The quantity of times Sarah Silverman has performed Blackface or used the N word does not defend this.

Calling dehumanization and disrespect used as entertainment a “joke” does not justify this.

Claiming white comedians have the license to use racial humor and dismiss it as “ironic” does not legitimize this.

Relegating Blackface minstrelsy to obscurity in “the past” as a reason for its current revival does not excuse this.

Arguing that one Black person “made it OK” does not authorize this.

Before I even get into this: If Black followers would like to comment on internalized oppression or POC practicing whiteness, then I wholeheartedly welcome it. I, however, as a white person do not have the right, reason, need, or lived experience to speak on such matters. Personally, I see a crucial distinction between acknowledging this phenomenon and actively battling it. I’m not taking Morgan Freeman to task directly because this is not my battle and it is not my job, nor is it the job of any white person to school POC on their ideas of race. I cringe every time I see Tim Wise on twitter going after POC for practicing white supremacy, because, quite frankly, he just comes off as racist. I firmly believe these specific discussions and confrontations belong in the communities they directly involve.

A dear Brazilian friend of mine who I met through political organizing last year messaged me this morning and told me this video of Morgan Freeman’s comments was going around on Brazilian facebook pages in response to a “Black Consciousness Week” held at the end of November in Brazil. Aside from making some excellent criticisms about the white middle class reception to this video, he also said he’d like to see a discussion on this topic engaged on the blog. I was inclined to agree, but I was more so skeptical and cautious as to how I would approach this issue. I personally believe silence is not a solution to race and racism, but I can only speak to this belief through my experience of white privilege. These comments have been circulating for some time, and as much as I think they serve as one good example of exactly what happens when people refuse to talk about race, I think there is more danger in terms of white folks righteously savoring the reflection of their own ideas in the spoken words of POC.

Everyone knows Morgan Freeman is not the only Black person on the planet, right? More importantly, everyone knows that he isn’t the only person of color on the planet, nor was he unanimously appointed to speak for all Black people… right?

I think whites might want to hesitate before we uphold the idea that dialogues on race and racism should stop because a single individual says they should, especially if we think this then gives us the license to say “a Black person said it should stop. SO THERE.” As my friend put it, there is no reason for whites (wherever they are) to defend this kind of argument as being universally valid simply because it was “authorized” by a single Black person. Racism is not an issue that is limited to Black vs white. When there are numerous and diverse ethnic identities that contend with numerous and diverse racial oppressions, whites need to take a long look at our “I don’t see race” mantles and the token POC we may have stacked there as our personal opinion trophies. I sense a double standard of whiteness at work when Morgan Freeman’s comments are privileged as incontrovertible truth, but the words of Malcolm X are dismissed as extremist ramblings that pose a “threat to homeland security.” Why would whites have either the interest or the investment in one position over the other? Because one position works to our advantage and reinforces our privilege while the other does not.  

I have no disrespect for Mr. Freeman, but with the undeniable reality that I would still be a dumb white motherfucker had I not been exposed to discourses on race and racism, I have to respectfully disagree. I cannot discuss why this kind of thinking might be damaging to POC because I am not a person of color. What I can do, is use my stories to explain why this kind of thinking is ultimately beneficial to and in the interest of white supremacy.

I vividly remember what I’m going to call the ‘white awakening’ I had my first quarter of college in the Ethnic Studies department. Prompts for our midterm papers were being handed around in class, and I was sitting comfortably with my usual expectations of academic exercises. In other words, I was going to breeze through whatever 5-6 pages this would be while remaining as neutral as I’d always been as a student. This white arrogance had no idea what the fuck to do with itself once I actually read the prompt. “Tell your personal migration narratives of contact with the United States and explain how this has shaped your ethnic identity.” I am still perfectly ignorant of many things, but in this particular context, this is how ignorant I was at the time: I went home in crisis. I had a self-indulgent meltdown where I unleashed white panic and stared at the prompt for who knows what amount of time. This isn’t an assignment for white people, I kept telling myself, how unfair. My first serious paper, and the first one ever that had asked me to examine my own ethnic identity, left me dumbfounded, directionless, and questioning my major. 

It shocked me when, the next day in class, our TA revealed that my fellow desperate white students in crisis had collectively and immediately crowded her office to say to her what I wouldn’t say out loud. I will never forget what she said to the *entire class,* how she said it, and how this changed my thinking forever:

“I have news for you, white folks. YOU HAVE RACE. Understand that white is a race too and it’s socially constructed too. Yall are related to European immigrants, so don’t give me this shit about how you can’t talk about your migration patterns and ethnic identities.”

