Why I won’t take up space in the narrative talking about misogynoir

It’s great to care. But if you don’t know, you shouldn’t comment

Every so often, I get a comment from a (very lovely) woman of colour adding her experience to the issues I discuss: and I’m extremely grateful for that and it’s wonderful to have personal ethnography to hand to educate myself on. Sometimes, I’m asked why I haven’t commented or explained the racial elements that cloud so much of dating, romance, work, and politics. But it would be deeply wrong of me, in my opinion, to attempt to whitesplain that pain, anger, and distress when I am a white woman in a very white area of a predominantly white country (81.7%). When I have not been educated on or personally experienced these issues. When there are excellent Black, Asian, and Latina voices who I would much rather read, share, and celebrate than opining weakly on topics I don’t really have a strong exposure to or understanding of.

Take skin tone for example: I’m extremely white. Anaemic level white. In my social circles, people dip, spray, burn, dye, and scrub themselves orange in a desperate attempt to look less white. Pale was and is bad. Whiteness, or the colour anyway, was and is bad. I remember standing awkwardly in my bikini and feeling deeply annoyed that my mother wouldn’t let me bake my fourteen…