White fragility, as described below, ain't gonna stop this train.
NY Times: Women's March on Washington Opens Contentious Dialogues About Race
Ms. Willis, a 50-year-old wedding minister from South Carolina, had looked forward to taking her daughters to the march. Then she read a post on the Facebook page for the march that made her feel unwelcome because she is white.
The post, written by a black activist from Brooklyn who is a march volunteer, advised ”white allies" to listen more and talk less. It also chided those who, it said, were only now waking up to racism because of the election.
”You don't just get to join because now you're scared, too," read the post. ”I was born scared."
The post that offended Ms. Willis was part of that effort. So was the quotation posted on the march's Facebook page from Bell Hooks, the black feminist, about forging a stronger sisterhood by ”confronting the ways women — through sex, class and race — dominated and exploited other women."
In response, a New Jersey woman wrote: ”I'm starting to feel not very welcome in this endeavor."
Ms. Willis, the South Carolina wedding minister, had been looking forward to the salve of rallying with people who share her values, a rarity in her home state, where she said she had been insulted and shouted at for marrying gay couples.
But then she read a post by ShiShi Rose, a 27-year-old blogger from Brooklyn.
”Now is the time for you to be listening more, talking less," Ms. Rose wrote. ”You should be reading our books and understanding the roots of racism and white supremacy. Listening to our speeches. You should be drowning yourselves in our poetry."
It rubbed Ms. Willis the wrong way.
”How do you know that I'm not reading black poetry?" she asked in an interview. Ms. Willis says that she understands being born white gives her advantages, and that she is always open to learning more about the struggles of others.
But, she said, ”The last thing that is going to make me endeared to you, to know you and love you more, is if you are sitting there wagging your finger at me."
Ms. Rose said in an interview that the intention of the post was not to weed people out but rather to make them understand that they had a lot of learning to do.
”I needed them to understand that they don't just get to join the march and not check their privilege constantly," she said.
That phrase — check your privilege — exasperates Ms. Willis. She asked a reporter: ”Can you please tell me what that means?"
Stung by the tone, Ms. Willis canceled her trip.
”This is a women's march," she said. ”We're supposed to be allies in equal pay, marriage, adoption. Why is it now about, ‘White women don't understand black women'?"
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In Tennessee, emotions ran high when organizers changed the name of the local march from ”Women's March on Washington-Nashville" to ”Power Together Tennessee, in solidarity with Women's March on Washington." While many applauded the name change, which was meant to signal the start of a new social justice movement in Nashville, some complained that the event had turned from a march for all women into a march for black women.
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In Louisiana, the first state coordinator gave up her volunteer role in part because there were no minority women in leadership positions at that time.
”I got a lot of flak locally when I stepped down, from white women who said that I'm alienating a lot of white women," said Candice Huber, a bookstore owner in New Orleans, who is white. ”They said, ‘Why do you have to be so divisive?'"
