Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Chapter 5 focuses on the shortcomings of traditional feminism, namely its exclusion of women of color. Eddo-Lodge uses the entertainment industry to explain this problem. In 2012, commentators hailed Girls, a television show about young white women in New York City, as “the most feminist show in decades” (144). Eddo-Lodge penned a blog questioning how feminists could recognize the problem of an all-male panel or workplace but fail to recognize the problem of an all-white television show. Lily Allen’s music video for “Hard Out There” also fueled debates about race, not for excluding women of color but for representing them in a negative way. All the women of color in the video are scantily clad backup dancers who serve as foils for Allen, a successful white woman singing about glass ceilings and objectification. Eddo-Lodge’s use of popular culture helps engage readers and introduce them to challenging topics.

In 2013, Eddo-Lodge participated in a panel on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, where she shared her concerns about white-centric feminist perspectives to a room full of white people. She explained why feminism needed to consider race alongside gender. Another panelist observed that anti-racist perspectives were fueling online harassment and inadvertently implicated Eddo-Lodge in this kind of behavior. A public debate ensued, with some people accusing Eddo-Lodge of bullying. Eddo-Lodge responded with a short blog defending herself and reiterating her call for racial awareness: “I meant what I said on the programme: the only way to foster any shared solidarity is to learn from each other’s struggles, and recognise the various privileges and disadvantages that we all enter the movement with” (149). Despite this clarification and an apology from the panelist who sparked the debate, a Conservative MP called out Eddo-Lodge for bullying.

Black feminists use the term intersectionality to describe the intersection of different forms of discrimination, notably racism and sexism. Intersectionality recognizes that Black women’s experiences are not the same as those of white women or Black men. Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989, but Black women discussed their unique experiences with discrimination long before that. For example, the Black abolitionist Sojourner Truth spoke about not being treated like a woman at a Women’s Rights convention in Ohio in 1851: “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?” (157). In 1979, Michele Wallace published an essay titled, “Anger in Isolation: A Black feminist’s Search for Sisterhood,” which addressed the exclusion of Black women from traditional feminism: “We exist as women who are Black, who are feminist, each stranded for the moment, working independently because there is not yet an environment in this society remotely congenial to our struggle” (158). The publication of Ain’t I a Black Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks in 1981 provided further insights into the exclusionary nature of feminism:

Women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labelling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization (158).

Eddo-Lodge uses the imagery of America’s road system to help readers understand intersectionality. Many American cities follow a grid system comprising straight roads that meet at right angles. For intersectional feminists, the many intersections of America’s streets mirror the complex interrelation of sexism and racism. Despite this metaphor, explanations, and examples, however, critics dismiss intersectionality as an erudite term that serves no purpose outside academic settings. Moreover, many white feminists claim intersectionality fractures feminism and therefore weakens the movement.

White feminists not only criticize intersectionality but also the idea of white privilege. Eddo-Lodge posits these criticisms stem from the discomfort of having to admit complicity in supporting racist structures. White men also reject the idea of white privilege, calling it well-intentioned but ultimately a distraction and a means of policing speech and behavior. For many on the far-right, asking a white person to check their privilege is synonymous with calling them racist. Eddo-Lodge contextualizes these responses. For her, the pushback against intersectionality and white privilege is of a piece with historic clampdowns on Black activism. She finds resistance from white feminists particularly frustrating:

If feminism can understand the patriarchy, it’s important to question why so many feminists struggle to understand whiteness as a political structure in the very same way. Similar to the fact that they are man-heavy, our most recognised political structures are white-dominated (168).

White feminism engages in colorblindness. As Eddo-Lodge notes, insisting on not seeing color denies non-white people the language to articulate central aspects of their identity. Colorblindness ignores the needs of people of color and assumes they will quickly and quietly assimilate into existing societal structures. Eddo-Lodge is highly critical of feminists who fail to interrogate whiteness:

We all grew up in a white-dominated world. This is the context that white feminists are working within, benefiting from and reproducing a system that they barely notice. However, their critical-analysis skills are pretty good at spotting exclusive systems, such as gender, that they don’t benefit from. They spout impassioned rhetoric against patriarchy with ease, feeling its sharp edge of injustice jutting them in the ribs at work in the form of unequal pay, and socially, hurled at them in the street in the form of catcalling […] Yet they’re incredibly defensive when the same analysis of race is leveled at their whiteness. You’d have to laugh, if the whole thing wasn’t so reprehensible (170-71).

Intersectional feminism is necessary for women of color. Over the past decade, the British government has implemented laws that are demonstrably harmful to minority women. Eddo-Lodge draws on studies to support this assertion. In 2013, for example, the Women’s Budget Group determined that the government’s austerity agenda was most detrimental to women, particularly women of color (173). Three years later, the government laid out plans to deport Muslim women on spousal visas who failed to learn English. Prime Minister David Cameron blamed this lack of integration on Muslim men: “Some of these people have come to our country [from] quite sort of patriarchal societies, where perhaps the menfolk haven’t wanted them to learn English, haven’t wanted them to integrate” (174). Cameron followed this statement with a nod to the British way of life: “We should be very proud of our values, our liberalism, our tolerance, our idea that we want to build a genuine opportunity democracy […] where there is segregation it’s holding people back, it’s not in tune with British values and it needs to go” (174). Extreme misogyny is not exclusively the domain of the foreign born, however. According to the Office of National Statistics, seven women are murdered by their current or former romantic partners every month in England and Wales, and 85,000 women are raped in Britain every year (175). These statistics demonstrate that violence toward women is widespread rather than being restricted to immigrant communities.

Intersectional feminists aim to put an end to the patriarchy and racism. In their view, one goal cannot be achieved without the other. There are no easy solutions—the fight for equality must be as nuanced as inequality is complex. For Eddo-Lodge, feminism needs to expand it parameters. It cannot solely be about white women achieving equality in a workplace created by and for white men. It must also be “a movement that works to liberate all people who have been economically, socially and culturally marginalized by an ideological system that has been designed for them to fail” (181). Feminism requires radical reimagining. Only then will it create a more equal world.