For me, this was the single card an important person pulled to bring the whole house of cards down. I have made mistakes and I have been wrong, I will continue to make mistakes and I will continue to be wrong. But had this moment not happened, had the radical power of words not existed, I would have remained locked into the great white ignorance that still controls this country and most of the planet. This state of mind would not have been good just for me; it’s good for whites in general.

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would say it’s not really Morgan Freeman who whites are agreeing with. When we use comments like these to defend colorblind thinking while we simultaneously reject or attack the ideas of radical POC, we are ultimately validating our own ideas and agreeing with ourselves. When we are at this point, it doesn’t matter that Morgan Freeman is Black; what matters is that his words are not threatening to our whiteness, while the words of Malcolm X or Angela Davis are perceived as highly threatening in this regard. The suggestion that we stop talking about race and racism prevents us from staring white supremacy in the eye behind its white hood, which means we must stare into a mirror, rather than look away and assume we were right all along. It is always easier to never speak of something again than it is to face its ugliness every day.

—DD

As promised, this is the first installment of posts on The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas in Europe by Leon Poliakov.

To discuss the earliest origins of a supposedly superior “Aryan race,” author Leon Poliakov provides brief, chapter-by-chapter historical examinations of racial origin myths in many European nations. As most whites probably don’t know (just like I didn’t know before I started studying it), the myth of the “Aryan race” is not something exclusively tied to the nation of Germany and the Third Reich; it is an idea that developed and evolved throughout the continent of Europe in the last five to six hundred years. The violent distinction between Aryans and Semites during the Holocaust is only one manifestation in a series that composes the ongoing legacy of “Aryan race” mythology. Political and genealogical influence of the Christian church played a huge role in determining superior European racial “origins” in relation to Indigenous inhabitants of conquered lands. As Poliakov notes:

Christianity taught that all men descended from a common ancestor, Adam, through the patriarch Noah and his sons, whose progeny is described at length in the Bible. Even before the Christian era, Jewish exegetes were busy identifying the branches of ancient races, and they were doubtless the first enquirers who tried in this way to extend their knowledge to the whole of the known worlds … The Fathers of the Church took up these genealogies again and combined them with local and regional traditions. Each people was thus endowed with a specific myth of origin, though all derived from Noah, thereby giving firm expression to the overriding concept of the universal brotherhood of man. (Introduction 7)

This “brotherhood of man” idea was politically manufactured, and it got somewhat tricky when it began to mean the “brotherhood of white men” for Europeans in the last several centuries (as you will see in future posts). The myth of the “Aryan race” was created and ‘substantiated’ by the people who created white Jesus. They reserved the important and superior biblical figures as ancestors for their personal lineage and resigned the far less important, inferior, or “savage” biblical figures as ancestors for those who did not have white skin—most notably “the Negroes.” So with this bit of background information, we’ll start with early myths of European origins in Spain in the next post.

The phrase “Oppression Olympics” refers to arguments and analysis that create hierarchies of oppression, claiming that one oppression is somehow worse than another or that one oppressed group has it better than another. I’ve learned this is not the same as identifying and articulating the concrete differences between various oppressions and their intersections, and that the two should not be confused. In terms of white vegans and their apologists/defenders, they have added animals to this discussion and, as a result, have created ‘White Vegan Oppression Olympics.’ Not only is it now important to insist animals have it worse than human beings, it is a thing to equate “oppressed” animals with oppressed POC by directly comparing animal cruelty to racism. 

The qualifying and ordering of struggles and oppressions is offensive enough without the experiences of oppressed POC being depicted as “better” than those of animals. To claim homeless animals somehow have worse living conditions than homeless people simply because domesticated pets in shelters are widely euthanized, is to ignore the fact that homeless folks are systemically abandoned and left to die. I fail to see how the homeless have a “better” or more “privileged” situation, especially when many of them contend with racism. Animal shelters are not utopian spaces and neither are homeless shelters. When white vegans compare POC to “oppressed” animals, or create animal “rights” strategies around the idea that animals are more “oppressed” than POC, they perpetuate racist knowledge production.

I understand that not all vegans are white, and there are many vegans of color who do critical work around the idea of “speciesism.” However, British psychologist Richard Ryder, who coined the term “speciesism” and was the first to compare it directly to racism, is not a vegan of color. This is him, a white male:

Tell me again how “speciesism” and directly comparing it to racism are not white ideas.

