White TearsBrown Scars, Ruby Hamad
White TearsBrown Scars, Ruby Hamad
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White Tears/Brown Scars
How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

Author: Ruby Hamad

Narrator: Mozhan Marnò

Unabridged: 7 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/06/2020


Synopsis

Called "powerful and provocative" by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of the New York Times bestselling How to be an Antiracist, this explosive book of history and cultural criticism reveals how white feminism has been used as a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against Black and Indigenous women, and women of color.

Taking us from the slave era, when white women fought in court to keep "ownership" of their slaves, through the centuries of colonialism, when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics, to the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars tells a charged story of white women's active participation in campaigns of oppression. It offers a long overdue validation of the experiences of women of color.

Discussing subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and 19th century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad undertakes a new investigation of gender and race. She shows how the division between innocent white women and racialized, sexualized women of color was created, and why this division is crucial to confront.

Along the way, there are revelatory responses to questions like: Why are white men not troubled by sexual assault on women? (See Christine Blasey Ford.) With rigor and precision, Hamad builds a powerful argument about the legacy of white superiority that we are socialized within, a reality that we must apprehend in order to fight.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Cindy

I fluctuate between rating this 4 or 5 stars, but will go ahead and bump this to 5 because we need more race and feminism discussions that specifically focus on Indigenous and Middle Eastern women, especially from a non-US perspective. The book is insightful, concise, and comprehensive, blending bot......more

Goodreads review by Joel

“Non-white women as the object of the white male power fantasy, it seems, are simply expected to sacrifice themselves.” Hamad's White Tears/Brown Scars depicts poignantly the effects white feminism has had on women of colour. It is a book that I would consider required reading, along with other b......more

Goodreads review by Thomas

A great book about how white women weaponize their tears to harm women of color and avoid accountability. Ruby Hamad takes this premise and runs it through history and the present, discussing the damage white woman have enacted onto people of color (e.g., white women being complicit in and cruel to......more

Goodreads review by Alex

TL;DR - Wasn't a fan. Examples of sloppy research/misinformation below I read this for a book circle. I didn't really like the writing or the absolutist tone but can recognize this book has an important message and opportunity for reflection at its core. The historical stuff was quite interesting. Tha......more