, broadly speaking, on the "good side", we had no right to speak over the hurt & anger of others and attempt to gloss over, dismiss or minimise it. I don't fully know what's gone on over the last week...
....& I'm not going to disappear down that rabbit hole right now, but I urge my fellow white socialists who might be feeling got at or misunderstood to take a step back & accept that there is language/imagery that is *always* loaded for PoC in a way that it is not for us...
...we're not the experts & we'd be better off accepting that, listening, & eating a quantity of humble pie. I don't know if this is a helpful thread but there you go. I still cringe when I think of my stupid "hey women should just love & support each other!" naive intervention😄
I'm sure I will get tweets now from both sides of this telling me what to think, but I won't respond. I've said what I've said and now I'm going to eat my fish fingers and do my daily prayers that Labour get annihilated in the locals 🙏
Oh and in case it wasn't clear, the #solidarityisforwhitewomen was about how white feminism excludes, marginalises, ignores, disrespects, and dismisses black women and their experiences and concerns.
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