Things not to do in conversations about race with women of color: Learned lessons for white women

I'm sharing this because I feel like it was a key part of my learning and I hope it can help others to the extent that it helped me. Any knowledge I have about this topic is the result of the teachings of women of color, and white allies who listened to women of color. If you want to go straight to the source, read Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks, and [this essay – link] all of whom come at this from a place of expertise and experience which I don't have.

1. Cry

I heard this one a while back, and thought, “Hmm, I wonder what that means. . .” I kept reading and listening and a while later, I thought, “Got it.” When you cry you are calling out to be nurtured and consoled. Learn the long history of white women expecting women of color to nurture and console them to better understand how you are perpetuating oppression when you cry in a conversation about race. When you cry you do yourself no favors because you identify yourself as helpless and infantile.  You will feel better about yourself if you act in ways that reflect the fact that you can be a mature and competent adult woman who has agency.  Listen to what Toni Morrison writes in "What the Black Woman Thinks about Women's Lib."  

Black women have been able to envy white women (their looks, their easy life, the attention they seem to get from their men); they could fear them (for the economic control they have had over black women's lives); and even love them (as mammies and domestic workers can); but black women have found it impossible to respect white women. . . . . Black women have no abiding admiration of white women as competent, complete people, whether vying with them for the few professional slots available to women in general, or moving their dirt from one place to another, they regarded them as willful children, pretty children, mean children, but never as real adults capable of handling the real problems of the world.

When you cry, you are engaging in a diversionary tactic by drawing attention to yourself and away from those who were actually the targets of racism.  You will be perceived as both obnoxious and malicious (even as you receive attention, hugs and comfort when you cry.  It is likely that the person of color who may have "made" you cry will not receive a hug or comfort).

2. Ask, “How can I help?”

Firstly, there is a laundry list about three feet long of things you could do to oppose your own and your community's racism this afternoon alone, and bit by bit, it will start to become visible to you when you get started doing your leg work. When you ask, “How can I help?” it reflects that you are privileged to the extent that you are blind to the everyday racism that's all around you, as well as to the institutional racism that is in your own community. When you stop being blind to it, the obvious answer will be, act address that racism. A better question is, “Can you point me towards resources that will instruct me on ways to fix this particular example of racism that I now am able to see (because I did my legwork) in my community?”

Secondly, asking this is patronizing because it is like announcing, "The white help wagon has arrived!  Let's get started guys!"  People of color have been defying racism on an everyday basis long before you got there and doesn't need you personally (except to stop being racist and get your network of people around you to stop being racist.)  As your blinders come off, you will see that you have your work cut out in that rather unromantic task alone.  (You're not going to get the White Savior pin for the type of work you can be useful doing.)  

3.  Say that you feel guilty.

A lot of times, these talks get usurped by white women talking about their feelings way too much.  It's not about your feelings.  People of color most likely already know your feelings, because they have likely heard a similar version of them already in another conversation with other white people. 

You should by all means feel what you feel, but it is not necessary to talk about it.  Also, don't say that you want to give up because you feel too guilty.  This is your white privilege speaking (White people are the only ones who get to take a "break" from dealing with racism.  Your friends of color are dealing with it on a daily basis, and for them it's a necessity - not a choice. ) Harness your guilt and turn it into something productive by listening and reading more, so that you will learn the tools to do more.  If you are tempted to focus on your own feelings, focus on those of a person of color instead.  Racism is a disease of a decayed empathy and a good place to begin in unlearning racism is to exercise your empathy muscle by caring how a person of color is feeling.  

4.  Say that you feel powerless.  

Embedded in white supremacy is the historical and long standing image of white women as precious, delicate lily flowers who need to be coddled and babied.  You may participate in this internalized image more than you are aware.  When you say that you feel powerless, you participate in this image, which is deleterious to yourself (because you sell yourself short) and to women of color who are expected to worry about not hurting your feelings when they talk about racism.  You will learn the ways that you can stop being powerless when you begin to listen quietly, intently and well.

5.  Patronize people of color.

Do not refer to people of color as wounded, suffering or broken.  For centuries, folks of color from all walks of life have been accomplishing storied and hallowed feats which you probably did not learn about as you were schooled in a culture which teaches and ingrains white supremacy.  Any freedom people of color now possess is theirs not because it was "gifted" to them by powerful white people (freedom is no white man's "gift" to give), but because they took it.  Do not offer or attempt to "save" "wounded" people of color.  White people can help by solving white problems (racism, white normativity, hegemony).  Let people of color solve the problems in their own communities.  They know how to do it better than you do.

6.  Offer a counter-argument.


Things TO DO in conversations with women of color

1. Listen

2. Start reading the seminal works of anti-racism (by people of color) and books about white privilege. Then keep reading and read tirelessly. Reading is like listening and it offers the advantage that it doesn't leave room for Whiteness to engage in the derailing and denial - added bonus.
   
   [this post is in progress - continually adding to it, as there are a lot of rules to cover.]