The Wake

I’m a member of the women’s student activist collective. There are about a dozen of us who are core members. We’re all white. We don’t all define ourselves as feminists, but we find common ground in feeling compelled to challenge what society says is acceptable and normal. We have an office on the second floor of Coffman. The student groups on the second floor are called student cultural centers because the idea is that these groups represent the diverse array of students at the U. Because all of the core members of the collective are white, we fail to proportionally represent the population of the University and the population of the country.

Our mission in the women’s collective is to empower women and transpeople by eliminating racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, ableism, and other interrelated forms of inequality. Sure, no problem. We should have something figured out by early next week. We realize we aren’t going to end these isms in our four years here, but we set our goals high. When only the privileged race is represented, how can we work effectively work towards eliminating racism? How can we have a broad enough perspective to address issues specific to people of color, more specifically women in these groups, if there is no one who can speak from personal experiences? We could ask these questions in regards to most of our isms but whiteness is easiest to see on our faces.

Being in an all white group is problematic because there is no voice of people who are systematically racially oppressed. When trying to tackle issues that affect oppressed groups, it is crucial to get a real perspective. Collective members are disturbed when we hear about police brutalization and immigrant women who can’t get equal health care, all the while knowing that we don’t personally have to worry about this affecting us. Many of the issues the collective tries to address affect people who are marginalized and yet, racially, none of us are marginalized. It is impossible to know if we are taking the right approach when everyone in the group is part of the privileged group and no one deals with something like institutionalized racism.

Having a lack of racial diversity in our group is also problematic because there is no dialogue between white women and women of color. We are not getting closer to a less sexist world if we are not working together to address sexism from all sides. Chicana feminist, Gloria Anzaldúa, wrote in 1984 that women need to stop skirting around the issue of race (racism) and have some face to face conversations about what keeps women from working together. Collective members are ready to talk. We acknowledge our whiteness and understand that it is problematic. We also know that keeping to ourselves will not get us anywhere.

With the women’s collective, the issue of race poses a unique problem because for many women of color, there is a stronger tendency to identify with race over sex. Another Chicana feminist, Marta Cortera, outright states “What is stronger, racism or sexism? I believe racism.” If a woman is going to dedicate her free time and energy to a student group, she would want to spend it with a group where she feels the strongest need.

There has also been a history of racism within the feminist movement. The suffragist movement was originally based on the idea that if black men get to vote certainly white women deserve the vote. Many women of color hesitate to join a group of white feminists because the issues white feminists are taking up don’t align with what women of color are fighting for. White women have a lot of privilege to begin with, being the daughters and sisters of the white men in power, so there is not the same necessity to fight for rights institutions have deemed must only be given to those of us who are lily white. Our privilege allows us to ignore issues like housing discrimination and equal access to higher education and other areas that women of color still struggle with because racially, they are discriminated against.

We are not the only all white student group at the University. Many of the non-ethnically or non-racially defined groups tend to be white because white people don’t need to organize around their race. Without our skin color to worry about, white kids can choose which issue is most interesting or relevant to them whether it’s the environment, politics, or what-have-you.

It’s hard to know where a white person’s place is when working outside their racial community, but creating dialogue and awareness, recognizing privilege and our limitations in understanding others’ situation is significant progress. Being white means you’re in a position of privilege, and given a choice whether to care about and act upon the injustices that surround us. With that said, just having this privilege gives a person opportunities and power to make change that many other people are not given. It’s a responsibility to act. And sometimes change that comes from within the system (as in action against racism and discrimination from white people) has real power. In the words of Marta Cortera, “If you’re screwed, we’re screwed, figuratively speaking of course.” So, let’s start talking and working together.