A world safe for Black women and girls
June, 2020
By Megan Juelfs
Virginia Community Voice Board Member
In the wake of the outrage sparked by the brutal killing of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmed Arbery, and too many others to count, displays of solidarity with communities of color have become common, almost expected. Countless companies have issued press releases, and thousands of people rushed to post black squares on social media in solidarity, even as their actions drowned out black voices. These sorts of actions are appealing because they are easy and do not require the hard work of understanding, or changing, the world in which we live.
It is easier to be outraged at the violence that is daily enacted on black and brown people than it is to admit that, as a white woman, I am the justification for that violence. All Americans live in a system that is built to protect white women:
It is the myth of white women’s “vulnerability” that sets up the myth of black male criminality. In American history, we arrested black men for speaking too loudly in the presence of a white woman, and Amy Cooper is only the most recent evidence that this is still true.
It is the myth of white women’s “purity” that sets the standard of what it means to be a woman, allowing society to penalize black women for failing to conform to an impossible standard.
Taken together, when the “vulnerability” and “purity” of white women become internalized by a society, it cultivates fear in white women and protective impulses in the institutions set up to defend her. This has dire, and often deadly, consequences for people of color.
I live in a world built around the fears of white women, and it has called down violence, terror, and death on communities of color. Instead of centering the fears of white women what would it mean, in the words of Brittany Cooper, “...to build a world in which Black women and Black girls are safe?”
“What would it mean, in the words of Brittany Cooper, “...to build a world in which Black women and Black girls are safe?””
Black women have been trying to build a world that is safe for them and those that they love for more than 400 years. For white women to join the work of building a safe world means listening to the needs of Black women and then organizing with them--not for them--in that struggle.
While important, it’s not enough to call out racism to our friends and family in private and in public, we must be actively working to dismantle the systems that, from the inception of the nation, have prioritized the needs and fears of white men and women over needs and safety of all other people.
As leaders at work, we must dismantle and change the institutions that also uphold white supremacy. This means asking and acting on questions like:
Does my organization subjugate, even unintentionally, those we claim to serve?
Are we making decisions on behalf of a community that doesn’t look like us, and isn’t represented in our leadership?
Who makes up our organization’s board and upper management?
Until tables with power reflect the larger society, all of our efforts, no matter how well-intentioned, will reinforce the existing system.
In our rush to be allies, we’re going to mess up. The fear of messing up can be paralyzing, but that is another way to center white people’s fears. We will be called out and it will be uncomfortable. Our first reaction might be to get defensive: we didn’t mean to cause harm. Instead, we need to meet these moments with humility and listen to allow it to be a chance for growth. Each of us is needed to end white supremacy and to make this world safe for our Black women and those they love.