1 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:14,520 Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA F Daily with 2 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:18,320 Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording not so live from 3 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:21,799 Speaker 1: my Brooklyn Silarium. Folks. As many of you know, it 4 00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:25,280 Speaker 1: is my birthday week, and as a person who advocates 5 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:29,080 Speaker 1: for rest and recharging, I am taking the week off 6 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:33,839 Speaker 1: Monday and Tuesday. Was live Wednesday through Friday, prerecorded, but 7 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:37,839 Speaker 1: in true scorpio form, I wanted to make sure to 8 00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:41,120 Speaker 1: deliver you the content that all of you deserve. So 9 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:45,880 Speaker 1: today getting into a conversation with author of the book 10 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:51,040 Speaker 1: The Trouble with White Women, Kyla Schuler. Kyla Schuler is 11 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:56,880 Speaker 1: a Rutgers University professor and has done a history right, 12 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:02,120 Speaker 1: almost a recounting of how we have arrived at this place. 13 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:05,200 Speaker 1: Where As she will tell us in the interview that 14 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:10,440 Speaker 1: Pew research showed over the summer that get this, folks, 15 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:19,040 Speaker 1: forty percent of women who identify as feminists vote Republican, 16 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:25,840 Speaker 1: forty percent for zero. And when Kyla utters this to me, 17 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:30,640 Speaker 1: I am absolutely shocked because I'm saying to myself, how 18 00:01:30,840 --> 00:01:33,959 Speaker 1: is it that you one could call a white woman, 19 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,920 Speaker 1: could call themselves a feminist and then vote for a 20 00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:43,560 Speaker 1: party that elected a man that was giddy about grabbing 21 00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:47,840 Speaker 1: women by the pussy, that has over twenty sexual assault 22 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:53,160 Speaker 1: and harassment cases pending against him and accusations. It's a 23 00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:59,040 Speaker 1: known womanizer articulated that himself the Republican Party pre Donald 24 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:03,160 Speaker 1: Trump wasn't much better. They vote against the ability of 25 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:05,040 Speaker 1: a woman to have autonomy or a person with a 26 00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:09,000 Speaker 1: uterus to have autonomy over their own body. They will 27 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:12,079 Speaker 1: not vote for an Equal Pay Act that would have 28 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:17,200 Speaker 1: all women, regardless of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity, 29 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,600 Speaker 1: to be able to be paid on par with her 30 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,400 Speaker 1: male counterparts. They vote against that. Many of them voted 31 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:29,960 Speaker 1: against the Violence Against Women Act, right, And so how 32 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:36,280 Speaker 1: could this twenty twenty report from Pew Research showcase that 33 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:40,760 Speaker 1: forty percent of white women who deem themselves to be 34 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:43,720 Speaker 1: feminists vote against their own interests. I mean, we have 35 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: this conversation every week with regard to dying of whiteness 36 00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:52,840 Speaker 1: with our friend Jonathan Metzo, and it is so dumbfounding 37 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:55,679 Speaker 1: to those of us that exist outside of these communities 38 00:02:55,919 --> 00:02:58,560 Speaker 1: to say, how can both of these things be true 39 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,440 Speaker 1: at the same time? And in my humble opinion, they 40 00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,760 Speaker 1: fucking can't, because you can't on one hand, say that 41 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,760 Speaker 1: you're a feminist, right, which is the articulation of the 42 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:14,880 Speaker 1: equity of people regardless of gender. Right, and yet at 43 00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:19,320 Speaker 1: that same time vote alongside party lines for a party 44 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:23,400 Speaker 1: that doesn't see you as equal. But this is where 45 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:27,200 Speaker 1: we are and what Kyla's book, The Trouble with White 46 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:29,720 Speaker 1: Women gets to the heart of the heart is that 47 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:35,520 Speaker 1: this is nothing new. Where we found ourselves in twenty sixteen, 48 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:40,800 Speaker 1: right with the startling statistics of fifty percent over fifty 49 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:45,560 Speaker 1: percent of white women voting against another white woman, Hillary Clinton, 50 00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:51,800 Speaker 1: in favor of a pussy grabbing Republican male candidate. Then 51 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:59,720 Speaker 1: that number, after watching Donald Trump ripped children away from breastfeeding, 52 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:06,360 Speaker 1: putting children in cages right using the most horrific and 53 00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:13,000 Speaker 1: offensive language in which to discuss his political adversaries, that 54 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:17,040 Speaker 1: he would gain ground with white women, not lose it. 55 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:20,359 Speaker 1: And the thing is why I think that it's important 56 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:23,359 Speaker 1: to have this conversation with Kyla, who is herself a 57 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:27,720 Speaker 1: white woman, is because I am tired, as a black 58 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:33,919 Speaker 1: queer woman trying to get white communities to come together 59 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:39,240 Speaker 1: to recognize how they have been brainwashed, how their history 60 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:43,799 Speaker 1: has purposely been whitewashed as a means to keep them 61 00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:48,479 Speaker 1: ignorant and beholden to the white suprema structure. And what 62 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:55,039 Speaker 1: is so troubling to me is that even now, following 63 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:58,880 Speaker 1: the election in Virginia where once again white women showed 64 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:04,640 Speaker 1: their full and entire your ass in voting for junkin Right, 65 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:10,719 Speaker 1: a man that wants to ban a Pulitzer Prize winning 66 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:15,400 Speaker 1: author Tony Morrison, a black woman from being taught in 67 00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:19,320 Speaker 1: schools because of the fragile emotions and feelings that he 68 00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:24,000 Speaker 1: believes that white children have around their own identity, which 69 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:27,920 Speaker 1: frankly hasn't even been discussed as an identity at all. 70 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:34,840 Speaker 1: And so what Kyla articulates in our interview and in 71 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: her book is that this goes all the way back, folks, 72 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:44,320 Speaker 1: to slavery. This goes back hundreds of years. And I've 73 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:47,000 Speaker 1: said this before in WOKF and I say it everywhere 74 00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:49,200 Speaker 1: that I have a mic in front of my face. 75 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:54,159 Speaker 1: White women get their power, glean their power from white men. 76 00:05:55,120 --> 00:06:02,320 Speaker 1: White men vote overwhelmingly Republican, regardless of education, regardless right 77 00:06:02,480 --> 00:06:08,359 Speaker 1: of economic status. So that being said, then of course 78 00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,560 Speaker 1: you're going to continue to align yourself with white men 79 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:18,479 Speaker 1: if that is where you find your security. Right. But 80 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:21,360 