White women try to "reclaim power" through #vanillagirl and #cleangirl beauty posts??

[Anonymous]

I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

I listened too and "Notes from the style desk" is a ridiculous take. Talk about listening comprehension. She was absolutely saying that white women are trying to reclaim power by creating trends that take us back to white standards of beauty. It was most definitely an insult and critical of white women, young or whatever.

I don't want to take away from POC women's creativity. Why is she arguing that white women can't be themselves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

How did you miss the title ("The 'vanilla girl' trend shows that beauty is power") and this blurb on the landing page? "Brittany and Steffi talk beauty as soft power and the rebrand of white womanhood."

Your take about "presenting other equally popular trends" simply doesn't appear in the piece.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

How did you miss the title ("The 'vanilla girl' trend shows that beauty is power") and this blurb on the landing page? "Brittany and Steffi talk beauty as soft power and the rebrand of white womanhood."

Your take about "presenting other equally popular trends" simply doesn't appear in the piece.

What's really bizarre about the NPR piece is the underlying assumption that white women already have the "power" to set beauty standards, so that whatever white women do with their clothes and nails will ineluctably impose their beauty standards on everybody else. Can doesn't describe the mechanism whereby POC are forced to dress like vanilla girls, wear beige and file their nails into ovals--because she can't explain her idea.

Instead of, you know, everybody dressing for themselves and following the trends that work for them. What a bizarre piece.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

It's interesting that voicing even any opposition to an argument like this (which you yourself deem "silly") is being "fragile." That's an interesting word choice because it's not the kind of word you hear assigned to any other group of people, except maybe children (and not even all children, just girls). "Don't be so fragile about it" is a pretty classic neg against white women. Along with being shrill or hysterical.

White women are accused of "playing the victim" but we are also told, that if we do so much as vocalize a defense of ourselves in the face of criticism, that we are being "fragile" or using "white tears." The stereotype of the white woman is someone who performs weakness in order to get the protection of white men, but when white women stand up for themselves (not hiding behind white men but using their own words and argument stop advocate for themselves), they are dismissed and told to sit back down.

And that is why white women get angry about this stuff. White women absolutely have to be accountable for the role they've played, and continue to play, in white supremacy. But the fixation on white women as though we run the world (we don't) is bizarre and I think speaks to a broader misogyny -- it's easier to scape goat white women for their role in white supremacy than to actually dismantle the sources of white supremacy. It's easier to make fun of a skinny 24 year old white woman on Instagram posting about her #cleanface beauty regimen than it is to actually challenge a person with real power.

Whatever, I guess I'm just being "fragile."

+1.

[Anonymous]

Everytime a white woman pushes back against blatant racism, she is called fragile or sensitive. It is gaslighting and dismissive. This is what bullies use to bully other people.

[Anonymous]

It's like second wave feminism came back for this thread, with the racism turned up to 11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

I listened too and "Notes from the style desk" is a ridiculous take. Talk about listening comprehension. She was absolutely saying that white women are trying to reclaim power by creating trends that take us back to white standards of beauty. It was most definitely an insult and critical of white women, young or whatever.

I don't want to take away from POC women's creativity. Why is she arguing that white women can't be themselves?

Like any abuser, they want to make you distrust your own beliefs, and make you turn to them for direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

I listened too and "Notes from the style desk" is a ridiculous take. Talk about listening comprehension. She was absolutely saying that white women are trying to reclaim power by creating trends that take us back to white standards of beauty. It was most definitely an insult and critical of white women, young or whatever.

I don't want to take away from POC women's creativity. Why is she arguing that white women can't be themselves?

Like any abuser, they want to make you distrust your own beliefs, and make you turn to them for direction.

This just didn’t happen in the interview, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

Do you mean men? White women no longer have the right to make reproductive health decisions, so, no, not a lot of power. White men, a black man, and a WOC have been pres or VP. No white women there either...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

You have to ask why your movement has attempted to redefine racism in such a way that it is justifiable in some contexts. What do you achieve by tweaking the definition this way? What harm comes from keeping a definition in which the bad thing is judgment based on the color of a person's skin, and attempting to eradicate that?

[Anonymous]

I do not think the ideas in this interview are racism. I do think they are wrongheaded and a massive rhetorical stretch. I also think it's part of a broader trend of blaming white women, and especially white women with the least amount of actual power (young women trying to make a buck on Instagram, middle aged moms) instead of the white women who have actually ascended to positions of real power and authority. Easier to complain about the soft power of some Instagram influencer than to talk about how some of the white women at high levels in the media or corporate world perpetuate white supremacy. Always easiest to criticize someone who will never, ever be able to offer you a job.

Also, if you've listened to the interview but haven't read Steffi Cao's essay that prompted NPR to invite her on, I recommend reading it. The tone of the interview makes her argument seem gentler than it is. Her essay is vitriolic in a way that really bothered me. Just the absolute disdain she has for her subject. I've read plenty of smart and valid criticisms of white women that have made me think and examine my own role in white supremacy. This wasn't one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened and I think she is talking about a small subset (though having a wide audience) of YOUNG white women celebs drifting towards certain trends. Most posters here have some problem with listening comprehension.
I fit the vanilla color trend more than any white peer but I am not white. Most people dislike all beige wardrobes especially white women, who don't want to be washed out. The boleros and leg warmers of balletcore are for the young. This thread should be a case study in sensitivity. She wasn't even saying this reclaiming power thing as an insult but as a "hey look how these ladies left behind in some trends are presenting other equally popular trends". It was more of a "Notes from the style desk" than race bashing of who everyone in this thread views as the "real victims"

I listened too and "Notes from the style desk" is a ridiculous take. Talk about listening comprehension. She was absolutely saying that white women are trying to reclaim power by creating trends that take us back to white standards of beauty. It was most definitely an insult and critical of white women, young or whatever.

I don't want to take away from POC women's creativity. Why is she arguing that white women can't be themselves?

Like any abuser, they want to make you distrust your own beliefs, and make you turn to them for direction.

This just didn’t happen in the interview, sorry.

Yes it did. It's saying, essentially, "look, all these grandmas in their colorful blouses and white capris arent just old ladies buying stuff from the same chain store. No! All these trends, they come from somewhere. And that somewhere is an idealized view of whiteness, which is specifically created to oppress you."

[Anonymous]

Stupid article. Written for gullible people to make money