Vicky Sanderson For the last few months, people in my professional circle have publicly suggested that I am an antisemitic bully, braggart, bitch, yapper, racist, sexist, stupid scribbler, numbskull, that I have terrible taste in decor, that I’m fat, old, mentally ill, wildly envious, that I am a devoted consumer of Nazi propaganda…well, you get the drift.
It started mid-October 2023, when I posted a photo of a Canadian Jew and a Canadian woman of Palestinian descent wishing peace upon each other, and got worse after I challenged a white-presenting Cis-gender man for labelling a Canadian woman of Palestinian descent a Nazi, depicting peaceful BIPOC protestors as rapists and terrorists, routinely insulting the intelligence, honesty, and competency of BIPOC voices-particularly women, and self-identifying as a survivor of sexual violence while portraying Palestinian survivors as liars or dupes.
The bullying charge – as far as I can make out – is the result of having challenged one influencer for promoting the idea that Islam is a religion of violence, and another for offering “both sides” arguments for racist incidents, publicly denigrating a well-known, highly-respected Black journalist by suggesting that they are either incompetent or have colluded in spreading fake news as part of a media conspiracy to marginalize a certain type – namely blonde, slim, and beautiful women. With a third, I refuted the racist notion that people with skin as fair as mine – and theirs – have not benefited from white privilege.
The harshest criticism came for amplifying the voices of Jewish leaders, community members, and activists who oppose Zionism, and rejecting claims that they’re “fake” or “token” Jews-an idea that in itself is a profound insult to the intellectual and humanist traditions of Judaism. More justified criticism was why I had stopped talking about anti-semitism. That answer – adequate or not – is that when I did, the same crowd told me to keep the term out my filthy mouth.
As I write this, a powerful group of white women are promoting the narrative that people who support Palestinian resistance (many of whom are BIPOC) are inciting sexual violence against women like them (mostly white). That’s a very, very dangerous racial trope.
That it’s my actions being characterized as “mean” is proof of how gossamer-thin the skin of white people is, and how deeply white women and their allies resent being questioned about their own internalized biases.
I’m not still here because I enjoy an online beef with knuckleheads. I’m here because in 2013, along with a bunch of others, I decided that Black lives matter, and committed to learning how global structures that put whiteness at the top do harm to BIPOC neighbours. My ignorance was, and remains, colossal.
Then and now, BIPOC communities have asked women like me to go into spaces dominated or policed by white women spreading white supremacist messaging, and disrupt it.
Right now, for example, a powerful group of white women are promoting the narrative that people who support Palestinian resistance (many of whom are BIPOC) are inciting sexual violence against women like them (mostly white). That’s a very, very dangerous racial trope.
What I see at the heart of all these exchanges is whiteness, and the massive privilege that goes with it. It’s weird for me to watch wagons circle to protect these white voices that align themselves with the most damaging tropes about people who don’t look like them. Also weird to realize with more clarity than ever that the majority of white women are fine with the status quo. When they tell me they don’t care, I need to believe them.
On a positive note, I’ve started to learn more about the Toronto chapter of SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice), a grassroots organization and local affiliate of SURJ National in the US. SURJ collaborates with Black, Indigenous, and racialized organizers to move white people to take action against white supremacy.
I’ve also committed to helping build Willowdale in Neighbourly Community (WINC) an emerging community group that promotes friendliness, and advocates for adequate shelter, and basic health care for everyone who calls the riding home.
I don’t know where a lot of the pussy-hat wearing white feminist voices who were so loud about BLM are right now, but I do know that with or without them, I’m committed to naming and unravelling racism and unacknowledged privilege in white spaces when I see it, and when it’s brought to my attention. Call me bitch, bully, or braggart. Because I truly, deeply, really do not care any more.