Speaker 1: at the same time, I am not one to let 81 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:23,440 Speaker 1: white women off the hook and say like that is 82 00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:28,279 Speaker 1: totally acceptable, being as how we also know about the 83 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,839 Speaker 1: weaponizing of tears. We also know that there are plenty 84 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:36,000 Speaker 1: of black men and black people that have been lynched, murdered, beaten, 85 00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:39,559 Speaker 1: and raped over the false accusations uttered from the lips 86 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:45,320 Speaker 1: of white women, right. And so we also know that 87 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:49,960 Speaker 1: we spend a particular amount of time in history discussing 88 00:06:49,960 --> 00:06:54,000 Speaker 1: the slave master, but we don't ever discuss the slave mistress, 89 00:06:55,279 --> 00:06:58,200 Speaker 1: the white woman that was just as vile, just as cruel, 90 00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:04,560 Speaker 1: just as vicious, but was just an address standing by 91 00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: and watching atrocities be done in her name and in 92 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:15,200 Speaker 1: her honor right and doing so on her own front. Right. So, 93 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:19,440 Speaker 1: to me, this is a community that needs to be unpacked, 94 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:23,080 Speaker 1: that we need to be interrogating and asking questions as 95 00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:28,960 Speaker 1: to why. Right. I don't think it is a why 96 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:33,080 Speaker 1: in the belief that I feel like we're going to suade, 97 00:07:33,720 --> 00:07:36,440 Speaker 1: you know, move white women to a different place, because honestly, 98 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,240 Speaker 1: I don't think that that is the truth. I think 99 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:41,600 Speaker 1: that what we are seeing right now in our society 100 00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:44,200 Speaker 1: is a complete and total doubling and tripling down of 101 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,120 Speaker 1: white supremacy. And what we know to be true is 102 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:50,400 Speaker 1: that when you look back at these movements from suffragists 103 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:54,800 Speaker 1: to third wave feminism, right, you're looking at the denial 104 00:07:54,960 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: of any other representation, of any other identities in choice 105 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:06,840 Speaker 1: of only putting forward the woman's agenda, namely making white 106 00:08:06,840 --> 00:08:12,320 Speaker 1: women the neutral palette for which we fight for women's rights. 107 00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:18,120 Speaker 1: And that is just bullshit because for me, as a 108 00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:20,480 Speaker 1: black queer woman, I don't get to part and parcel 109 00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:25,600 Speaker 1: out which sides of me society chooses to deem bad 110 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:28,680 Speaker 1: or good. It's just how the fuck I show up. 111 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:34,000 Speaker 1: But what's fascinating is what we are seeing right, whether 112 00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:37,600 Speaker 1: it be from the Karens right, the calling of the police, 113 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,960 Speaker 1: believing that every police person is basically your own security force. 114 00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:45,719 Speaker 1: When you feel unsafe and want to shriek and perform 115 00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:49,360 Speaker 1: fear right that you know that the cavalry will come 116 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:54,200 Speaker 1: marching in, and there are no penalties for that, there's 117 00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:59,440 Speaker 1: no accountability for that. We saw it with Amy Cooper, right. 118 00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:01,720 Speaker 1: She may have lost her job, but then she's suing 119 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:04,800 Speaker 1: her employer saying that she was wrongfully terminated. Well, they 120 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:10,000 Speaker 1: decided they don't want to work with a racist. But 121 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:15,360 Speaker 1: it's this idea, it's you know, the conjuring of the mcclusky's. 122 00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:19,280 Speaker 1: If you remember that couple, the white couple in front 123 00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:24,640 Speaker 1: of their mansions brandishing their weapons, right, that is the 124 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:27,440 Speaker 1: image that comes to mind of the stand by your 125 00:09:27,559 --> 00:09:35,000 Speaker 1: white man, white woman. And if we don't interrogate the 126 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:37,960 Speaker 1: truth right and get to the heart of the matter, 127 00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:40,840 Speaker 1: then we're never moving anywhere. And I think that the 128 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:44,360 Speaker 1: point and the purpose of this book is to want 129 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:49,000 Speaker 1: to examine our history right from slavery to suffragist to 130 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:53,720 Speaker 1: Jim Crow to civil rights and then onward to where 131 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:58,760 Speaker 1: we find ourselves right now. The problem that we have 132 00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:01,520 Speaker 1: in our society is that there is a deep desire 133 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:06,240 Speaker 1: and force at play that doesn't want critical thinking to 134 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:11,200 Speaker 1: be a thing, that wants people to remain asleep. Right, 135 00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:14,840 Speaker 1: there's a war on wokeness that we've been talking about 136 00:10:15,679 --> 00:10:19,520 Speaker 1: on this show and on others. And what did they say, Oh, 137 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:22,680 Speaker 1: there's this woke culture, this cancel culture. Well, what is 138 00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:26,120 Speaker 1: the opposite of being woke. It's to be asleep. So 139 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:32,000 Speaker 1: instead of us going back and forth on this intellectually 140 00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:37,400 Speaker 1: dishonest volleying that we're doing about woke culture. We may 141 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:40,920 Speaker 1: want to ask the question as to why Republicans, why 142 00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:45,880 Speaker 1: white supremacy want Americans to remain asleep, particularly white Americans, 143 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:50,080 Speaker 1: to remain asleep unconscious, to how the systems of white 144 00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:56,640 Speaker 1: supremacy and patriarchy were built for their favor. Because you see, 145 00:10:56,640 --> 00:10:59,760 Speaker 1: when you begin to think critically, when you start to 146 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:04,720 Speaker 1: act questions, then you understand your power to be able 147 00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:10,920 Speaker 1: to shift things, because the beginning of change comes with 148 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:14,840 Speaker 1: the questioning, comes with the asking of why and the 149 00:11:14,960 --> 00:11:21,480 Speaker 1: justification thereof. But if you formulate your life living right 150 00:11:21,600 --> 00:11:27,720 Speaker 1: behind a veil rose colored glasses, hiding behind things like 151 00:11:27,920 --> 00:11:32,959 Speaker 1: patriotism and freedom and liberation which are just catchphrases with 152 00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:36,920 Speaker 1: no foundation and what it means to truly be free 153 00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:42,520 Speaker 1: in this country, if you find yourself articulating feminist values 154 00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:50,080 Speaker 1: but then being completely disconnected from the idea of intersectionality, 155 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:54,360 Speaker 1: then you're not doing the work right. And that's the reality. 