00:00Hey, I'm Elisa Kreisinger, and every Saturday I unpack my strong opinions with the help of an
00:05expert who might not have all of the answers, but they certainly know more than I do. That's why
00:10this is Strong Opinions, Loosely Held, and on this week's show, what's up with white women?
00:14This summer, my fellow white women and I became mockable memes, and we pretty much ruined summer.
00:20You might remember Pool Patrol Paula, a white lady who was arrested for assaulting a black
00:25teenager at a community pool. Get out! Get out! Get out now! And who could forget Barbecue Becky,
00:33a white lady who called the cops on a group of black people for barbecuing in a park.
00:38Charcoal drills are not loud here. No, it's not actually. I just looked at the map. It says this
00:42is a designated barbecue area. And then there was Permit Patty, the white lady cannabis entrepreneur
00:48who called the police because an enterprising eight-year-old girl was selling bottles of water
00:53on the sidewalk without a permit. She calling police on an eight-year-old little girl.
00:58Yeah, and illegally selling water without a permit. And those are just the instances that made national
01:03news. What is going on with white women? And how are we going to avoid ruining our favorite season,
01:09fall? Dr. Brittany Cooper is an associate professor of women and gender studies at Rutgers University,
01:15and she's also the author of Eloquent Rage. Her memoir really helped me put this summer into perspective.
01:22I absolutely think that white women have something to learn by observing people of color and observing
01:28women of color doing feminism and caring for each other. Like whenever I say this thing about white
01:32women, come get your people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Every time I say it, white women are like,
01:37but who? Permit Patty is not my person. Like she doesn't. I'm like, yes, she is. That is your person.
01:43Like she's your people. But the thing that the rest of us have had to learn that white women and
01:48particularly white feminists still have to learn is that none of us can flourish beyond the capacity
01:54of our communities to flourish. Being in community with homegirls means that you understand that you're
02:00only sustained in community. That it is not, I think, therefore I am, but I am because we are.
02:05There is nothing more powerful than that. Dr. Cooper explained that communities of color
02:10have always been grouped together because of prejudice. But white women, on the other hand,
02:15we've never really had to find community with each other to survive because, well, we're white.
02:21So because the rest of us, because of racial dynamics in America, are group identified. We
02:27have to be when folks who are of Middle Eastern descent become grouped together because of the
02:32politics of like terrorism and 9-11, right? The same thing happens to black folks. The same thing
02:37happens to many groups of Latino folks. White people don't understand that. They're always like,
02:42nope, I'm just individually myself and I want to be judged on my individual merits and my goodness
02:47as a person. And that explains why white women are a major eye roll. But it also brings up a
02:53very
02:53interesting question, which is why don't white people group identify? Because look, here's the truth
02:59of that. White people have the power they have because of white supremacy, because of moving in a
03:03group to secure privileges and advantages and benefits for themselves as a group. And so all
03:10I'm asking for is acknowledgement of that. It is what is true. And then a shift towards using those
03:16group identifications in a just way. Dr. Cooper told me that the challenge is going to be that white
03:21people will have to have some uncomfortable conversations with the permit patty and barbecue
03:26beckys in their lives. But the benefit of that is that we'll get to be in community.
03:31But why is this idea of community such a weird and kind of radical idea for white women? Dr. Cooper
03:37explained that a lack of community has a lot to do with proximity to power. White women are closer
03:43to white men and therefore white privilege. And that privilege really skews our sense of injustice.
03:49Their only sense of injustice is that they grow up next to men and they want to be able to
03:53run
03:53in the boardroom in the home and with money. What white women and black men have in common
03:58is that many times their vision of freedom is having the level of freedom and power that white
04:06men have. Because both of them have proximity. White women live in the house with white men are raised
04:12with white men, raised white men. Black men are men. And so they are looking at white men and saying
04:18we could rule the world the way that you do. Black women and women of color negotiate that real
04:24differently. Because women of color don't have the benefit of being either white or male,
04:30they have a very different perspective of the world. Because we don't have either the benefit
04:34of race or gender to give us that level of proximity. And so we're like, well, this whole
04:40thing is rigged. Yeah. We can't get there no matter how we try. We know that you can't dismantle the
04:46patriarchy if you're not also trying to dismantle white supremacy. So to recap, white women need to have
04:51conversations with the barbecue Beckys, pool patrol Paulas and permit patties in our lives. Because
04:57for white women, those are our people. But for white women, we also feel kind of awkward about this
05:03because we've never really had to be in community with other white women to survive. And that's
05:08because we're white and we've done everything we can to hold on to this privilege. And that includes
05:14calling the cops on people of color for being in public. Look, white women have always been
05:20complicit in the work of white supremacy. They have often been some of its primary arbiters.
05:25I think that many black feminists don't have as benevolent a read of white feminist women
05:30because white feminist women have a long history of doing racist s**t. Dr. Cooper and I just barely
05:35scratched the surface of this topic. So make sure you check out her book, Eloquent Rage. And are you
05:39having these conversations with the white women in your life? What about with the women of color?
05:43I'd love to hear from you. Comment below and I'll see you back here next week.
05:48We hope you enjoyed this episode. To watch more videos on Riot, click here. And to subscribe, click here.
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