White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better

Not only is white woman exceptionalism false, but in it lies the implication that if you are the exception, other white women around you are the rule. You believe that you’re better than them. How can that be healthy? How can that be sisterhood?

The next time you refer to someone as your Asian intern or Black friend, think about how often you refer to colleagues or friends or yourself as white. My white boss. My white neighbor. Likely never. Please start now.

You’ve amassed wealth through a system of white supremacy. You have literally made money on the backs of BIPOC. Stolen land. Stolen labor. Stolen ideas. So the notion that you want to “give” or “help” as a way of doing something good is all part of this myth

There is white supremacy in mundane, everyday expressions. Black cats, black magic, black sheep in the family. All bad. White lies, better than regular lies. Even “white trash.” You don’t say “Black trash” or “brown trash,” ostensibly because it would be redundant in your white mind. When you say “white trash,” what you are saying is trash is by de

Your need for perfection, in fact, makes it impossible to engage in antiracism work.

Yet the way you often act goes beyond white privilege. It’s white privilege extra, white privilege on steroids, white privilege with a side of large fries. It’s white entitlement.

In a white supremacist society, such as the United States, white privilege is the unearned benefit one incurs from having white skin. Therefore, if you are white, you have white privilege and, in wielding and enjoying that privilege, you are inherently upholding white supremacy.

.” Or you might even flat-out not believe what’s written here. White people expressing shock over racism is racism. It is a version of “not me,” “not all white people.” It is distancing yourself from the harm you all cause. It is kicking the can down the road, avoiding accountability. It is freezing, doing nothing besides being shocked.

Because you so greatly benefit from your whiteness, you work tirelessly to protect it. In a white supremacy culture like ours, not working tirelessly to dismantle it is the equivalent of working tirelessly to protect it. In other words, not acting is acting.