We - and by we, I mean, white feminists - need to talk about how [the Charleston terrorist] used white female purity to justify murdering black people.
“I have to do it,” he said. “You rape our women.”
This myth - that black men rape and assault white women - has been used to justify the murder of black people for centuries. It was used to justify lynchings. It was used to justify slavery. It is still used today.
And white feminists absolutely NEED TO REPUDIATE this myth, because white women’s tacit approval - and sometimes vocal agreement - with this myth is part of what allows this terrorism to happen.
People like the Charleston terrorist believe white women need to be protected from black men.
We don’t.
I stand in solidarity with the black community, not with people like Dylann Storm. He does not speak for me.
(100% inspired LaKeyma Pennyamon’s facebook post asking why white women haven’t already done this. Thank you.)
THIS.
And in the specific case of Charleston, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that, while Roof explicitly evoked white female purity and a fear of black men to justify his actions, six of his nine victims were black women. There is absolutely no truth to the myth of black men preying on white women - and it’s telling that we even have this myth, when white slaveowners and colonists have historically been responsible for the rape and abuse of black women and other WOC on an extraordinary scale - but its usage here is rendered even thinner by the fact that Roof didn’t specifically target black men. In addition to rejecting the idea that white women need to be protected from black men, we also need to acknowledge the double vulnerability of black women and the influence of misogynoir. Roof claimed a desire to protect white women from black men, but if that was so, then he was perfectly happy to make his point by killing black women.
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