January 16th, 2008
Fear is the mind killer
I have been afraid.
“Does it scare you not to think of yourself as the norm?”
Yes.
“Does it scare you that you aren’t representative of all women?”
Yes.
“Does it scare you that you are lacking?”
Yes.
“Does it scare you not to know what to do, not to have the right answer all the time?”
Yes.
“Does it scare you that even when you think you’re doing right, you’re doing wrong, and that nonwhite women want you to acknowledge it anyway?”
Yes.
I have been afraid. The difference between then and now is, then, I couldn’t even admit that I was afraid. Because I couldn’t admit I was afraid, I had to react. I had to redirect, to lash out, to push the fear and the awareness of the fear and the knowledge of the awareness of the fear away from me. For the last ten months or so, my reactionary racist arguments have broken like waves over other feminists, who’ve patiently and kindly repeated themselves: “No. You’re wrong. You wouldn’t accept those arguments from a man–‘I’m not like that!’ ‘Not all men are bad!’ ‘Some of us care about justice! Sexism hurts men too!’–as reasons for feminists to shut up about sexism. You should not accept them from yourself–‘But I’m not like that!’ ‘I really care about women!’ ‘I’m oppressed too!’–as reasons for feminists to shut up about racism.” I felt ashamed that those arguments were in me. Their presence showed me that I could not trust myself. I obviously didn’t know what was right.
I was afraid that I was being asked to give up something fundamental to who I am.
And indeed this is exactly what was being asked of me.
In white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the closer you are to the top of any hierarchy, the more you are expected to know what’s right, to be in control, to lead and guide others well, to be good and worthy of the power that is vested in you. That’s the official story anyway. (The unofficial story being that a place at or near the top of any hierarchy is a license to dominate, exploit, abuse, rape, beat, maim, mutilate, kill, exterminate, humiliate, degrade, insult, disbelieve and devalue those placed lower than you on that hierarchy.)
Too many white liberal/reform feminists want to believe women would be more benevolent if the power changed hands–if only white women finally achieved “equality” with white men, things would be really different. They don’t phrase it that way, of course, but that belief shows up in what they choose to emphasize, write about, and agitate for.
Many white radical feminists think we want revolution–to throw out this rotten corrupt punky system whose every manifestation is based on dominance and exploitation–but far too many of us have failed to examine the ways those rotten corrupt punky values live on in us, and the way we keep them alive through our own behavior, loyalties, and alliances.
I was, am, afraid, because patriarchy wants me to be afraid. I’m afraid of being wrong because, in patriarchy, being wrong is shameful. In patriarchy, if I’m wrong, someone else is right, and that person thus has power over me. I drop down in the hierarchy, and that’s dangerous, because we all know what happens (unofficially of course) to those whom others have power over. Therefore I must not be wrong. (Whether I am actually wrong becomes irrelevant–I must not be.) I become overwhelmed with fear and shame, and my brain and my ears stop working. My thought process turns into a desperate little hamster on a wheel–”Have to find the way to be right, have to know the answer, have to solve the problem, have to fix it, have to, have to!” The fear of the shame of being wrong informs me that the only solution is to refuse to admit even the possibility that I might be wrong. And in the process of refusing to admit that I might be wrong, I could engage in some pretty unfeminist, unrevolutionary behavior–yelling, ranting, whining, lying, calling names, threatening other women, insisting on my own authority, acting inconsistent, acting belligerent, making wild accusations, putting words in other women’s mouths, playing the victim, taking refuge in the hegemony of hurt feelings.
And meanwhile, nothing changes.
When I cling to the status quo out of fear of losing my place on the race hierarchy, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy wins.
Those of you who know the provenance of the title of this post also know that some people advocate strong-arming fear in order to achieve some very manly, patriarchal ends. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I have come to know recently is that, when I refuse to follow the pathway laid out by white supremacist capitalist patriarchy:
fear/shame –> denial –> bad behavior in the service of the status quo –> patriarchy wins, again
when I step off this path, finding other paths finally becomes a real possibility.
All I have to do is say, “Yes. I am afraid.” “Yes, you’re right. I was wrong about that. I’m sorry.” Freedom washes over me. I no longer have to attempt to support arguments I don’t really believe. I no longer have to save face. I no longer have to be afraid of saying the wrong thing around my women friends who are not white. Paradoxically, by admitting I’m afraid, I no longer have to be afraid, because feminists of color really have no interest in raping, beating, maiming, killing, insulting, humiliating, degrading, or otherwise hurting me. No one expects me to solve the problems of racism, even racism within feminism, singlehandedly. While I really like solutions, they are not necessary to admitting there is a problem. When I say, “You’re right, there’s a problem here. I don’t know what to do about it,” I open the door to looking for solutions together. Solutions to the same old problems aren’t going to come from the same old people acting in the same old ways. One very important part of creating real change is changing ourselves–becoming people who think and act differently. This means, in actual fact, giving up things that are fundamental to who we believe ourselves to be.
In fact, white feminists admitting our fallibility, our past failures, facing the void that is our lack of knowledge about racism, and being willing to change is probably the only way for us to be part of a real, revitalized feminism that addresses its stated goals of ending the oppression of all women.
Being willing to drop our allegiance to being right and knowing the answers is a fundamental challenge to white supremacist capitalist patriarchal structure wherein those at the top know what’s right; they identify the problems and think up the solutions, which are then implemented from the top down. White radical feminists have been pretty successful at rejecting male “solutions” to sexism, and at finding some of our own together; only our allegiance to white supremacy can explain why we balk at doing the same with feminists of color.
I have chosen to live in this world as a lesbian separatist. This means severing all the ties that I can with white males–ties of kinship, ties of friendship, ties of intimacy, sexuality, and reproduction, and to the degree possible, economic ties. I’ve been hurt by the events of my life, by being fat, lesbian, female in patriarchy; we’ve all been damaged in various ways. But at some point our hurts and traumas no longer serve as excuses for clinging to the system that hurt us in the first place. I failed to see that maintaining allegiance to racist white feminists–even if only by failing to publically state my opposition to their racist words and actions–actually maintained my allegiance to white men through those women. I forgot the separatist analysis of heterosexuality and the separatist awareness that women who are loyal to men will use separatists’ loyalty to women against us–so I couldn’t make the relevant analogy, that white women who are loyal to white men will use the loyalty of other white women against women of color. I long ago rejected the arguments men make that we should overlook the sexist abuses of men like Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Jackson Browne, Miles Davis, Martin Luther King Jr., because they’ve done so much good in the world–but I was willing to accept that powerful feminist work was enough of an excuse to overlook the racist allegiances of some white feminists and to dismiss the reactionary behavior some of us so often exhibit.
I’m not willing to accept that anymore.
I’m learning what I need to do to keep my mind alive. I’m learning to identify the physical manifestations of the fear/shame/denial starting–shallow breathing, a burning in my chest, a roaring in my head, clouded vision, shaking hands–and to recognize that I have about ten seconds to stop the reactionary process initiated by a challenge that pushes my factory-installed patriarchal panic button. I have ten seconds to say to myself, “Stop. Breathe. Take your hands away from the keyboard. Don’t react, think. Admit you’re afraid. Admit you don’t know what to do. Admit you’re sorry and ashamed. Acknowledge that here, in feminist space, nothing bad will happen to you if you admit that. Do this because you want justice for women, because you want feminism to achieve its promise. Face this implanted reaction, acknowledge it for what it is–reactionism in the service of maintaining hierarchies of privilege–and step off the path that’s been laid out for you. Throw out the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal instruction manual. Do something different, and see what happens.“
