Privilege and POC
About a month ago on April 15, the Student Union at Goldsmiths University held an event promoting equality among the different races and genders. On paper this sounds like a noble cause, but when the person running the event goes on the record telling white people and men to not show up, it raises a few eyebrows. This is precisely what happened, as student union diversity officer Bahar Mustafa made a post on Facebook the day of the event saying, “Invite loads of BME Women and non-binary people!! Also, if you’ve been invited and you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME just cos I invited a bunch of people and hope you will be responsible enough to respect this is a BME and non-binary even only.” I like to think of myself as an accepting person. If you want to spiritually identify as a squirrel or something, that’s your business, and I can respect your desire to host an event for like-minded people. However, when you’re working under the pretense of promoting equality, it seems a tiny bit counterproductive to ban genders and races that you aren’t comfortable with. It kind of defeats the entire purpose, you know? This seemed to be the general consensus regarding the whole fiasco, as even other students at GU called her actions “laughable.”
The whole thing blew over with most people just kind of shaking their heads, and it just kind of faded from memory. Lord knows that wouldn’t be an acceptable ending for a subject as touchy as this, as Bahar recently stumbled her way back into the limelight by claiming that she is unable to be racist or sexist, and therefore the claims against her are unfounded. I really wish I was stretching the truth for this one, but she actually said “I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender. Therefore, women of color and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist, since we do not stand to benefit from such a system.” Now there’s a whole lot wrong with this statement depending on who you ask, but that last part is what gets me. Because you don’t stand to benefit from being racist, you are physically incapable of being so? I don’t stand to benefit from eating an entire pizza by myself but God knows that’s happened more than once.
You are not exempt from being racist because you have faced discrimination either in the past or present. Racism isn’t a system created to “benefit the white man,” it isn’t created for our gain, it’s just hate. The same goes for being sexist; you aren’t trying to work a system, you’re just a jerk. Both racism and sexism have been a very apparent problem throughout the entire world for literally centuries, and there needs to be a way of dealing with it. However, if you think that the best way to go about this is to gather all the minorities and kick out the white people (and all men in general, for some reason) then you are part of the problem. You will not solve one type of bigotry with another type of bigotry. This does not make you a voice for the underprivileged. This does not help to empower the powerless. It just makes you a bigot.