Editorial

I Am Not Your White Punching Bag!

Intersectional Fractures

4 min read

1 hour ago

Hey, Black and Brown women, I am not your white bitch punching bag!

If I have to read one more article or listen to one more podcast about how “white” women are collectively responsible for all racial and political failings, I’m going to blow a rhetorical gasket.

I am a feminist who grew up in a family trying to make ends meet, where struggling was a visceral, day-to-day reality, not an abstract economic footnote. I am a Materialist Feminist — which means I believe the engine of all oppression, including gender, is rooted in capitalism, labor exploitation, and the control of resources.

Yet, in today’s political landscape, I am repeatedly and summarily “clumped” into a monolithic group labeled “White Women.” I am told my experience is invalid, my political concerns are secondary, and that my entire existence benefits from a racial privilege that outweighs the structural reality of my class oppression.

I am not the woman who sits on a corporate board and votes against equal pay. I am not the woman who uses her privilege to silence Black and Brown women. Frankly, the wealthy, Liberal Feminism that is rightfully critiqued for focusing on the “glass ceiling” is not my feminism; my focus is on the “concrete…