Why are you surprised about Grimes?
and all the white women you worship?
I've been called unreasonable for having these feelings. As a woman of color, I'm honestly not shocked or surprised by people calling me this, nor about the way that these white women are being idolized for simply existing while simultaneously contributing to pulling us backwards in history.
These are the same white women that use women of color as props, ladders, stepping stones, and identities for themselves and their brands. These are the same white women who thrive off of privilege, nepotism, and greed whilst pretending they are not. These are the same white women who will choose to fuck the most racist, sexist, homophobic, asshole men to exist, going so far as to marrying and/or having their children, instead of doing the logical thing of maybe not doing that (cue the eyeroll).
So I don't understand why everyone is so surprised when this happens time and time again??
Women of color have known that white women are not their allies. Women of color have experienced the consist betrayal of their white counterpart actively making decisions that would push them back, usually doing so in a manner that would continue to perpetuate white cis male supremacy. It's no secret that this is done, but a lot of people I've met act astonished otherwise and are flabbergasted when i tell them to expect it at this point.
Grimes, as my main example, does exactly this. Grimes is a white woman who comes from a heavily privileged background where she actively chose to live a life where it seemed like she was impoverished while fully having the trust fund, money, and backing of privilege. She fundamentally didn't experience any issues, aside from being a woman (unable to confirm if she is LGBTQ+), in her life yet actively made the conscious decision to date a white man like Elon Musk, who also has a very obvious history of racism, sexism, homophobia, colonist attitudes, etc. I don't think i need to explain his track record, just look around.
Grimes has almost never done anything to align herself with this identity of "ally to the people". She's done the opposite, and having multiple children with a man like Elon shows you exactly where her priorities lie. Because instead of truly taking the time and effort to process how she contributes to the white supremacist complex and uplift other women and women of color using the talent she has musically, she chose a white man. She, a grown adult woman, chose a white man who has a family lineage in colonization and exploitation of people of color, a white man who continues to perpetuate that, and a white man who is complicit with breeding fascist attitudes in the United States (and more countries).
Quite frankly, you cannot separate a person from their spouse and/or partner; you just can't. By marrying/being in a relationship with someone, you are showing that you are okay enough with their beliefs to commit to them, so you are supporting their beliefs. Musk might be an ex, but Grimes dated and had his children fully knowing where he came from, who he was, and how his beliefs stretched. He never hid who he was, he simply used a persona to gain a cult following, but his roots had always been in extreme right ideals.
You cannot sit here and tell me I cannot be disappointed. A white women like her, with the power, privilege, and platform to be able to mobilize and influence, actively choosing to do the opposite in every sense of the way. Watch any interview where she is confronted about her relationship, watch how she speaks about being with him, she does not for one second take it seriously. Because for white women like her, this is all a game. She can play act as a caricature of her gender, make music and say that reality is a video game/simulation/concept, while her Black and Brown sisters get stripped of their human rights, because at the end of the day, this doesn't fully affect her. She can still profit off of the white supremacist complex in the West existing to a certain extent.
And I want to expect better from white women like her, desperately want to, but I never can because I am consistently shown the reasons not to. I am consistently drained mentally and emotionally from reaching out to white women for allyship and for community connection, because they don't put in the effort required to actually create a community with support basing around intersectional feminism. They do not want to admit and change the fact that they too gain something from these attitudes existing, nor do they want to renounce the white men who perpetuate these issues.
And for those enraged, i am not saying that all white women are bad, I am saying that all white women have a job to examine themselves, their privilege, and what actions make them complicit to the problem, and figure our solutions to this issue. It is not my or women of colors' job to tell you what to do, we are here for guidance and accountability more than anything. It is fundamentally the job of white women to cease from allowing themselves to be complicit in the very system that hurts their sisters and that will turn around and hurt them.
Over winter, I took a Women, Gender, and Sexuality course to refresh my past knowledge and research. I am so grateful my professor had us analyze feminist and activist writings from the past, because it was eye opening how far back we are going just from seeing the writings and struggles from feminist and activists of decades ago, mirroring the same issues we are experiencing to this day.