156 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:57,720 Speaker 1: And so I think that you all will enjoy this 157 00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:02,840 Speaker 1: conversation with Kyla Schuler, and I encourage everyone to pick 158 00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:06,560 Speaker 1: up her book The Trouble with White Women, because I 159 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:09,000 Speaker 1: want I will be having this conversation and not just 160 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:12,960 Speaker 1: a conversation out of anger, although anger is productive right 161 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:17,640 Speaker 1: when it's formulated and targeted towards change. But the reality 162 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:19,760 Speaker 1: is is that there is a lot of work to do, 163 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:22,520 Speaker 1: and it's not going to be on my back that 164 00:12:22,600 --> 00:12:24,840 Speaker 1: this work is going to be done. It is going 165 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:28,960 Speaker 1: to be in the communities of white women who are 166 00:12:29,480 --> 00:12:32,600 Speaker 1: woke and conscious to be able to carry the water 167 00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:35,680 Speaker 1: to splash on their sisters faces and wake them the 168 00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:38,960 Speaker 1: fuck up. Coming up next is my conversation with the 169 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:45,840 Speaker 1: author of The Trouble with White Women, Kayla Schuler. Folks. 170 00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:49,400 Speaker 1: I am so excited to welcome to wok F for 171 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:53,600 Speaker 1: the very first time Kayla Schuler, who is the author 172 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:58,719 Speaker 1: of the book The Trouble with White Women. And I 173 00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:02,559 Speaker 1: think that this book, love it, love it. I think 174 00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:07,800 Speaker 1: that this book is so incredibly timely Kyla, in so 175 00:13:07,840 --> 00:13:12,760 Speaker 1: many ways, because look, every single time that we have 176 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:15,520 Speaker 1: an election, every single time that we want to talk 177 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,880 Speaker 1: about particular populations, we will talk about every other group. 178 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:21,320 Speaker 1: We will talk about white women, we will talk about 179 00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:27,079 Speaker 1: Latin X women, we will talk about Asian Pacific Islander women, 180 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:30,000 Speaker 1: we will talk about everyone, But we never talk about 181 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,040 Speaker 1: white women. It is like the third rail not only 182 00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:36,880 Speaker 1: in our politics, but in our society as well. And 183 00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:40,600 Speaker 1: I say that as somebody who started their professional career 184 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,359 Speaker 1: believing that they were going to work for a storied 185 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:49,199 Speaker 1: women's organization. My first internship in college was at the 186 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:52,360 Speaker 1: National Organization for Women, which I'll tell you more about 187 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:57,480 Speaker 1: later and how that ended. But it wasn't great. So 188 00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:01,640 Speaker 1: tell tell me about why this book is so important, 189 00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:08,800 Speaker 1: particularly now, Yeah, thank you. Um, you know, the one 190 00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:13,800 Speaker 1: of the key political tropes of our supposed universal voter 191 00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:17,200 Speaker 1: that Stragis would go after, which you would know much 192 00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:19,920 Speaker 1: better than I, you know, which was the soccer mom forever, 193 00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:23,200 Speaker 1: but for so long that soccer mom was totally devascinated 194 00:14:23,640 --> 00:14:25,880 Speaker 1: right like, of course, by by soccer mom, we often 195 00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:29,320 Speaker 1: means suburban white woman, but it just got stripped instead 196 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:34,240 Speaker 1: as if she's the female universal right, no race, no class, 197 00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:37,240 Speaker 1: just a soccer mom. And that did start to shift 198 00:14:37,400 --> 00:14:42,680 Speaker 1: after twenty sixteen, um with you know, famously almost fifty 199 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,600 Speaker 1: percent of white women voting for Trump and then also 200 00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:49,600 Speaker 1: voting for Roy Moore, um in the election, and then 201 00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:53,080 Speaker 1: in the second Trump election, you know, um, he got 202 00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:56,640 Speaker 1: a slightly higher percentage of white women voters. Um, and 203 00:14:56,680 --> 00:14:58,840 Speaker 1: you know, so then we did start to talk about 204 00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:02,840 Speaker 1: white woman. But I found in doing this research that 205 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:05,880 Speaker 1: even when we are repeating to ourselves, how can it 206 00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:10,840 Speaker 1: be that of white women are voting for candidate to 207 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:16,760 Speaker 1: run on white supremacist, anti women platforms, the problem is 208 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:20,440 Speaker 1: even more confounding than that, and that is that recent 209 00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:25,800 Speaker 1: research last summer has shown that forty two percent of 210 00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:32,600 Speaker 1: people who identify as feminists vote Republican. Wait saya say 211 00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:37,160 Speaker 1: that statistic? One more time research poll, a Pure Research 212 00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:41,440 Speaker 1: poll in August of twenty twenty found that forty two 213 00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:47,520 Speaker 1: percent of women who identify as feminist vote Republican. And again, 214 00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:51,360 Speaker 1: this is not Republicanism has always been, you know, a 215 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:56,640 Speaker 1: conservative party. It did not support racial and civil rights. 216 00:15:57,280 --> 00:16:00,880 Speaker 1: That said, it has not weaponized itself against them for 217 00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:03,440 Speaker 1: a while to the degree that the Trump administration has. 218 00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:06,600 Speaker 1: And yet in this moment, what we actually have is 219 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:10,880 Speaker 1: an issue of not just white women supporting racist candidates. 220 00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:15,240 Speaker 1: We have a thriving feminism that understands itself to be 221 00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:20,360 Speaker 1: compatible with the worst forms of capitalism and white supremacy. 222 00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:23,560 Speaker 1: And so when I did the research and wrote The 223 00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,560 Speaker 1: Trouble of white women. That's actually what I'm writing about. Like, 224 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,640 Speaker 1: how is it that in our current moment, Ivanka Trump 225 00:16:30,800 --> 00:16:34,480 Speaker 1: claims that her father is a feminist? How is it 226 00:16:34,520 --> 00:16:38,400 Speaker 1: the researchers have shown that white supremacist groups like Stormfront 227 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:43,200 Speaker 1: online actually have thriving discussions about feminist topics? How do 228 00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:47,080 Speaker 1: we have feminist white supremacy? And that I wrote this 229 00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:49,440 Speaker 1: book to look backwards and find out how did we 230 00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:53,000 Speaker 1: get here? Is this a new rupture in the Trump 231 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:56,520 Speaker 1: era or not? And what I found is that we 232 00:16:56,520 --> 00:16:59,760 Speaker 1: were always going to end up here. Unfortunately, there is 233 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:03,560 Speaker 1: a very long history from the very beginning of feminism 234 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,320 Speaker 1: led by white women the understood itself to be compatible 235 00:17:08,640 --> 00:17:13,040 Speaker 1: with racism, capitalism, and empire that focused only on the 236 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:17,800 Speaker 1: goals of privileged white women and securing their rights and 237 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:23,440 Speaker 1: liberties and opportunities, and actually leaned into other existing structural 238 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:27,800 Speaker 1: inequalities in order to bolster their own position. Yeah, I mean, 239 00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:33,120 Speaker 1: you know, when we go back to the beginning of 240 00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:37,080 Speaker 1: just the suffragists, right like, like, let's let's just start 241 00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:39,160 