Beware of slippery slopes, Sara — especially when they are wet with white women’s tears! My head is getting tired from responding to the same kinds of responses from wounded white people who take this into ad hominem territory intead of understanding the broader points I’m trying to make about where problematic white behaviors come from.
Believe it or not, white people are a social group just as much as any other, which means that there are particular cultural practices that inform white behaviors. These practices can and should be named, which this piece does while also offering a theoretical framework to explain what these behaviors are imitating. It would be different if white people hadn’t been doing horrible things to other people for hundreds of years, but, unfortunately, we have been, which is why we need to start taking an honest look at ourselves beyond the defenses we use to deflect any references to ourselves that aren’t keeping up the illusion of a superiority that doesn’t actually exist.
While I do focus on how white men perform masculinity in this piece, I agree with you that it would be important to also describe how white women perform femininity in imitation of a superiority that doesn’t exist. I think it would be interesting and worthwhile, for example, to write about how and why it was only white women who were ever openly hostile to me for wearing makeup while working at a makeup store, as well as why it’s only white women who complain about their drinks at a smoothie store that one of my friends manages. It seems as though white women believe that their feelings are more important than anyone else’s, that they feel entitled to getting whatever they want from others… I’ll have to do some more reflecting about what I’ve noticed among white women before I write this, though. I also agree with you in thinking it would be important to write toward how white children learn to act and believe they are superior to others when they actually aren’t… I could use examples from my own white childhood to do this.
I thankfully have a lot of experience with being white because I have been a white person all my life. My mother, father, siblings, grandparents, and the rest of my family are also all white. I am part of the group that I am describing, which is what gives me the right to comment on my own people’s behavior. It would be totally inappropriate for me to speak on behalf of other social groups, though. *insert sarcastic reference to claims about immigrants, Blacks, and LGBTs here*
