What is the Criticism that Black Feminists have toward White Feminists?

309 words | 2 page(s)

The black feminist critique of white feminists lies in the thesis that the former group are subject to three forms of oppression: patriarchy, class, and race. The theories and practices of white feminists, therefore, while opposing patriarchy, at the same time nevertheless overlook the dimensions of class and race. They cannot adequately address the multi-dimensional structure of oppression within society: therefore, white feminist approaches cannot adequately address the concerns of black feminists. This means that, for black feminists, white feminists must expand their perspective of oppression so as to include issues of race and class.

Scapegoating entails attributing blame or stigmatizing a particular group or individual. The social implications of scapegoating, on the one hand, create a demonization of an Other, who is the victim of the scapegoating practice. On the other hand, the very fact that scapegoating is possible and effective demonstrates that on a social level, there is a lack of equality in the social structure: the group practicing scapegoating against others may have hegemony in this social structure. In the Forestry story, therefore, the effectivity of the scapegoating discourse was only possible because the group practicing it possesses a hegemonic position over the scapegoated Other. The Forestry example demonstrates precisely these two aspects to the scapegoating phenomenon.

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Prejudice is important to discrimination in the sense that it helps us identify discriminated groups as well as who holds power in society. For example, prejudices of poor people as lazy demonstrates a materialistic social order, which equates class with certain positive and negative characteristics such as work ethic or lack thereof. On the other hand, prejudice may not be valuable to discrimination, since prejudices can also exist in exploited groups, who have prejudices about hegemonic classes or they simply may be trivial prejudices which do not reflect the very real social inequalities that exist in a given society.

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