Speaker 1: at that point. We won't even go all the way 242 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:42,199 Speaker 1: back to slavery and talk about um, you know, we 243 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:44,439 Speaker 1: always want to talk about the white slave master. But 244 00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:48,600 Speaker 1: we never want to talk about the white slave mistress, right, um, 245 00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:54,159 Speaker 1: the white woman that stood exactly next to the slave 246 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:59,200 Speaker 1: master and participated in and condone the violence, the cruelty 247 00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:04,719 Speaker 1: that was bestowed upon enslaved Africans. But starting with the 248 00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:10,600 Speaker 1: suffragist movement, you know, I find so many ties between 249 00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:15,280 Speaker 1: that and how I got involved in the LGBTQ plus movement, 250 00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:20,360 Speaker 1: you know, a century if so later, where you're always 251 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:23,439 Speaker 1: told if you are a person that exists at the 252 00:18:23,480 --> 00:18:27,720 Speaker 1: intersection of multiple identities, that you need to leave parts 253 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:31,360 Speaker 1: of those identities behind if they are not in service 254 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,360 Speaker 1: of what those that are in charge of said movement 255 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:39,080 Speaker 1: believe is going to be part of what they believe 256 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:43,359 Speaker 1: progress looks like. And so during this time you have 257 00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:47,600 Speaker 1: very racist and I want you to talk about that, 258 00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:53,720 Speaker 1: very racist white women that were leading the suffragist movement, who, 259 00:18:53,960 --> 00:19:00,600 Speaker 1: when pointedly asked by black women right in particular, that 260 00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:04,200 Speaker 1: we need to be more inclusive and encompassing, were literally 261 00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:09,760 Speaker 1: written out of that history. Yes, and when they were 262 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,639 Speaker 1: written in, we're written incorrectly, like in the case of 263 00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:16,160 Speaker 1: a general truth, which y'all mention in the minute. So 264 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:21,560 Speaker 1: you know they by the very beginning of what we 265 00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:25,359 Speaker 1: consider the dawn of women's rights in the US, which 266 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:29,440 Speaker 1: is the famous eighteen forty eight Seneca Falls Convention led 267 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:34,000 Speaker 1: by elizabth KT Stanton and a number of others. She 268 00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:38,600 Speaker 1: staked her position in that speech as I am a 269 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:43,399 Speaker 1: daughter of a Mayflower immigrant, I am a daughter of 270 00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:48,760 Speaker 1: a revolutionary war hero, and yet I am denied the 271 00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:53,679 Speaker 1: full rights and privileges. And you know, famously, at that 272 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:57,040 Speaker 1: convention she first proposed that women should have the right 273 00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:00,439 Speaker 1: to vote. And the only person who support ordered her 274 00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:05,640 Speaker 1: publicly and immediately upon saying that was Frederick Douglas, who 275 00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:08,760 Speaker 1: was also the only man and the only black person 276 00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:12,560 Speaker 1: in attendance out of several hundred. But he understood himself 277 00:20:12,560 --> 00:20:15,399 Speaker 1: to be a partner of the project of fighting for 278 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:19,720 Speaker 1: rights in the area of sex and of grace, and 279 00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:21,960 Speaker 1: they did work together for a number of years, and 280 00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:27,800 Speaker 1: Stanton and Tutan B. Anthony were active abolitionists. But after 281 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:32,040 Speaker 1: the Civil War, when the Fifteenth Amendment gave the right 282 00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:36,280 Speaker 1: to vote to black men and men of color for 283 00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:39,600 Speaker 1: the first time, and also introduced the word mail into 284 00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:42,160 Speaker 1: the Constitution for the first time, but did not give 285 00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,000 Speaker 1: the right to vote to any women. Then Anthony and 286 00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:48,480 Speaker 1: Santon really went on the attack. Susan B. Anthony would 287 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:52,320 Speaker 1: say things like I'll cut off my right hand before 288 00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:57,680 Speaker 1: I support rights for black men over women. Unlisa Katie 289 00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:03,400 Speaker 1: Stanton would give long speeches about how the morally pure 290 00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:10,000 Speaker 1: wives like her were being denied rights but illiterate ditch diggers, 291 00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:13,720 Speaker 1: and she would be racial slurs and anti immigrant slurs 292 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:17,919 Speaker 1: were Chinese people and Irish people, but especially slurs against 293 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,800 Speaker 1: the formerly enslave. She said, you are letting letting the 294 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:26,080 Speaker 1: most degraded elements of society vote before you let your 295 00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:30,680 Speaker 1: upright wives vote. And they even partnered with a notorious 296 00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:35,399 Speaker 1: white supremacist in the West and so and then at 297 00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:38,520 Speaker 1: that point Fredrict Douglas broke off from them and formed 298 00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:41,080 Speaker 1: a different organization with a mixture of black and white 299 00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:44,640 Speaker 1: Ayellies to fight for voting rights for all. But they 300 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:50,080 Speaker 1: really weaponized the case for women for women's rights as 301 00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:53,480 Speaker 1: an issue of the rights of men of color and 302 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:57,480 Speaker 1: then formally enslavement, especially versus white women. And that's one 303 00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,360 Speaker 1: reason that in this book, a key argument I make 304 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,960 Speaker 1: is that in this process of studying the hundred and 305 00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:08,359 Speaker 1: eighty year history of feminism and being really excited about 306 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:11,280 Speaker 1: the popularity of the term white feminism now and how 307 00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,600 Speaker 1: it helps us identify something we hadn't seen so clearly before. 308 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:17,320 Speaker 1: But I also wanted to find out what is that 309 00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:20,400 Speaker 1: term mean exactly? And what I found is that our 310 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:25,000 Speaker 1: most common definition of white feminism as a feminism that 311 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:32,520 Speaker 1: ignores the conditions, the rights, the liberties of women of color, 312 00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:36,800 Speaker 1: actually doesn't go far enough. The trouble with white feminism 313 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,439 Speaker 1: is not that it ignores women of color and the 314 00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,520 Speaker 1: more marginalized. The trouble of white feminism is that it 315 00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:46,880 Speaker 1: actually exploits the more marginalized as a way to bolster 316 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,440 Speaker 1: the position of white women. It's not a sin of omission. 317 00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:55,600 Speaker 1: The trouble with white feminism is actually an active possession. 