I’m not going to entertain the “Vegans of color say XYZ” discussion because I speak from a position of white privilege, meaning it is not my responsibility, place, or right to represent what vegans of color say. Vegans with white privilege might not be the only ones who talk about “speciesism,” but they are the only ones who directly equate “speciesism” with racism. They are not investigating connections between whiteness and “speciesism,” they are drawing explicit parallels between this theory and racism. Devaluing the identities and experiences of POC by saying “at least you’re better off than animals” (like that’s a compliment) or “what you go through is exactly what animals go through” (I can’t decide which is worse), is privileged and violent policing that has no basis in actual lived experience. The minds of animals cannot be inhabited by white vegans, the minds of POC cannot be inhabited by white vegans, and these are two extremely different organs.

When white vegans equate “human supremacy” (aka “spepciesism”) to “white supremacy,” they are saying all human beings are as powerful as white folks in relation to animals and all POC are as helpless/powerless as animals. So which is it? Are POC as powerful as fellow whites when they eat animals, or are they as “oppressed” as the animals they are eating? Or are the animals more “oppressed” than POC? None of this makes sense after a few moments of critical thought.  Because white vegans neither experience racism nor live with its negative material consequences, advocacy for animal “rights” does not justify educating POC about racism or white supremacy. Appropriating a struggle we do not live or share is also never justifiable, even if it is done in the name of justice for another issue. 

When vegans of color educate POC who eat meat about animal cruelty and “speciesism,” it is their decision to create their own spaces and discourses—this does not necessitate white intervention, opinions, or involvement. I am not in favor of factory farming or animal cruelty, but I do not see the need to devalue the struggles of human beings to insist all of them are privileged when many of them are not. I can also see how the absence of racial oppression in my life would make it easy for me to assume all people are privileged in relation to animals, which would then make it easy for me to assume “speciesism” is identical to racism when I have the racial privilege to compare theories without having to examine how racism concretely and negatively impacts my life. Arguments cannot be separated from the social positions from which they are made. And any theory that suggests humans are all equally powerful is untenable when considered in relation to the very real social inequalities and power differentials in human oppression and privilege. 

This shit white vegans call “speciesism,” where human beings are supposedly “privileged” as a species over animals, doesn’t exist and here’s a reason why: there are nearly three times as many animal shelters in the US as there are shelters for battered women and their children. And this isn’t a new phenomenon. It is far less political, controversial, and socially inflammatory to house animals than it is to house abused women, which should immediately demonstrate structural priorities and “privileges” when it comes to these two “species.”

When white vegans compare the consumption of certain animals to racism, they are drawing a figurative comparison between human beings (who “oppress” animals) and white people (who oppress POC). By that white logic, they are also drawing a figurative comparison between animals (“oppressed” by human beings) and POC (oppressed by white people). This means they are reproducing the same kind of racist arguments that equate white folks with human beings and POC with animals. Sitting on my privileged white ass eating a hamburger is not now and will never be the same as racism. 

The cruelty, brutality, and abuse of factory farming is reprehensible. No one is denying that. But when white vegans compare eating meat to genocide, they ignore that this small privileged demographic (in comparison to the global population) is consuming excessive amounts of meat, which doesn’t even nearly constitute the same worldwide oppression and genocide POC experience. Claiming animals deserve the same civil/human rights as POC suggests that their experiences are identical, and once again equates people of color with animals. 

Consider the racial and class privilege white vegans have when making these dietary decisions in the midst of numerous farmer’s markets, health food stores, or accessible concentrations of grocery stores period. Whether it’s the ability to afford organic produce or the individual free time to prepare vegan meals, privileged personal consumer choices are not a solution to the abuse of factory farming or the social inequalities of racial oppression. Vegans with white skin maintain considerable white privilege over human beings of color who contend with the institutional and environmental racism of being segregated into neighborhoods without grocery stores, farmer’s markets, or spare land for home vegetable gardens.

As a side note: refusal to wear animal products like skins, furs, and/or leather does not morally free white vegans from wearing clothing made by oppressed people of color in sweat shops—even if that clothing comes from a thrift store.

Vegans, and white folks in general, are not qualified to compare or equate racial oppression with other forms of oppression (real or invented), because we do not know what racial oppression is like from our own experience. When millions of domesticated animals eat better than millions of POC living in poverty, a white justice crusade of personal food politics on the behalves of “oppressed” animals becomes its own punchline. What’s next? Extraterrestrialism? Where aliens oppress human beings with the use of anal probes? Wow, wait a second… isn’t it mostly white rednecks who get anally probed? Did I just discover reverse racism in extraterrestrials? Alert the white liberal media, yall.

