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January 18, 2021 - June 6, 2025
I think that we placate ourselves with the fallacy of meritocracy by insisting that we just don’t see race. This makes us feel progressive. But this claim to not see race is tantamount to compulsory assimilation. My blackness has been politicised against my will, but I don’t want it wilfully ignored in an effort to instil some sort of precarious, false harmony.
this definition of racism is often used to silence people of colour attempting to articulate the racism we face.
Meanwhile, it is
impossible for children of colour to educate ourselves out of racist stereotyping, though if we accumulate enough individual wealth, we can pretend that we are no longer affected by it.
Describing and defining this absence means to some extent upsetting the centring of whiteness, and reminding white people that their experience is not the norm for the rest of us.
When I talk about white privilege, I don’t mean that white people have it easy, that they’ve never struggled, or that they’ve never lived in poverty. But white privilege is the fact that if you’re white, your race will almost certainly positively impact your life’s trajectory in some way. And you probably won’t even notice it.
If I’d argued with her, I would put myself at risk of no longer being welcome in that
particular houseshare, because I would have ‘created an atmosphere’. I would be considered a ‘reverse racist’, an angry, unreasonable troublemaker, maybe even a violence sympathiser. This kind of social exclusion did not seem worth it. So I said nothing.
White privilege is deviously, throat-stranglingly clever, because it owns the companies that recruit you, owns the industries you want to enter, so that if you need money to live you’re forced to appease its needs
White privilege is the perverse situation of feeling more comfortable with openly racist, far-right extremists, because at least you know where you stand with them; the boundaries are clear.
The aim of these commentators
wasn’t to have an honest discussion about British racism. It was to obscure, to derail, and to ardently avoid the wider issue.
an effort by the powers that be to divert conversations about the effects of structural racism in order to shield whiteness from much-needed rigorous criticism.
We could have asked ourselves honestly, as a country, if taking two decades to convict just two of the gang who murdered an innocent teenager was acceptable.
We could have asked ourselves if we were ashamed of that.
Instead, the conversation we had was about racism against white people.
Racism does not go both ways. There are unique forms of discrimination that are backed up by entitlement, assertion and, most importantly, supported by a structural power strong enough to scare you into complying with the demands of the status quo. We have to recognise this.
This left-wing writer was angrier at people’s reactions to racism than the racism itself.
In emails and tweets, I’m told that Martin Luther King, Jr wanted a world in which people were judged not on the colour of their skin, but the content of their character.
these words are best suited to mean that white people should not be judged on the colour of their skin.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who
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‘Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.’
Despite all of the joys and teachable moments of living cheek to cheek, mixed-race children are not going to end racism through their mere existence. White privilege is never more pronounced than in our intimate relationships, our close friendships and our families.
Inadvertently, he revealed his own tacit recognition of racist power relations in the country
Couched in the pernicious frame of ‘freedom of speech’, it materialises when a person with anti-racist values voices their disgust at something racist. They will then be told that their sheer objection to it actually inhibits freedom of speech.
‘Cecil Rhodes was a racist,’ read one headline, ‘but you can’t readily expunge him from history.’ That was a strange conclusion to draw, because campaigning to take down a statue is not the same as tippexing Cecil Rhodes’ name out of the history books.
The Rhodes Must Fall campaign was not calling for Rhodes to be erased from history. Instead they were questioning whether he should be so overtly celebrated.
Somehow, it wasn’t believable that Lord Patten simply wanted free and fair debate and a healthy exchange of ideas on his campus. It looked like he just wanted silence, the kind of strained peace that simmers with resentment, the kind that requires some to suffer so that others are comfortable.
It seems there is a belief among some white people that being accused of racism is far worse than actual racism.
Freedom of speech means the freedom for opinions on race to clash.
It is in film, television and books that we see the most potent manifestations of white as the default assumption.
The imaginations of black Hermione’s detractors can stretch to the possibility of a secret platform at King’s Cross station
that can only be accessed by running through a brick wall, but they can’t stretch to a black central character.
Fear of a black planet destroys good fiction, and it demonstrates how racism gets in the way of human empathy.
White people are so used to seeing a reflection of themselves in all representations of humanity at all times, that they only notice it when it’s taken away from them.
There is talk of fairness, without acknowledging what is already unfair. It manifests in a rigid and shallow understanding of freedom of speech (generally understood to be the final frontier in the fight to be as openly bigoted as possible without repercussions).
There is an old saying about the straight man’s homophobia being rooted in a fear that gay men will treat him as he treats women. This is no different.
Regardless, that isn’t the kind of world anti-racists are envisioning when they agitate for justice. It has always been about the redistribution of power rather than the inverting of it.
If, as they say, racism doesn’t exist, and black people have nothing to complain about, why are they so afraid of white people becoming the new minority?
‘When feminists can see the problem with all-male panels, but can’t see the problem with all-white television programmes, it’s worth questioning who they’re really fighting for.’
I, the only black person in my group, said, ‘They’re all white.’ ‘And they’ve all got long hair,’ added a white woman eagerly. Laboriously, I explained, ‘Yes, but you can grow out your short hair if you want to. I can’t change the colour of my skin to fit this beauty standard.’
This wasn’t a place to be discussing racism, they insisted. There are other places you can go to for that. But that wasn’t a choice I could make. My blackness was as much a part of me as my womanhood, and I couldn’t separate them.
We discussed why it was so important for us to meet without feminists who were white. ‘That gaze does so much to silence you,’ Lola said. ‘Even if you’re really confident and really vocal, there is still a holding back that you have to do. Because as a normal human being, you kind of don’t really like confrontation. And there’s an element of just speaking the truth of what it means to be a black woman in the UK that it would be ridiculous, as a white person, to not read that as implicating you.’
America, with its grid-like road system, neatly packed full of perfect rectangles and squares, was the right place for the birth of this metaphor.
The white feminist distaste for intersectionality quickly evolved into a hatred of the idea of white privilege – perhaps because to recognise structural racism would have to mean recognising their own whiteness.
When Louise Mensch wrote her aggressive tweets about me, the women she felt she was supporting were doyennes of the left – regular writers for left-leaning publications like the Guardian and the New Statesman. They were supported by white, well-known writers and figures of a host of different political persuasions. But at that point, their minor political differences didn’t matter. The white consensus in feminism required defending, and they needed to club together to do it.
My speaking up about racism in feminism, to them, was akin to a violent attack on their very idea of themselves.
The ‘can you be a feminist and’ questions were all predicated on tired stereotypes of feminist activism from the 1970s patriarchal press, depicting feminists as dungaree-wearing angry women who sought to crush men under their Dr Marten-clad feet.
Instead of asking about high heels and lipstick, the pressing questions we have always needed to ask are: Can you be a feminist and be anti-choice? Can you be a feminist and be wilfully ignorant on racism?
The people who are calling themselves feminists are getting younger and younger, due in part to their favourite pop stars and actresses demystifying the word. Each time a celebrity stakes her claim on feminism, a little bit of the stigma surrounding the word is shattered.