318 00:22:56,600 --> 00:23:00,199 Speaker 1: To give you an example, you know the figure that 319 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,000 Speaker 1: I so each chapter of this book, I give you 320 00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:07,520 Speaker 1: a main woman would often know from history, like Eliza 321 00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:10,920 Speaker 1: Katy Stanton or Margaret Sanger or in the contemporary moment, 322 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:16,480 Speaker 1: Cheryl Sandberg, and but show that at her time, at 323 00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:20,600 Speaker 1: her moment, she was in struggle with a different kind 324 00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:23,200 Speaker 1: of feminism and a different key figure who has been 325 00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:27,000 Speaker 1: more erased from history, and I focus in particular in 326 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,399 Speaker 1: the suffrage era on Francis E. W. Harper, who was 327 00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:32,680 Speaker 1: the best selling black poet of the nineteenth century. And 328 00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,120 Speaker 1: yet it is often forgotten outside of college classrooms today. 329 00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,800 Speaker 1: And who we hear about is so journ Our Truth. 330 00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:42,400 Speaker 1: And so Journer Truth was an incredible activist. But what 331 00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:44,560 Speaker 1: we know about her is that she said at one 332 00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:49,720 Speaker 1: of these conventions at will. But the black feminist historian 333 00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,439 Speaker 1: nel Urban Painter showed us twenty years ago that so 334 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:57,000 Speaker 1: journey Truth never said ain't woman. She wasn't from the South. 335 00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,959 Speaker 1: She was from upstate New York. Her first language was Dutch. 336 00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,399 Speaker 1: She learned English at age nine and prided herself in 337 00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,919 Speaker 1: her impeccable English. There is a transcription of her speech 338 00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:13,080 Speaker 1: publishing a black newspaper two weeks after, and the first 339 00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:16,560 Speaker 1: line is something like, can I have a moment here? 340 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,760 Speaker 1: I like to speak for a moment here. Fifteen years later, 341 00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,840 Speaker 1: Stanton and Anthony published a history of Woman's rights, and 342 00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,720 Speaker 1: they tapped a white woman ally to write up so 343 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,520 Speaker 1: journal Truth speech, and that speech is anti woman and 344 00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:36,600 Speaker 1: is entirely in dialect that's completely made up. Fifteen years 345 00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,439 Speaker 1: later by a white woman to create a kind of 346 00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:44,440 Speaker 1: plants many figure here, and even you know, one hundred 347 00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,239 Speaker 1: and sixty years later, we still think that we are 348 00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:51,000 Speaker 1: correcting history by giving the characters a version. But black 349 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,560 Speaker 1: newspapers and black womanists have been correcting us on that 350 00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:58,960 Speaker 1: for since the eighteenth I mean, it's just what is 351 00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:02,879 Speaker 1: so utterly disturbing to me. You know, at the top, 352 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:08,760 Speaker 1: you mentioned, you know, the weaponization right of you know, 353 00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:14,280 Speaker 1: other people's struggles, right as in order to advance for 354 00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:17,440 Speaker 1: white women as in order to advance their own And 355 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:21,320 Speaker 1: what is so disturbing and disgusting is that it persists, 356 00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:25,879 Speaker 1: and it is so incredibly obvious, right you know, And 357 00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:29,520 Speaker 1: what I have said on on Woke af and so 358 00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:34,439 Speaker 1: many other shows is that white women find their power 359 00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:39,520 Speaker 1: in proximity to white male patriarchy, right And that is 360 00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,000 Speaker 1: that is where they find their power, That is where 361 00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:46,040 Speaker 1: they find their influence and always have, right um. And 362 00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:49,440 Speaker 1: I will go back, you know, to to the plantations 363 00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,320 Speaker 1: and the slave masters and what have you that you know, 364 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:57,040 Speaker 1: there is a reason why there is no incredible pushback 365 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:02,080 Speaker 1: right now with regard to the anti abortion laws that 366 00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:05,280 Speaker 1: are happening across the country because white women will always 367 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,439 Speaker 1: have access to an abortion right because they have the 368 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,040 Speaker 1: means and they have the ear and the attention of 369 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,880 Speaker 1: white men who have always been looked at as their 370 00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,720 Speaker 1: caretakers in order to make sure that those things happen. 371 00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:19,720 Speaker 1: It is everyone else who is low income, who is 372 00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:22,520 Speaker 1: a person of color, um that is left out in 373 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,879 Speaker 1: the cold. My question for you is, you know, in 374 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:32,240 Speaker 1: studying this and understanding that to be true, and recognizing 375 00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:34,760 Speaker 1: that we were always going to arrive at this point 376 00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:39,760 Speaker 1: in our in our in our current day like was 377 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,879 Speaker 1: there there was no way to deter, you know, to 378 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:48,640 Speaker 1: throw to throw this off course. And if even if 379 00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:52,479 Speaker 1: we're all recognizing this truth now in our own ways, 380 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,800 Speaker 1: how are we How are we shifting that narrative or 381 00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:01,520 Speaker 1: can it not be shifted? Yeah, that's a great question. 382 00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,560 Speaker 1: And one reason I did go with this provocative title 383 00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,320 Speaker 1: the Trouble with White Women, is that I also see 384 00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:12,000 Speaker 1: it to encompass the trouble that white women's face, and 385 00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:14,879 Speaker 1: that trouble the white women themselves face is exactly what 386 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:19,000 Speaker 1: you mentioned of. There's always this carrot dangling there, especially 387 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,800 Speaker 1: from middle class and wealthier women, that they could of 388 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,639 Speaker 1: the lure of to have the privileges that their brothers 389 00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,919 Speaker 1: and our husbands and our boyfriends, our family members have. Right, 390 00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:35,879 Speaker 1: there's that lure of you could join the rest of 391 00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,840 Speaker 1: the top of the power hierarchy if you just can 392 00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: get past that sex, which, of course, traditionally into this day, 393 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,320 Speaker 1: that hindreds of sex is still enormous. I don't mean 394 00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:52,920 Speaker 1: to discount the structural inequalities of sex, but I would 395 00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,439 Speaker 1: also point out that the people who gave us the 396 00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,920 Speaker 1: political language to understand the structural and equalities of sex 397 00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:04,040 Speaker 1: are people like Murray Right, Kimberly Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, 398 00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,440 Speaker 1: the black feminist who said, we can understand sex the 399 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,520 