One particular writing caught my brain, making me write down quotes in a little notebook I keep on my person, in every bag. The following quote is taken from the Combahee River Collective's Statement, made in 1977. For context, the Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian socialist collective based in Boston, Massachusetts that was active from 1974 to 1980. We analyzed their work because this collective was the first to point out how both feminist and civil rights movements didn't fully represent Black women, and Black lesbians in particular, because of the lack of representation and support when it came to the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, and similar.
The quote reads: "Eliminating racism in the white women's movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to spread and demand accountability on this issue."
Just a couple paragraphs above this, you would have read the exact same thing said in the quote. So tell me, why is it that I have to repeat the same demands that a collective made in 1977, almost half a century ago now? Why is it that we are still in the phase where we are asking white women to take accountability and cease having relations with white men who see them as nothing.
Because guess what, no matter how much pandering that white women like Grimes will do to white men for money or validation, they will never see her as one of them.
I tried. I tried to be a kind, happy, sweet activist and feminist but quite frankly I'm not. I'm enraged, I'm tired, I'm annoyed, I'm so over this. I'm tired of waking up and seeing news article after headline after breaking announcement that yet another one of my rights has been revoked. Quite frankly, I'm stripped. I and my Black and Brown sisters (and nonbinary and brothers affected), stand here bared to the skin we were born in, in front of the man himself who continues to laugh and grin. Grimes can continue to use life like a fun little game while we all die from the same issues our ancestors prayed against and died to prevent us from experiencing. Her, and all the other white women who continue to let these issues be perpetuated, like Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and many more, all whom should absolutely be brought up and included in conversations of this kind!
The list is endless, just like the list of atrocities Black and Brown women experience while their white "allies" stay silent. But sure, whatever, stay in your ivory tower and croon into a microphone about how the very system you uphold has turned around to ruin you while simultaneously doing nothing about it, all the while the bodies of your sisters amass at your doorstep.
Ugh, thank you. I tire of the narrative of perpetual victimhood afforded to white women who knowingly align themselves with vile, fascist men only to act surprised when his behavior negatively affects them.
This behavior is often protected and excused under the guise of white feminism, where any criticism of a white woman’s behavior is seen as victim blaming, or blaming women for the actions of their male partners as opposed to an acknowledgement that Grimes is very much cut from the same cloth as Elon.
There’s also this narrative that Elon used to be “normal” when that was never the case. I understand maybe not everyone was keyed into Tesla news at the time but he has a long track record of psychologically abusing his employees amongst other unhinged behaviors, so it’s absolutely disingenuous to act like Grimes was some hapless victim charmed into courting him rather than a complicit party with an extreme case of main character syndrome wanting to perpetuate her fantasy by dating a real life supervillain. Grimes just thought she was going to be the princess of mars and is now acting surprised that she’s not more special than the other women he’s been with, and neither are her children which he had out of narcissistic desire, similar to how she wanted her bloodline on Mars (she literally compared her son to the messianic figure in Dune).
She has even begun to backtrack, acting as though she was tricked into parroting white supremacist talking points and being a 4chan panderer. Both Grimes and Elon are obvious posers so I never understand why people think Grimes has changed when she’s always been a pseudo-intellectual contrarian cosplaying substance. While it’s not an excuse for the way he treats her, it doesn’t take away from the fact that in some ways she is just like him.
I also find their dynamic interesting because I feel they are an emblematic extreme of a fairly common social phenomenon; liberal white women whose politics are dictated by convenience and flip on a dime when presented with proximity to validation/attention/protection from white men who support the oppression of others, then expect to be rescued by the women they sidelined when the racist man (not talking about situations of abuse) they were dating turns out not to be a good partner (big surprise that someone who dehumanizes others would not be emotionally well rounded!). If you do not react with the appropriate amount of cajoling, you’re accused of being anti feminist, but somehow the Grimeses of the world always evade that criticism despite their behavior being exactly that.
I’ve been scowling through Substack for someone who can articulate this issue with both facts and utter disdain for what is so blatantly obvious finally I found you. Thank you for sharing. This made me feel less alone in my frustrations.