Ruby Hamad, "White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color" (Catapult, 2020)

Nov 3, 2021

White Tears/Brown Scars

How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

Ruby Hamad

Hosted by Lee Pierce

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Summary

Called “powerful and provocative" by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of the New York Times bestselling How to be an Antiracist, Ruby Hamad's White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color (Catapult, 2020) is a breakthrough work of history and cultural criticism. The book 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.

Connect with Ruby Hamad (she/hers) @rubyhamadwriter on Instagram and click here to read Ruby's breakaway opinion piece for The Guardian.

Connect with your host Lee Pierce (they/them) @rhetoriclee on Instagram and Twitter.

Your Host

Lee Pierce

Lee M. Pierce (she/they) is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Geneseo specializing in rhetoric, race, and U.S. political culture. They also host the Media & Communications and Language channels for New Books Network and their own podcast titled RhetoricLee Speaking.

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