“Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls” – Racism or Critical Cultural Commentary?
There is a meme sensation sweeping the internet!! It all started with “Shit Girls Say.” The concept is that someone (often those who are not a member of the group who is being mocked) mocks the things that a group of people stereotypically say. Simple enough . . . and sometimes HILARIOUS.
We’ve got Shit Yogis Say, Shit Girls Say to Gay Guys, Shit Rednecks Say (“Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit!”), Shit White Feminists Say, and Shit Guys Don’t Say (or guys not named Jamie Utt). The meme has had the power to do some great mocking and cultural commentary and to point out some important realities. For instance, Shit Everybody Says to Rape Victims and Part II (WARNING, CAN BE TRIGGERING TO SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE) does a fantastic job of highlighting the ways that survivors of sexual violence are often blamed, shamed, and ignored when they seek help after their trauma.
One of the most popular of these videos is Shit White Girls Say . . . To Black Girls:
This particular take on the meme caused the internet (and particularly the Twitterverse) to EXPLODE. Charges of racism were thrown at the video’s creator, comedian and blogger Franchesca Ramsey. In response, people tried to explain how this is not racism but in fact is trying to highlight the type of racism that Black Women must deal with every day coming from White Women.
Community Heals
I’ve been thinking a lot about healing in the last week. Last weekend I was at my Alma Mater, Earlham College, to speak at New Student Orientation, and I realized that many people are just beginning to move past grief and into healing after two students were lost to a tragic car accident this summer.
I’ve also been present with the sad anniversary that approaches for me, the 5-year anniversary of my close friend’s suicide and the healing that I have been able to do in my life as well as the healing that I must still do.
I also had the incredible fortune of speaking at the 3rd Annual Tennessee Rape Prevention and Education Institute this week, and it was great to take some time to focus on the healing survivors experience that we rarely see in the work of primary intervention, as most of the participants were police officers, advocates, shelter operators, and agency staff.
In the midst of hustle and bustle like in the new school year at Earlham, in my busy life, and in the midst of a focus on the hurt and pain that often comes with the work of those at the conference, Healing is Vital.
Confessions of a Male Feminist
More and more lately, I’ve been hearing revulsion to the term “feminism.” I’ve heard folks (both male or female) called a feminist, only to respond to the effect of, “I’m definitely not a feminist!” I’ve heard guys saying, “I don’t think I could ever date a feminist.” It’s left me wondering: What do people think Feminism really is?
I actually didn’t self-identify as a feminist until a course I took Freshmen year of college at the University of Denver. On the first day of class, the professor asked us to raise our hands if we considered ourselves a feminist. About 8 hands went up in a class of maybe 30, and they were all women. The teacher then asked us to raise our hands if we:
- Think women should be paid the same amount as men for equal work.
Think women should be able to wear whatever they like without fear of sexual assault.- Think women have the right to withdraw consent for sex at any point in a sexual encounter.
- Think women should be able to make their own decisions about their own sexual and reproductive health.
- Think women should be free of leering and cat calls at all times.
- Think women should have equal access to jobs and educational opportunities as compared to men.
- Think women should be equally represented in business and political offices.
- Think that both men and women are hurt by restrictive gender norms that define how we should act, dress, and talk.
- Think that above all else, men and women are equal and should be treated as such.
I raised my hand to all of them. In fact, almost everyone in the class raised their hand to just about every statement. The professor then said, “If you’ve raised your hand to any of these statements, you are a feminist.”
Power, Voice, and the Race Card
I have a tremendous amount of privilege, and I have done very little to deserve any of the privileges that I have. I was born into a wealth in a white family in a country that is built for wealthy, white people. I am a (mostly) heterosexual man in a culture that greatly privileges and benefits straight people and men. My first (and only) language is English, the language that has, unfortunately, become the language of power in this world. I was raised Christian in a culture that privileges Christians above all others, and as such, I can speak the language of Christianity. In the words of Louis CK, “How many advantages could one person have!?”
One of the most incredible privileges that comes with my identities is the ability to have my voice valued and heard regardless of what I say. That’s something that I talk a lot about in my work. After all, I am a white, straight, male who
earns his living as a diversity consultant. The irony of that, which I make sure I express whenever I speak professionally, is that the things I am saying are said all the time by other people, but we just don’t listen to those voices. Every single day, women must live the realities of sexism and sexual violence, and they speak out against them all the time, but we often tell them that they are being “overly sensitive.” People of color point out all the time the ways in which our racially-stratified society hurts and oppresses them, yet when they do, we tell them that they are playing the “race card.” LGBTQ folks speak all the time of the ways in which the society which is built for straight people and tells Queer folks that they are somehow dirty and wrong affects their lives and their self esteem, but again, they are accused of simply trying to use their experience to advance the “homosexual agenda.” However, whenever I, in all my privilege, say these things, people often listen.
Now there are a host of problems with someone using their privilege on behalf of those without privilege to try to advance an agenda (which I try to check in with myself regularly to make sure I am not doing), and that can be discussed at a later time. However, the point is that my voice is valued. The people who are originally saying the things I say don’t have that privilege.
Guilty for Speaking Up – Blaming Survivors of Sexual Violence
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
As many of you undoubtedly know, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now-former head of the International Monetary Fund and a candidate for President of France, has been accused of raping a hotel housekeeper in New York City.
Cue the survivor blaming.
The letter of the law in the United States requires that someone accused of a crime must be considered innocent until proven guilty. If only the law required such a high standard for a survivor of sexual violence.
This morning when I was reading the New York Times, I came across an article about all of the attention given to the survivor of this allegedly horrific attack. In situations like the one involving Strauss-Kahn, “the women suffer the collateral damage of our interest” in powerful men. The article describes the way that we obsess over the women who are tied sexually to powerful men like Strauss-Kahn, whether that obsession regards a consensual relationship like in the recent scandal involving Arnold Swartzenegger or rape.
Almost immediately after the allegations of rape were made against this powerful man, the allegations of fraud and sexual impropriety against the survivor began to pile up. The common narrative isn’t that a power-obsessed womanizer might have taken his lust one step too far, sexually assaulting a woman who he sees as beneath him. The NY Post even victimizes the alleged rapist, calling him a “humiliated, 62-year-old suspect” who couldn’t get bail due to his being a flight risk (since if he gets back to France, he will never see a court room).
No. The narrative is that a low-income immigrant woman MUST be lodging fake allegations in hopes of getting rich.
