Okay so yes, I’m white, and yes, I’m a feminist, to put that out there. And ya’ll can read this and be like “wow, you’re a spoiled white girl and you have no clue what you’re talking about”. Stop right there.

Firstly, I would like to point out that racism exists around the world, everywhere, in some form. It’s important to note that white people are not the majority throughout the whole world, and the mentality that only the majority can be racist when referring to white people as a whole is wrong. White people have been the majority in several European countries and The United States, mainly the United States stemming from previous European supremacy values from colonization. This is important to point out that what happens in America and the UK does not reflect the rest of the world. Not every country has it’s social systems benefiting white people. Generalizing discrimination based on only what goes on in these countries is completely ignorant, therefore when you brush off someone online who you don’t even know where they live or what they look like (or even if they are white in the first place) or what they go through as “your opinion doesn’t matter because you’re a white feminist” is completely, exceptionally rude and racist within itself. Every country has their own struggles, and if you don’t live there to experience it, you don’t know them well enough to brush them off. The rest of the world does not have a racism problem that even comes close to what the United States has. In fact, someone attempted to make this argument in my Women and Gender Studies class to my professor, who is a small little Filipino migrant with a PhD in the subject, and you know what her response was? “You obviously have’t left North America”.

To be racist, you do not have to be the majority. I hear, “oh that’s not racism, that’s discrimination” when a white person points out at situation in which they were a minority. What even is this? Racism is discriminating someone based on race. Period. That is all. You can be black, disabled, and homosexual but if you hate white people, you’re still a racist. Anyone that thinks that their own race is superior to others is a racist.

What if a white person moved into a black neighborhood? They get the same response as if a person of color moves into a white neighborhood.

What about the Japanese racism towards Japanese Brazilians?

What about the Rwandan genocide?

What about Nazi Germany? There was white people discriminating against white people there. Does that mean that the white Jews struggles weren’t as important as the black Jews, because they were white?

What about the Israel and Palestine situation?

What about the racism in India?

Do these situations where neither party is white mean that these parties weren’t racist towards another, just because neither of them was white? Please, look at your flawed logic.

Yes, I realize that in America that white women are more privileged than women of color. I will never deny that until it changes. White women don’t get murdered at random because they are white there. I realize this and think it is an important issue to address. But to say that white women are incapable of understanding the issues of non-white women is far from the truth. Coming from someone who lives in a country where it is written right into our constitution that we are multicultural and it is against your basic human rights to be discriminated against, this is a bunch of bull. In fact, the gender gap is more of a problem than the racial issues here. Men of color got the right to vote before white women did. Actually, all races of women were granted their voting rights at the same time here. To say that I don’t understand the issues of being turned down a job because I am a woman, just because I’m white is untrue.

To completely dismiss a white person’s opinion or experiences with discrimination just because they are white is a form of racism within itself. To point out their misunderstanding is another thing, but on Tumblr here I have seen far more than that. As feminists, we should all be standing together for equality for everyone in every area. Fighting racism with racism won’t work or make anything better. That’s just completely bullshit. These are the exact things that are turning people away from the feminists movement, so it needs to stop.