—DD

“Apparel manufacturer The Gap is currently selling a black t-shirt bearing — with no explanation — the words “MANIFEST DESTINY.” Manifest Destiny is a polite term for the popular 19th-century belief that the United States — a white, European nation — was destined to expand westward across the continent, by any means necessary. In Indian country, the term Manifest Destiny calls to mind the suffering of previous generations of Natives through forced relocation and genocide.”

—from Indian Country Today Media Network (full article here)

On the left is an altered ad campaign image for The Gap’s new pro-genocide statement t shirt, bearing the words “Manifest Destiny.” On the right is a response from the Settler Colonial facebook page. The designer, Mark McNairy, issued a non-apology on twitter—something along the lines of “I’m sorry you thought I was racist”—after he tweeted “MANIFEST DESTINY. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.” Sure, these are both racist white ideas, but they mean very different things. Manifest Destiny is more so “survival of the whitest.” The philosophy behind it also involved European colonialism and genocide of Indigenous peoples being sanctioned by “God,” which doesn’t quite work with a scientific theory of evolution. If white folks don’t know the meaning of Manifest Destiny, we don’t get to create a new one that we imagine is completely separate from its specific historical and social context. 

For whites to wear the Gap original, it would be continuing our long legacy of racist disregard for Indigenous peoples, our appropriation of violent ideas (or violent appropriation as an act in and of itself) to make a fashion statement, and our privilege of never knowing the harm of racist ideas and language. Folks with white skin are repeat offenders when it comes to cultural theft, and it may seem acceptable, innocuous, or even meaningless because we have absolutely no idea what that experience is like. There are no t shirts printed with statements signifying the genocide, removal, displacement, colonization, and mass killing of white folks. There are also no corporate megastores selling shirts that say “Auschwitz” or “Sieg Heil.” It’s only because of our positions on the safe and privileged (therefore ignorant) side of Manifest Destiny that we can have fun with the term and turn it into a consumer product. The good news is that The Gap has apparently agreed to stop selling the shirt. The bad news is that racism doesn’t go out of style with it.

rubyvroom:

Have you seen this photo?

This photo of an assault on a black man by a racist mob was taken in Boston in 1976 and won a Pulitzer prize for the Boston Herald, but is rarely seen today.

White Bostonians, enraged over efforts to desegregate Boston schools using a system of busing, were staging a protest in Government Center. 

Some 200 white students from South Boston and Charlestown assembled for the march to City Hall Plaza. “We all wanted to belong to something big,” recalls one teenage protester, “and the feeling of being part of the anti-busing movement along with the rest of Southie had been the best feeling in the world.” Southie meant more than just the geographic place South Boston. It meant neighborhood and community and ethnic pride. Thinking of the long day ahead, some packed a snack. Some made signs that said “RESIST.” One student, before leaving his third-floor South Boston apartment, grabbed the family’s American flag.

From the start, the anti-busing movement identified itself with patriotism. The activists saw themselves as defending their liberty against the tyranny of a judge run amok. Boston’s celebration of Bicentennial events in 1975 and 1976 only reinforced the idea that they were carrying on in a tradition of American resistance: one anti-busing group had as its motto “Don’t tread on me.” At rallies and boycotts, protesters carried American flags and frequently sang “God Bless America.” 

Ted Landsmark happened to be passing by that day. A lawyer for the Contractor’s Association, he was heading to City Hall for a meeting. The crowd, students and adults from Southie and Charlestown, spotted a black man in a three-piece suit and attacked him. 

A scuffle began. The protesters spotted Landsmark and turned on him. One went to trip him up. Landsmark recalls a couple of them yelling, “Get the nigger.” A few of the anti-busing protesters at the front jumped him. He was being kicked and punched. “As an American flag carried by one of the students swirled above the fracas, a black man was set upon by several white youths,”The Boston Globereported.

The flag bearer circled around and began to swing the flag at Landsmark. Some officers of the police mobile operations patrol and some adults intervened, but too late. The incident lasted maybe 15 or 20 seconds. Landsmark’s glasses were shattered and his nose broken from the punches that he had received. He was left drifting, bloodied and dazed.

