"People on a self-professed left wing message board seem unable to understand structural oppression unless it applies to class/themselves" shock.
Middle Class = fine
Upper Class = fine
Don't robustly explain you don't mean all white people, men, etc.? = Not allowed
First point to make is, the author of the tweet
isn’t here “robustly explaining” what s/he means.
We’ve had people saying what they took the author to mean (ie
not all white women), but unfortunately the meaning in the tweet can be quite clearly parsed to show that qualification of the term “white women”
was not present. (Or else words like “certain”, “some” or other qualifiers would have been used).
So, while I accept that posters here may have taken a particular message from the post (and I accept their word for it if that’s what they say), I think they were mistaken about what the actual meaning was. The meaning is quite plain.
Please do try the thought experiment of substituting the term “Muslim women” for “white women” and see if you still think it’s a sentiment you can agree with.
Second, on the issue of class, which you bring up, I try to be careful not to blame individuals for structures. (And incidentally, I wouldn’t use the term “upper class” unless I meant the aristocracy, which I hardly ever discuss).
And structures are important here. My problem is with the tweet’s author referring ecumenically to “white women”, without considering those women’s situation; irrespective of whether those women themselves may have been exploited and dominated by ruling classes and hierarchies. I would have that same problem whatever blanket term was being used (“Muslim women”, “Muslim men”, “Muslim men”, “black men”, and so on).
Let’s instead start from a position of solidarity. Racism must be opposed and fought. Just as all domination and oppression must be fought. Start with
that instead of, as the tweet’s author does, suggesting someone’s ethnicity, or other perceived identity marker, is suspect to begin with. After all, as
J Ed pointed out, Heather Heyer was a white woman.
It's really just not on to look at every racist and say, in effect, "he had a mother, you know; the problem here is mothers". If you can't see that, then I'm not sure what else I can say.