Speaker 1: structural and equality because we also understand race and class 400 00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,200 Speaker 1: of structural equalities, and here's a framework for understanding them. 401 00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:17,359 Speaker 1: So for now, for you know, like like you mentioned, 402 00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,120 Speaker 1: you worked with NOW, there is a moment that things 403 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,240 Speaker 1: could have gone differently. No Now was formed in the 404 00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,080 Speaker 1: nineteen sixties in the wake of the resurgence of women's rights, 405 00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,680 Speaker 1: which traditionally it's credited to the publication of Ready Finance 406 00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,000 Speaker 1: Feminine to Speak in nineteen sixty three, but there was 407 00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:40,840 Speaker 1: another key pickoff in nineteen sixty three, and that was 408 00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,400 Speaker 1: the March on Washington, and how much the male leadership 409 00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:49,960 Speaker 1: of March on Washington relegated the women involved to the sidelines, 410 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,000 Speaker 1: didn't let them speak on the march platform, made women 411 00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,200 Speaker 1: like Rose A Parks march with their wives instead of 412 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,400 Speaker 1: with the civil rights leaders and involved a leadership team 413 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,200 Speaker 1: like Polly Murray fought them for months and then gave 414 00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,680 Speaker 1: many speeches afterwards saying, we have to recognize that what 415 00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,080 Speaker 1: we're feeling in this anger for how we were treated 416 00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,160 Speaker 1: by our by the men and the sotal rights movement. 417 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,640 Speaker 1: But this is not just an emotional issue. It's a 418 00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:22,080 Speaker 1: political issue. And Polly Murray game a really really rousing 419 00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,560 Speaker 1: speech about the sexism in the march in Washington that 420 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,400 Speaker 1: Betty Fernan read about in the newspaper, and she called 421 00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,400 Speaker 1: her up the next morning and said, let's talk. Let's 422 00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,280 Speaker 1: start an organization for women, and the nash Contization Women 423 00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,960 Speaker 1: was born a few months later at a major conference 424 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,040 Speaker 1: and Polly Murray was on the board. So we're a 425 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:45,400 Speaker 1: number of other we're going to call our leaders. It 426 00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:47,960 Speaker 1: was in a year Polly Murray dropped out because she 427 00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,600 Speaker 1: said this platform is only going to focus on the 428 00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,840 Speaker 1: needs of the class by women. Wasn't turning out to 429 00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,160 Speaker 1: be an anti racist organization. It wasn't turning out to 430 00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:01,120 Speaker 1: be organizations supporting workers and labor. And said, I can't 431 00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,880 Speaker 1: be pulled into three directions a black person here, a 432 00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,920 Speaker 1: woman here, and a worker here. And she dropped out, 433 00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,880 Speaker 1: and and now I've had a lot of difficulty being 434 00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,200 Speaker 1: anything but a middle class white women organizations since and 435 00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:16,920 Speaker 1: I would and I would, I would just add to 436 00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:23,360 Speaker 1: that also a incredibly cisgender and straight white woman, middle 437 00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,160 Speaker 1: class you know organization because you know, at the beginning 438 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,800 Speaker 1: of you know, the turn of the decade of the 439 00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:35,160 Speaker 1: two thousands, I found myself at the National Organization for 440 00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,440 Speaker 1: Women because it was a storied organization. I always wanted 441 00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,320 Speaker 1: to work for a women's rights organization, and as a 442 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,880 Speaker 1: young black, queer woman that was getting ready to graduate 443 00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,840 Speaker 1: from college, I found myself there on an internship with 444 00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,560 Speaker 1: a myriad of you know, young women of color from 445 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:56,320 Speaker 1: all across the country, queer and straight. And you know, 446 00:30:56,480 --> 00:31:00,880 Speaker 1: after several months realizing that, you know, I was, I 447 00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:06,160 Speaker 1: was invisible, right like there the issues and the intersectionality 448 00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:11,160 Speaker 1: that we speak of today, right was was purposefully. I 449 00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,240 Speaker 1: don't even want to say that it was lost. It 450 00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,840 Speaker 1: was purposefully ignored because if you were going to be 451 00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,720 Speaker 1: in and that organization at that time, then you needed 452 00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:23,720 Speaker 1: to be a woman and a woman only, and that 453 00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:31,320 Speaker 1: meant to neutralize any other forms of your identity. Yeah, yeah, 454 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,440 Speaker 1: that is really powerful, right. And Betty Franz famously tried 455 00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,560 Speaker 1: to kick all the lesbians out of NOW in nineteen 456 00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,120 Speaker 1: sixty nine, nineteen seventy, and there was a lot of pushback. 457 00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,840 Speaker 1: But what you're saying is those legacies like don't go away. 458 00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:45,920 Speaker 1: The organization never really truly tried to collect itself. There 459 00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,640 Speaker 1: was an important woman in the organization in nineteen seventies, 460 00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,400 Speaker 1: but then but that really kind of got erased. And 461 00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,280 Speaker 1: I found that his historian has found that NOW has 462 00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:59,960 Speaker 1: not ever even done a demographic survey of its membership 463 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,760 Speaker 1: since nineteen and if they're serious, if they have, If 464 00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,240 Speaker 1: they have, it's not released publicly, I think because what 465 00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:10,360 Speaker 1: it yields is not going to be good for them, 466 00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,400 Speaker 1: so they just haven't made the data available. Um, but 467 00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,840 Speaker 1: I think, yes, like there there certainly are other other 468 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,720 Speaker 1: other opportunities. I think that what we're seeing in the 469 00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:27,840 Speaker 1: outcry against white feminism across the world right now. M 470 00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:33,120 Speaker 1: is hugely important in helping people understand that just because 471 00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:37,360 Speaker 1: something as feminist doesn't mean it's necessarily progressive and doesn't 472 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,640 Speaker 1: mean it's against structural inequality. I think that intersectional feminism, 473 00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:46,200 Speaker 1: you know, which reframes the goal. Instead of being we 474 00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:51,120 Speaker 1: want a quality between the sexes, intersectional feminism says we 475 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:56,160 Speaker 1: need to broadly redistribute resources, that we have equality for 476 00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,960 Speaker 1: the many, not for thee, and that means racial justice, 477 00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:06,840 