You might think of Boston as a liberal, progressive city. You might think of school desegregation violence as something that happened in the South, not in New England. But talk to Black Bostonians, and they’ll tell you about people throwing rocks at them on their way to school, and having to duck their heads away from the school bus windows as they entered white neighborhoods.

Today Boston is debating a revamp of the busing system that attempted to desegregate Boston public schools. Thanks to White Flight, Boston schools are still as segregated as ever.

Nobody talks about the busing crisis much anymore - not publicly, anyway.

But take a good look at that photo. This is Boston. This is America.

biggadjeworld:

I just received a private message about racial issues.

It is not my place to divulge the name or message of the individual, but I wanted to share my response & my views on racial issues, white-privilege, passing-privilege & various other topics relating to race.

It is my deeply held personal…

Person writes into blog demanding equality by treating people equally. Person says with proud racism, white supremacy, and inequality that “protecting n***ers or s**d people” is stupid. Person is a failure to their own theory, making a complete mockery of their previous points.

And yet… I’m the ignorant idiot.

—DD

So the Republican website that created this image, Stumpy’s Stickers, was supposedly shut down in March of this year, seeing as their products behind a national campaign were based on a racist play of the word “renege.” The site is still there and fully functioning. It includes an industrial strength roll of Confederate flag stickers sold in bulk with 500 per roll, stickers with phrases such as “Tequila: Mexican Holy Water,” and an image of a billboard comparing President Obama to Hitler. A Republican small business owner in South Dakota recently decided to continue the racist spirit of the “Don’t Re-Nig” campaign by displaying a sign with this exact slogan on it. Twice. On both sides.

This is what she had to say in her defense:

“I had no intention of trying to be racist,” said Mary Snyder, who put the sign outside the business. “It’s just ridiculous. It’s a political sign, my opinion. They think I’m slandering, uh, n*****s. That’s not it.”

Snyder said she didn’t know about the controversial national campaign. She said she intended the sign to say “Don’t Renege,” which means not to go back on a promise, undertaking or contract.

First of all, she just said the N word. Any statement that begins with “I wasn’t trying to be racist” and is followed with the word “n***ers” immediately disproves its own point. Never underestimate the power of white denial, something so ingrained it compels us to insist we aren’t racist, then comfortably use the N word in practically the same sentence. Does anyone really believe that a white person who freely says the N word to reporters didn’t “intend” to reference it on a sign? And if she intended to say “Don’t Renege,” then why didn’t she just write that on the sign? Twice. On both sides.

Second of all, whether or not she knew about the larger campaign is irrelevant. Nowhere in the interview does she claim to have misspelled the word “Renege.” There’s some meaningless discussion of what her “intentions” were, but no following explanation of why she went with “Re-Nig” instead. Was it an accident? She didn’t say it was. Will she change it now that she understands the pejorative association? She didn’t say that either. In fact, she refused to apologize for it. Her plan is that of most whites: deny racism, then hide racism behind the First Amendment. Protecting the “freedom” of hate speech = white supremacy.    

Members of Scott Brown’s campaign were recently caught (and recorded on youtube) making a stereotypical mockery of Native Americans, which Brown wouldn’t condemn as racist—just “unacceptable and immature.” With the sign above, we see the consequences of both racism and a political campaign that ignores (and therefore encourages) it. A business owner in Boston created this sign after already being criticized for his anti-Obama displays, taking his white supremacy to another level by spending more than $2,000 on the custom signs while protecting them with 24 hour video surveillance. In his own words:

“I’m voicing my opinion. As an American, it’s a right that we have and I’m going to use that right,” Sullivan said. “So we’re not bad guys here.”

Yet another example of racism and hate speech being conflated with constitutional rights and sanctioned by national identity. This is our personal freedom as white folks in the US: we can say whatever we want, hurt whoever we want, offend whoever we want, and be as racist as we want, then turn around and say “It’s OK I’m an American. Read the first amendment, asshole.” If you uphold the constitution as a unique and sacred document of equality, first consider how often it is used to defend shit like this.

“Anti-white racism is growing in our cities.” It’s a statement that the French have heard several times over the past few years, during TV and radio interviews; debates; perhaps from their bigoted neighbour. But never before has it been heard publicly by a politician who isn’t affiliated with the far-right National Front (FN) party.

Jean-François Copé [secretary general of France’s (supposedly) centre-right UMP party] feeds insecurities by calling “anti-white racism” a “taboo” that nobody dares talk about. He pledges to break the taboo in order to stop the silence that “aggravates the trauma” of the white victims. But who are these white victims?

