Saturday, September 27, 2008

A White Profeminist Listens to and Learns from a White Feminist

I remain personally and politically discouraged by the degree to which white folks refuse to read, listen to, and learn from Womanist and feminist women of color. My blog exists, in part, to highlight the views of women of color in discussions about political matters which oppressively impact women and girls within and beyond North America. What I have been increasingly aware of over the years, as my own whiteness becomes more real to me as a form of power and privilege, is that the white feminist agenda (which in some ways includes the white profeminist agenda) is not in sync with the political agendas of various active feminists of color and Womanists.

The exchange that follows is between two honest and thoughtful white activists: one a woman who has been doing anti-rape and rape survivor support work for a long time, informed deeply by the work of a few white feminist writers, and the other a man who has been active in the white-led feminist anti-pornography movement.

Here is the link to that discussion between those two activists, Ruth Anne Koenick and Robert Jensen.

As this is a profeminist blog, I will add that Robert Jensen has wrestled with and has written about the problem of whiteness far more (and far more honestly) than any other white profeminist man I know. I appreciate this about his work.
END OF POST. THERE IS NO MORE

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