Should minority groups modify positions or how they articulate them to accommodate the dominant group? Is it preferable that the speaker Kipp is referring to frame the issue in terms of race and alienate Kipp in the process, or that the speaker be accommodating, recast his rhetoric in unoffensive terms, and cultivate a potential ally in reaching a goal that Kipp and the speaker apparently share? I honestly don’t know where I stand.

I’ve thought about this tension in terms of feminism, a theory I believe in and a word I believe ultimately may take our eye off the ball.

Feminism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” and by Cambridge University Dictionaries as “the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state.” If that’s all “feminism” is, then why the hesitation (or something stronger) among so many women my age, myself included, to use the word?

Maybe using the word feminism obscures the point. I’ve made the declaration and looked out at woeful, fearful eyes-- mostly male. As if the word instantly conjures up visions of a hostile takeover by male-bashing, man-hating, no-armpit-shaving, militant feminists. Once that vision has happened, in my experience it becomes more difficult to discuss dispassionately and productively issues such as why women occupy only 15-16% of all top level management positions and why we still earn 77 cents to every dollar a man earns... and most important, it becomes harder to constructively imagine what we can do about it.

Maybe the word has taken on meaning-- of anger, man-hating, female supremacy, and radicalism-- that doesn’t represent the attitude of many young women. “There’s no need to be angry about it,” I’ve heard friends say. But I also think it’s a concern about perception. Feminism is widely regarded as unattractive. If the common aversion to the word is grounded on the desire to use “comfortable” and “familiar” language to make the dominant group more comfortable and make women less threatening-- at the cost of sacrificing the meaning of our ideas-- then maybe that is the reason to keep the word around. Maybe the trouble I have with the word feminism is the point.

Meagan said: It is only when we actively work to acknowledge and restructure our conscious and unconscious social-psychic baggage that serves to ‘color’ of view of the motives/skill/contribution/validity/position of ‘the other’, that we truly begin to dismantle both ‘white supremacy’ AND ‘racism’ or ‘patriarchy’ AND ‘mysogyny’. I wonder what is the most effective way of attacking white supremacy and patriarchy, and I also wonder how to effectively align principles and tact.

Prashant,

Totally agree with your point above--and I think that other posters do too--that conversations about "whiteness" are indispensable (which is why, in my initial post, I wrote that we must talk about issues such as white privilege). I was born in Russia where my family was persecuted, grew up here as an immigrant, and yet would NEVER deny that I have been the beneficiary of white privilege. To claim otherwise would be dishonest. Discussions about whiteness are not necessarily alienating; labeling a group, any group, as greedy and oppressive is alienating

-- TomaLivshiz - 11 Apr 2012

I don't think you meant to imply this, But when you say "as a woman, I also accept complicity in perpetuating the system. Women themselves are often just as complicit as men in proliferating stereotypes," are you suggesting that, by analogy, minorities are equally to blame for the existence of white privilege? In what way do minorities benefit from a system of white privilege in the same way that white people do? It is in that sense I use the word "complicit," so I guess I fail to see your point when you say "this complicity is what unites us." I know you said that you don't mean to imply that minorities are responsible for or the cause of white supremacy, but then I guess I don't understand what the above quoted statement means since it seems to very straightforwardly imply that minorities are somewhat responsible for white supremacy.

To borrow your example regarding rape and the sexualization of women, I – as woman – don’t point to ‘men’ and blame them for the structural inequalities still remaining in our political, legal and social institutions and the social framework that perpetuates the subjugation of women. As a woman, I also accept complicity in perpetuating the system. Women themselves are often just as complicit as men in proliferating stereotypes and – whether advertently or not – allow the system to maintain itself. This is one of the problems I have with some of the rhetoric in certain feminist literature. It posits men as ‘the other’ and women as on the defensive in an ‘us against them’ framework. I do believe that men need to acknowledge their complicity, but women must also do so. I believe we must acknowledge that we are all complicit, and recognize that this complicity is what unites us and that we must work together to institute change.

I don’t mean to say that African Americans are in some way responsible for or the cause of white supremacy, or that they are refusing to acknowledge their role in the system, or that they uniformly demonize white people. I only argue that privilege and focus should be placed on what unites us as individuals all living under the same structurally unequal system and that we all have an interest in dismantling it. Living within a ‘white supremacist’ society and with social racism is destructive and to the detriment of all races. I think that if we abandon racial distinctions and classifications that have historically been used and continue to be used by political forces to perpetuate difference and 'otherness' and cloud or distort the similarities that unite us, we will all be better off.