Speaker 1: economic justice. We are in transjusice, climate justice, you know, 478 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:11,960 Speaker 1: disability justice. It is a huge umbrella category. And the 479 00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:17,560 Speaker 1: leaders of those theories like Kimberly Crunshaw again, Poticia Health Collins, 480 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,600 Speaker 1: and then Paul even Paul Murray, I've been also very 481 00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:24,120 Speaker 1: clear that that is only achieved by people working in coalition, 482 00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:29,040 Speaker 1: that we have to reach across our differences in order 483 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:33,120 Speaker 1: but on a common political platform to build a movement 484 00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:37,400 Speaker 1: strong enough to actually go after systemic inequality on all 485 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,160 Speaker 1: those levels. I think that that is happening at some level, 486 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:41,920 Speaker 1: and I think that I think that the leadership of 487 00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,160 Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter have been absolute models of that for 488 00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:50,320 Speaker 1: years of what a black queer anti violence. The organization 489 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:55,160 Speaker 1: can look like that against structural violence and police brutality. 490 00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,320 Speaker 1: I think a lot of the Me Too movement has 491 00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:01,200 Speaker 1: actually been very successful, you know, especially especially what the 492 00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:05,840 Speaker 1: Toronto Burke does, but working across groups and also internationally. 493 00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:07,880 Speaker 1: I'm getting a lot of interests in this book from 494 00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,480 Speaker 1: Japan and Korea, for example, because Me Too has caused 495 00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,719 Speaker 1: a stimulated major feminist awakenings, and I think that is 496 00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,560 Speaker 1: really exciting to see a movement like that have have 497 00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:24,480 Speaker 1: such legs. And then you know, the work of activists 498 00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,320 Speaker 1: in Congress, even right of the Squad and the expanded 499 00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:32,040 Speaker 1: Squad with Corey Bush and then the others are showing 500 00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:34,120 Speaker 1: us what it can look like to actually fight for 501 00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,160 Speaker 1: quality on multiple fronts of one, not just choosing one thing. 502 00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,399 Speaker 1: You know. I think that it's so you know, it's 503 00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:44,480 Speaker 1: it's funny. I want to say that I sadly just 504 00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:51,440 Speaker 1: recently learned of Paul Murray and was so angry at 505 00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,239 Speaker 1: the fact that I didn't know I didn't know who 506 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:59,080 Speaker 1: she was. It wasn't until literally two months ago that 507 00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:04,600 Speaker 1: I was asked to UH moderate a panel for the 508 00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:08,480 Speaker 1: documentary the document the documentary UH that is out now 509 00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,640 Speaker 1: on Amazon Prime. And I met with the I you know, 510 00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:15,800 Speaker 1: interviewed the director, one of the directors of the film, 511 00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,080 Speaker 1: and you know, and and and she talked about the 512 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,040 Speaker 1: fact like this is why we wanted to do this. 513 00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:25,560 Speaker 1: You know, she was instrumental in so many different in 514 00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,640 Speaker 1: so many different avenues. I mean, when when you understand 515 00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:33,920 Speaker 1: the story of a person that was advocating well before advocating, 516 00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,960 Speaker 1: you know, for for for desegregation, I mean, for yeah, 517 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,160 Speaker 1: you know, well before Rosa Parks even got on a bus, 518 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,680 Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And like, you know, trying 519 00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:47,200 Speaker 1: cases that would and setting up the framework for what 520 00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:49,640 Speaker 1: we would use for Brown versus the Board of Education 521 00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,880 Speaker 1: and Title nine, um. And it's just it's astonishing to 522 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:59,440 Speaker 1: me that you can have these towering figures who, for 523 00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,080 Speaker 1: not for their existence, we wouldn't even be here, right 524 00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:06,200 Speaker 1: in so many different forms of fashion that are utterly 525 00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:11,239 Speaker 1: and completely whitewashed and erased from history. And you know, 526 00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,160 Speaker 1: and I think that it's so the work that you're 527 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,719 Speaker 1: doing and the studying that you're doing is so important 528 00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:22,719 Speaker 1: because when you think about what it means to purposefully mischaracterize, 529 00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:27,880 Speaker 1: to join a truth, to make her into a figure 530 00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:37,520 Speaker 1: that was this uneducated mammy right that they could then use, 531 00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,799 Speaker 1: you know, to justify why they needed their rights and 532 00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:46,080 Speaker 1: why they were superior. And like the desire to degrade 533 00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,840 Speaker 1: in order to you know, in order to progress to 534 00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:54,000 Speaker 1: me seems to be white women's like, you know, mode 535 00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,680 Speaker 1: of entree and I just don't understand. I don't understand it, 536 00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,080 Speaker 1: you know, And I ask you, you know, the last 537 00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,360 Speaker 1: question I have for you, like, as a white woman 538 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:06,640 Speaker 1: doing this work, right, like, what kind of pushback do 539 00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,239 Speaker 1: you receive? Right? Like, what kind of conversations do you 540 00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,319 Speaker 1: have you had and do you get into with this 541 00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:17,720 Speaker 1: type of provocative research and discussion because again from the beginning, 542 00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,839 Speaker 1: this community white women is the third rail in our 543 00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,640 Speaker 1: society and politics. We don't ever discuss unless we're empathizing 544 00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:32,359 Speaker 1: or lifting up. Yeah, and you know, I'll admit that 545 00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,120 Speaker 1: I first heard of Polymurray about eight years ago, and 546 00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:41,160 Speaker 1: I was already a professor of gender studies at Rutgers University. 547 00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,040 Speaker 1: And I heard of poly Murray because my new polleague, 548 00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:47,600 Speaker 1: Britney Cooper, gave a talk about Polymurray and my eyes 549 00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,160 Speaker 1: were opened. And I want to emphasize that that is 550 00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:55,160 Speaker 1: part of my role in perspective in coming to this 551 00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,719 Speaker 1: work is that these counter histories I'm telling of the 552 00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:03,560 Speaker 1: Black trail and Indigenous and Latina women who are who 553 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:10,319 Speaker 1: are fighting against white feminism were less ignored than deliberately erased, right, 554 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:16,520 Speaker 1: but not forgotten for everyone and not forgotten by everyone. 