On White Woman’s Tears & Black Woman’s Anger
I know people will claim that labels like White Woman’s Tears are misogynistic or whatever, but there is a phenomenon that is unique to middle class white women in discussions of race, wherein the moment the conversation gets hard they make it all about them, their feelings, and their tears. And it is so Scarlett O’Hara of them to expect Mammy to drop everything and dry the eyes of weepy white women.They will shed these tears & detail their hurts & then look at the faces of the POC around them expectantly. Because of course we are supposed to feel sympathy, empathy, something like kindness and compassion for them.
And in the beginning? We do. We hug it out & think we are talking it out. But after a while…after a while we notice that the conversation is always about their pain. Never about how we’re hurt. We see that our tears go unnoticed or even unshed because there is no safe place for us to cry them. And we get tired of drying the eyes of white women who claim to care & be so hurt & so sorry, but who never do anything about the pain that they are inflicting on us. So we stop rushing to dry their eyes, and our faces go flat, and we refuse to play the same games anymore. But they don’t stop crying.
No, they cry harder and more often. They are shocked & appalled when they discover Mammy isn’t real & the black woman they’re crying to, doesn’t give a fuck about their tears. And then the conversation is all about how mean we are to them. Never mind the part where they just disrupted an entire conversation (or series of conversations) to center it on their needs because they couldn’t do the work of confronting reality. We’re supposed to make their feelings a priority, and they can’t even see how racist that expectation is, much less how harmful their behavior is to everyone around them. So, they get mad or defensive, and they play the martyr. Newsflash, you’re not a victim. You’re an asshole & your willingness to wield tears as a weapon is just a symptom of the problem.
To add on to that, and certainly not to derail: Is there such a thing as “Asian Woman’s Tears”? I’ve noticed that Asian Americans seem as if we don’t have much say in the dialogue surrounding racism in the US, which is partly because of how we’re supposed to be the model minority and keep quiet while working hard. This is addressed in Pat K. Chew’s article, titled “Asian Americans: The ‘Reticent’ Minority and Their Paradoxes,” which I reblogged here. I think it’s both interesting and necessary to discuss whether “Asian Woman’s Tears” exists, and if it does or doesn’t, the reasons behind it.
I have not experienced anything that I would categorize as Asian Woman’s tears from Asian women who ID as Asian POC. On the other hand I have experienced something like it from Asian women who do not ID as POC. Which sounds overly complicated, but I am thinking of a specific situation at the moment & I know micro does not equal macro in terms of experience. Hmm, followers what do you think?
(eta: The first paragraph is in reference to the question of WWT/Derailing Tears from POC)
Personally, my experiences with derailing tears have ONLY ever come from POC who were white-identifying and/or whiteness-upholding. When I’ve talked with/to POC about heavy issues I’ve never experienced derailing tears, even if tears have been involved.
The act of using emotional derailments, in my experience stems from everything you, karnythia, have talked about and…I dunno, some sort of Victorian entitlement or something, that dictates that everything must come to a screeching halt when a white woman cries. I mean, it’s even a joke that (sexist, usually white) comedians reference. If your “wife” or “girlfriend” is crying you have to drop everything and figure out what you did wrong. And it’s infiltrated, to some extent, Black male comedy, but largely, Black (and other POC) male comedians reference WOC’s anger, hardly ever their sadness.
Even on the few occasions I’ve seen tired gags about crying women bandied about it usually turns into some sort of high holy rage bit, because god forbid a WOC ever have her tears, her experience, or her frustrations be a signal that something’s not going right.
