White Woman Tears: These Tears Taste Like Oppression
The View host, Meghan McCain, has worked hard to consistently portray herself as uninformed and a peak entitled clueless wonder. During a recent show (well, a lot of shows…all the shows?), she did not disappoint. In the discussion about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s comments that have recently been weaponized to confuse a nation’s understanding of what anti-Semitism actually sounds like in an effort to shield the American government from criticism on foreign policy and AIPAC, Meghan argued that Representative Omar’s comments were “scary”.
Scary. This alignment with the 1915 Birth of a Nation-esque image of the pure, poor American White woman on the verge of being overtaken by her fear and the threat of dark people alike tends to be effective in these United States. But just in case more persuasion to imbibe her gravitas was needed, Meghan deployed one of the greatest missile attacks of manipulation used throughout history: White woman tears.
“White woman tears” as it were is not in reference to any and all precipitation that may fall from the White woman cornea. In this world of sexism, rape culture, victim blaming, gender pay gaps, assault rates, family court that abuses woman domestic abuse survivors and more, White women — like all women — absolutely have some things to legitimately cry, fight, rail and protest about. Rather, “White woman tears” refers to the common use of crying and other expressions of distress by White women as a means of weaponizing the privilege inherent in Whiteness and exerting the full power of White womanhood as a class historically designated as delicate, racially superior beings in need of protection.
The image of the innocent, precious White woman has not solely been used to infantilize White women and deny them liberties like the right to vote. Across the centuries to the present, White Supremacy characterizes White women as people to be protected and believed…at least in the context of race. That characterization has been used by White men and White women as propaganda for legislating Black oppression, as an excuse to wage sociopolitical wars and stoke fears- actions that have resulted in countless Black boys and men lynched and wrongfully imprisoned, in Black women tormented and White mobs that mass murdered Black citizens, burning entire Black cities and towns to the ground. And often the catalyst, the trigger pulled, needed not be anything greater than a White woman’s words and (figurative or literal) tear duct fluid. From Carolyn Bryant of Emmett Till’s murder to the Betty Shelbys and Barbeque Beckys of today, a White woman’s distress has never not been enough when the target is Black.
The reverse hasn’t even begun to exist. Black women’s cries do not now nor have they ever had any social, political or situational power to reliably alter the life, safety or security of White women and men. Because institutional racism. Because misogynoir.
So Black women (and men) go through this deluge of White women and their tears relentlessly in our everyday lives like the film Groundhog’s Day but in a monsoon season: White woman failing to win an argument with us? She cries. White woman needs to vilify or smear a Black woman? She cries. White woman does something awful or racist to a Black woman and the Black woman addresses it? She cries. White woman wants or needs the support of other White men and women to attack a Black woman? She cries. White woman sees Black woman unbothered by her foolery? She cries.
And the opening of these hallowed floodgates of daintiness usually follow some statement to the tune of feeling afraid. (What? You thought police invented that feared-for-my-life White Supremacy song and dance? Not at all. White Supremacy passed it down to them from their mommas. And if it ain’t broke…)
How many times have White Woman Tears — whether they be literal tears or just dry proverbial ones — showed up to rest, rule and abide in Black women’s lives?
I’ve decided to share one of countless personal experiences with you. With email receipts.
Warning: These tears taste like oppression.
My supervising professor in graduate school was a White woman. In countless private meetings with her, she would snap at me, even slam her laptop shut in response to me simply asking a question to better understand what she wanted me to do. Apparently, asking a White Woman teacher to teach is tew much.
I endured this treatment from her for over a year, usually responding by not responding at all. Just quietly saying “okay”, looking down and generally trying to appease the beast.
Until one day she went there. IN A LAB MEETING. IN FRONT OF MY PEERS.
She snapped. She raised her voice to me. She did not answer me appropriately in content or tone. I asked for further explanation of how to do her graphing system, and that was the manner of responding she felt perfectly safe and comfortable giving me and always had…because there was no reason for her not to. Power and privilege said she could.
Knowing White women and their tears in situations like this — ever the aggressor, ever the victim — I responded to her like trying to talk a man off the ledge of a building. I didn’t look up from my laptop. I didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t raise my voice but a few decibels above a whisper. My voice even and slow, I responded, “Calm down. I’m not asking you to do anything extraordinary. I’m only asking you to teach me.”
My eyes never left the screen of my computer.
She was quiet for a few seconds before nipping at me again like an angry chihuahua, each word sounding like the sharp blade of scissors when closed swiftly, “You must feel pretty comfortable with me to talk to me like that!”
Now, here’s the thing: If I did feel “pretty comfortable” with her, it would be because her unprofessional inappropriate self was forever telling me her personal business. In addition to knowing about her untreated anxiety disorder, I knew she was having trouble conceiving, that she’d opted out of the university’s health insurance, that she’s divorced, but that her current husband has a lot of similarities to her last, she likes margaritas, dancing…the list goes on.
I’m the same age as this woman, but here she is talking down to me like a child, throwing her White Womaness power tactics all over my life with a dash of public embarrassment. As much as I’d have loved to go full Aunt Viv with an “Oh honey, we about to get very busy up in here!”, we all know that wasn’t an option for me.
So, what did I say? Nothing.
I grew up with a momma that liked to fight, so I know when someone is trying to pick a fight with me. I also know how White woman tears work out here in these streets. So, I said absolutely nothing. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t speak to her. Kept my breathing even. Dealing with White woman tears requires skills equivalent to working in crisis management…or the LAPD bomb squad in Lethal Weapon.
The next day after her verbal aggression toward me in front of my peers, I woke up to this email:
“Your behavior.” I responded to these dry #WhiteWomanTears with this email:
To which she responded with a bold basic (allow me to translate for those that don’t speak White Power): “I’ll treat you any way I want to treat you, and if you don’t like it, you can sabotage your graduate degree and your thesis you’ve put years of your life into and leave.”:
Just look at all that POWER. Calmly asking a White woman to not abuse you is apparently far more offensive and disrespectful than actually abusing a Black woman. Ahhhh, taste those #WhiteWomanTears.
White women have power. Pure unfettered unchecked power, and they know how to use it. There’s nothing new about this toxic behavior that Black people, and even more specifically, Black women experience from their White same-gender counterparts. The tears are a form of passive aggression. And this White woman passive aggression is a hallmark of the experience of working while Black.
It is such an ubiquitous behavior that when Amanda Seales said in her new HBO comedy special, I Be Knowin’, that White women “have turned passive aggression into a synonym for professionalism,” I nearly jumped up out of my seat from the glorious sensation of confirmation and validation of my own experience. An experience that literally comes for our lives and livelihoods.
Whiteness has power. Though sexism is real and present, White womanhood is a double-edged sword: One side being knicked and dinged and battered by toxic masculinity and the other side being expertly wielded to slit Black throats, oppress and torment Black people in ways recognized and commonly ignored, artfully and predictably using White womanhood as the weapon it has always been. We’re talking swashbuckling-levels of swordsmenship here.
#WhiteWomanTears have snatched peace, jobs, reputations, time, minds and lives.
#WhiteWomanTears have harmed, tormented and permeated our everyday lives.
All White women like Meghan McCain who use expressions of distress to control, terrorize, disparage, threaten and punish Black women should be dismissed and silenced in those instances, regardless of context. It is racist at heart, annoying at best and a form of terrorism at worst.
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