555 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,080 Speaker 1: The work of black feminist historians, in particular since the 556 00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:23,720 Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, like Angel Davis and Paula Gettings and many 557 00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,319 Speaker 1: others has been to recover these histories and bring them 558 00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,560 Speaker 1: back into the public eye. And that work is certainly 559 00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,719 Speaker 1: out there. I'm not making any major discoveries in terms 560 00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:36,120 Speaker 1: of the counter history of what I'm trying to do, 561 00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,759 Speaker 1: and partnesses in my role as a white woman is 562 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:43,160 Speaker 1: to provide to synthesize this work and combine it with 563 00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,960 Speaker 1: my much more original critique of white feminism, and to 564 00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,120 Speaker 1: provide another avenue for people to encounter these these other 565 00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:56,239 Speaker 1: histories and to you know, to to build on and 566 00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,319 Speaker 1: pull together the all this important work that's been done 567 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,719 Speaker 1: for decades. So for you know, for example, the one 568 00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,120 Speaker 1: of the most outrageous details that I found it is 569 00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,919 Speaker 1: about Paul Murray, and this isn't in the nineteen fifty 570 00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,480 Speaker 1: five nineteen fifty six. At that point she had done 571 00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,520 Speaker 1: all the things you mentioned right, created the legal rationale 572 00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,040 Speaker 1: for Brown versus Board, but her male supervisors had never 573 00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:23,040 Speaker 1: even told her that was the case. She was had 574 00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:30,680 Speaker 1: invented the sit in um. She had written a book, 575 00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:35,279 Speaker 1: a law textbook of civil rights law, the third and 576 00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:40,040 Speaker 1: Marshall called the Bible. She had become the first African 577 00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,680 Speaker 1: American to get a residency at the McDowell Artists Colony, 578 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:49,480 Speaker 1: and she was a regular visitor at Elanor Roosevelt's upstate 579 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,200 Speaker 1: Hudson River treat because they made they became friends after 580 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:59,480 Speaker 1: she wrote a scathing letter in the paper about her husband, Ye, 581 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,279 Speaker 1: and because exactly there were friends for a decade at 582 00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,160 Speaker 1: that point. And yet what Polly Murray was doing for 583 00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:11,239 Speaker 1: a living was typing. She couldn't get full time work 584 00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:13,919 Speaker 1: as a lawyer. She also had a master's in law 585 00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,080 Speaker 1: from Berkeley, and they graduated top of her class at Howard. 586 00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,279 Speaker 1: She was typing, and she was typing anonymously for the 587 00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:24,880 Speaker 1: work of other writers. And one of her main clients 588 00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,759 Speaker 1: was Betty for Dan And so in that chapter I 589 00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:33,040 Speaker 1: counterpoise Betty Franz's story with Polly Murray's story, and we 590 00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,040 Speaker 1: are quite literally one person got erased through the but 591 00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,120 Speaker 1: another person got elevated to the role of the key 592 00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,560 Speaker 1: feminists of that time. In terms of pushback, I mean, 593 00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:45,880 Speaker 1: definitely some white women don't like the title of the 594 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,400 Speaker 1: Trouble with White Women, right, I mean, I definitely may 595 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:53,920 Speaker 1: be accused of being a racist, you know, or that 596 00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,920 Speaker 1: you know, racist again against white people, and that kind 597 00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:02,920 Speaker 1: of like race trader logic. But really I want to 598 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,120 Speaker 1: I want to emphasize that I think that I want 599 00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,480 Speaker 1: you know, that it's important for white women to be 600 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,160 Speaker 1: talking to other white women about this work. I also 601 00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:14,480 Speaker 1: think we are past the point for that conversation to 602 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:18,399 Speaker 1: be fully insular and where we're only talking about whiteness. 603 00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,360 Speaker 1: That we need to be also listening and learning about 604 00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:27,120 Speaker 1: other forms of feminism and from especially from intersectional feminism, 605 00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,600 Speaker 1: which is absolutely showing us the way to what equality 606 00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,800 Speaker 1: on all fronts looks like. But I really understand myself 607 00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,520 Speaker 1: to be a student of intersectional feminism and helping to 608 00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,640 Speaker 1: listen to that work and again to provide a new 609 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:45,440 Speaker 1: road to reach it, not to claim any kind of 610 00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,120 Speaker 1: ownership or discovery because black women have been doing this 611 00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,560 Speaker 1: work since the eighteen sixties. I mean, Kyla, I just 612 00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,520 Speaker 1: you know, I am so appreciative one that you are 613 00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,439 Speaker 1: doing this work, that as a white woman you did 614 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:02,840 Speaker 1: write this book, and that you are researching and presenting 615 00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:07,040 Speaker 1: you know, centuries of evidence right of how you know, 616 00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,239 Speaker 1: because I don't want to have I don't want to 617 00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:13,680 Speaker 1: be stuck in the conversations of how did we get here? 618 00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,759 Speaker 1: I want to finally get to a place and you know, 619 00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:21,400 Speaker 1: and and again, because we have so many purposeful wrongs 620 00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:24,000 Speaker 1: in our history, we have to do both end at 621 00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:27,360 Speaker 1: the same time, question how we got here and then 622 00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:30,719 Speaker 1: how we where we are headed next? Like we just 623 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,560 Speaker 1: don't have the luxury to be able to do one 624 00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:36,600 Speaker 1: and then the other. Not at not at at this 625 00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:41,400 Speaker 1: critical stage. Um. I just I again, folks, the book 626 00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:45,439 Speaker 1: is the Trouble with White Women, Kyla Schuler. I really 627 00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:47,080 Speaker 1: hope that you will come back to woke a f 628 00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:51,440 Speaker 1: and continue this conversation. I know that it's gonna spark 629 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:55,040 Speaker 1: commentary among the wike AF audience, So I hope that 630 00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,960 Speaker 1: you'll join us again soon. I would love to thank you, 631 00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:07,920 Speaker 1: so thank you. Take care of by That is it 632 00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,720 Speaker 1: for me today. Folks on Woke app as always, Power 633 00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,399 Speaker 1: to the people and to all the people. Power, Get 634 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:16,319 Speaker 1: woke and stay woke as fuck.