Well… Considering that Copé chooses to reside in one of the whitest, richest areas of central Paris despite his function as mayor of the multicultural constituency of Meaux, then I guess it’s hard for him to keep up with what’s going on in the impoverished neighbourhoods that he talks so confidently about. Even he admits that ‘the phenomenon is almost impossible to imagine from Paris’.”

Wait a minute. Isn’t this France we’re talking about… where burqas were banned? Are white male politicians in danger of having their suits and ties banned? Which rights of wealthy white Parisians are being threatened? What “trauma” is plaguing rich white neighborhoods? Maybe talking about anti-white racism is “taboo” because it’s exactly like talking about a conversation you had with a unicorn. These things don’t happen and they don’t exist.

Yep. Racism is prejudice and power. Folks with white skin might experience prejudice, but we never experience a different racial group having institutional, social, financial, or political power over us.

—DD

This is a very basic arc of popular white feminism in the US: first wave, second wave, and third wave feminism. I’m still waiting on tidal wave feminism that destroys the whole of patriarchy in its path. But aren’t we all. The first wave starts with white women like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin in the 1800s, then the second wave washes up with white women like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, then an intervention happens between the second and third waves… WOC feminists like Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, and Barbara Smith bring queer and racial politics to a white-dominated movement. The white supremacy in mainstream feminism was finally called out, yet the legacy lives on.

Individual freedom and/or liberation has been and continues to be at the heart of white feminism, ranging anywhere from the freedom to vote to the freedom to wear underwear in public and not be called a “sl*t.” Like most rights and private liberty discourses in the US, liberation often translates to individuals having the power to do whatever the fuck they want. But who has the privilege to do whatever they want with a considerable amount of public safety? Who has institutional power while they exploit the social freedom of never having been reduced to a stereotype that results in oppression, violence, and death? Whether it’s a white woman wearing dreadlocks, wearing a bindi, wearing a sari, wearing a war bonnet, wearing a burqa, or getting “tribal” tattoos worn by Indigenous Filipino peoples, the only “freedom” we have is in damaging and disrespecting the cultural expressions of the women and people of color to whom these expressions belong.

We white folks are all about private property and ownership, and we have been ever since the days of chattel slavery when we owned human beings as property. European whites + capitalism + racism = slave trade, colonization, genocide. Could it be our persistent dehumanization of POC that compels us to never see cultural objects, traditions, and garments as the private property of POC? When we affirm our own “humanity” through the “freedom” of stealing from women and people of color, we devalue the humanity of those from which we steal (otherwise known as racism). For those of you that might raise the argument “but white women became the property of white men through marriage,” think of it this way: even though you may not have been alive back then, there was certainly a huge difference between working the fields of a plantation and sipping tea on the porch of a plantation mansion in silk stockings. White women were never sold and traded in chains through public auctions, and neither were their children. 

In the picture below is Lady GaGa, only one contemporary example of cultural appropriation and white supremacy in mainstream feminism. Women with white skin appropriate clothing for maybe five minutes—the significance being that they “appreciate it”—and do not live in this clothing for most of their lives. Famous white women who appropriate clothing make it that much easier for their fans to act like none of what Muslim women experience matters. This is a hideous example of white feminism because it serves the interests, privileges, and liberties of white women exclusively; this is not feminism that supports and empowers the WOC being devalued, dehumanized, and dismissed by cultural theft.  

Here’s a simple list of reasons why white women should never do this kind of shit:

*If you are not a member of a group that traditionally and historically wears these garments, there is never a good reason to wear something that is not socially or culturally relevant to you.

*Mocking Islam by taking something worn for religious purposes and wearing it for Western entertainment will only benefit racist ideas and racist culture.

*If feminism is for the good of all women, then white women who oppress ‘others’ for their own empowerment are not practicing feminism. They are practicing white feminism.

*Stealing a cultural and religious garment for the sake of performance is cultural appropriation. If it is not your daily experience as a white person, it should never be your costume.

*White women do not encounter racism, oppression, or Islamophobia (the social fear and racial hatred of Islam) when they wear cultural garments that do not belong to them.

*Only white people can take something from another culture and make it “fashionable” while experiencing none of the violence POC endure.

*white privilege is having fun with racist stereotypes.

*The argument in defense of Lady GaGa that says “equality is anyone being able to wear anything they want,” really boils down to “white people can steal anything they want from POC and should be able to wear it without consequences.”