White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781948226745)

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.

"A stunning and thorough look at White womanhood that should be required reading for anyone who claims to be an intersectional feminist. Hamad's controlled urgency makes the book an illuminating and poignant read. Hamad is a purveyor of such bold thinking, the only question is, are we ready to listen?" --Rosa Boshier, The Washington Post

Author: Ruby Hamad
ISBN-10: 194822674X
ISBN-13: 9781948226745
Publisher: Catapult
Language: English
Published: 10/06/2020
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.80w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 07/15/2020
Publishers Weekly 07/27/2020
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2020 pg. 27
Library Journal 08/01/2021 pg. 83