This is something that has been bothering me:
As a self proclaimed feminist, I read a lot material on the internet related to persecution or women.. duh. People may not know this about me. Anyway I read an archived entry on Feministing.com that kinda urked me in a way that I have been urked before. The article was great and addressing the the subject "women are not all oppressed on equal terms" and by this addressing racial issues.
Racial stuff makes me squeamish and has always done so because I never understood racism. It seemed like a fantasy to me growing up because I didn't really see much racists acts. I only heard about it. I didn't think it existed in a way. Anywho, when I read articles about white suppremists and horrible news about white people being at the root of a hate crime, I just feel awful. First of all I don't understand the motivation behind such things and I tend to think "another crazy person". Yet there is this feeling I get like I'm backed into a corner. I wasn't able to define it until today it dawned on me. I'm feeling defensive about myself. I am actually feeling as though because I'm white and white people are always the center of such evils as hate crimes, I am feeling persecuted by it in some bizarre backwards way!
When I thought this through it finally made it possible for me to read the article without this weird feeling. Even though I am horribly (almost to a fault) egalitarian oriented in all aspects of life, I got these subconscious hurt feelings. I was thinking- because I'm white does that mean that I can't understand racial persecution?- because as a white person, I feel persecuted for being associated with hate crimes and racial slurs.
Has anyone else felt this way?
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