White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

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Classwashing is an attempt to absolve and deny the existence of racism at all strata of society by turning the tables to admonish people of color that it is unfair to talk about racism at the polling booth because the white working class is disenfranchised. Or they are uneducated. Or they just don’t know any better. We need to hear them out and then we will see their racism will dissolve as soon as their economic” white tears/brown scars is thoroughly researched and compellingly articulated, but not altogether groundbreaking for me. i also personally did not go in expecting the majority of the book to rehash history; the initial chapters, for instance, delve into the historical origins of racialized and gendered stereotypes (e.g., the "china doll"), while one of the last chapters details a history of slavery in africa without clear connections to gender and feminism. White Tears/Brown Scars belongs in twenty–first–century feminist canon. It's grounded in deep historical context, yet thoroughly of the present. It makes bold intellectual arguments, but is extremely readable and grounded in human experience. If you are a white woman, it may make for uncomfortable reading: this book takes the most precise scalpel to the way that white women leverage race and gender of any book that I've read. If you are a woman of color, perhaps it will make you feel seen. If you are a man, read it for your own education! Hamad has written a truly exceptional, agenda–setting work."—Rachel Hills, author of The Sex Myth Humanities & Social Sciences > Interdisciplinary Studies > Race and Ethnic Studies > Introduction to Cultural Studies In Part Two, I think 5. There Is No Sisterhood, 7. The Rise of Righteous Racism, and 8. The Privilege and Peril of Passing were the most informative with a focus on interactions and attitudes in the professional workplace, nonprofit organizations, on social media, and in the beauty industry.

It doesn’t stop at tears, either. The claimants in most US racial discrimination lawsuits resulting from affirmative action are white women, Hamad found. It appears “We can be both targets of racial abuse and perpetrators of it.” Hamad offers a comprehensive look at the ways in which women of color have been dismissed by society . . . This book should be considered required reading.”—Lauren LeBlanc, The ObserverThat being said, I want to say (since it doesn't seem to be indicated in all the 5s) that Hamad uses misinformation techniques to massage her argument. I am so uncomfortable having this conversation,’ said Fox News host Melissa Francis during a live broadcast of the network’s panel program Outnumbered on August 16, 2017. The previous day, US president Donald Trump held a press conference denouncing the Charlottesville riots that ended in tragedy when a white supremacist drove his car through a group of people protesting a far-right rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Trump had audaciously claimed ‘both sides’ were to blame for the violence––and that there were ‘very fine people’ on both sides. This sparked countless debates across the country, much like the one Francis was engaged in with her co-panellists Harris Faulkner, Juan Williams and Marie Harf. The intersectional feminism is presented with a variety of world views/first hand accounts that make it very easy to absorb. It's something I will need to read several times and will likely take something new from it every time. She further notes, "A white man raping a white woman is not a threat to white male power, and if it destroys or threatens to destroy the woman’s life, then so be it... It is only when white women are violated or even imagined to be violated by nonwhite men that white society suddenly seems to find its moral compass."

Hamad's White Tears/Brown Scars depicts poignantly the effects white feminism has had on women of colour. It is a book that I would consider required reading, along with other books that discuss white feminism's link to white supremacy and the oppression of women of colour. This has also been recommended as reading for the StopAsianHate and other anti-racist movements, as this book discusses the stereotypes faced by women of colour (jezebel, dragon lady, etc.) and how the system is always rigged against them.

A MUST read for any white women who consider themselves "feminist"' - Scarlett Curtis, author of the Sunday Times bestselling Feminists Don't Wear Pink Because colonised women did not adhere to cultural roles akin to White Womanhood, white women assumed they were oppressed, and this status was used to actually oppress them further.” Reading this book also reminded me of the comedian, Bill Burr, and his SNL speech about white women feminism.

Author Ruby Hamad wrote this book primarily for women of color, but it is also a book every white person should read, especially those of us who call ourselves feminists. Extremely insightful and comprehensive. It's White Fragility plus a whole lot more. To put it less poetically, it is the trauma caused by the tactic many white women employ to muster sympathy and avoid accountability, by turning the tables and accusing their accuser.Amid a sea of recent books about white women's commitment to white supremacy, White Tears/Brown Scars stands out."— Bitch Ruby is an incredible researcher, a savant of truth, an ally of authority and merit. For all I thought I knew of white supremacy and its female co-conspirators, I learned so much from reading this book — from settler-colonial theory to maternal colonialism to the unforgotten accounts of white women disguising themselves as feminists while remaining complicit in causing irreparable harm to women of color and maiming entire generations of peoples under the pretense of harmless femininity.

Joining the likes of Robin DiAngelo, Layla F. Saad and Reni Eddo-Lodge, Ruby Hamad’s book has established itself as a must-read, appearing in a number of anti-racism reading lists. Locally, White Tears/Brown Scars has been listed in Readings’ ‘Books to help you understand and fight white supremacy’ while internationally it has been recommended by the Equality Institute, WAMU 88.5, DJ Mag and Real Simple.That the voices of “women of colour” are getting louder and more influential is a testament less to the accommodations made by the dominant white culture and more to their own grit in a society that implicitly – and sometimes explicitly – wants them to fail. The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer.