A review by unsuccessfulbookclub
White Tears / Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad

challenging informative fast-paced

4.25

In White Tears/Brown Scars, Ruby Hamad investigates and elaborates on how white feminism has hurt and continues to hurt BIPOC the world over. Ahmad’s particularly compelling argument is that white women have simultaneously played both damsels in distress and arbiters of power since European colonialism began. A microcosm of this behavior is regularly captured in videos of white women who start confrontations with BIPOC as aggressors (calling the cops on people having a barbecue, for instance) and end the video in tears, claiming they are being threatened. The key takeaway for me here is that *this is not new behavior* and white women, historically, have clung to power first (through whiteness) and called on the “sisterhood” of feminism only when it benefitted their proximity to power. I have personally witnessed behavior like this many times and as a young person, was absolutely socialized to use my tears as a weapon. It’s something I continue to work hard to unlearn.

I enjoyed Hamad’s more global perspective. Most of the books I have read on racial and social justice have been centered on US problems and examples, so Ruby’s Australian voice was welcome. My biggest critique of this book is Hamad’s multiple references to Robin D’Angelo, who has shown herself to be pretty problematic, but on balance they’re not a deal breaker for recommending the rest of the book.
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