"An Open Letter to SlutWalk NYC and its Critiques, from One of Your Own," by Anoushka Ratnarajah
This is an individual response.
*When I refer to women I am referring to all self-identified women.
An Open Letter to SlutWalk NYC and its Critiques, from One of Your Own.
First, let me situate myself. When I say I am one of your own, here is what I mean: I am one of the organizers who brought about SlutWalk NYC, the march and the rally and the events that preceded them. I am also someone who has been critical of SlutWalk, both from without and within the organizing body.
I am a woman of colour, who is also bi-racial, who is also queer, who is also a femme--- and who is also cis, ablebodied, middle-class and post-secondary educated. Like most people, I experience a complex variety of privileges and marginalization every day. And I bring my positions of privilege and marginalization into every space I occupy—they are in every sentence I write and utter.
When I decided to take part in the organizing of the SlutWalk march and rally in New York City, I was already very much aware of the critiques of the action. But I am a feminist, and an anti-violence activist, and I wanted to see for myself what this organizing would look like, because I have a stake in it. And because I personally don’t want any feminist movement to be exclusively by and for privileged bodies and identities. Because I believe in the importance of allied work and as committed to it as I am to the very real need for marginalized folks to have our own exclusive spaces to share rage and love.
I don’t personally identify as a slut. I know a lot of folks who do though. I also get that the reclamation of that word on an individual basis carries with it a great deal of privilege. It is because I am a woman of colour and because I am queer that I personally cannot and will not re-claim this word. It has been used to sexualize me and shame me, and sexualize and shame my ancestors, and my sisters in struggle. It carries in it a deep pain that you cannot know unless you also carry that history of colonization and slavery and rape. I carry this history with me, though it is not the same history that many of the folks who have critiqued SlutWalk carry with them. I am not African american, I am not black, I can only hope and work towards being the best ally to those folks as possible.
My mother is white, my father is Tamil. My father’s people have had genocide committed against them—they are still dying. They are living in poverty. They are child soldiers, they are being raped, living in refugee camps, displaced in their own nation and across the globe. When they flee to find safety they are deemed terrorists and are held in detention centres. And my mother’s people are the people that colonized and raped the globe. So that’s where I am from; a complicated position of being westernized and also racialized, of being racially oppressed; being stereotyped as part of a “model minority” in order to pit me and my people against black folks; being taught to reach for desirable whiteness; being colonized and decolonizing myself.
There were over fifty people in that first meeting. The critiques of previous SlutWalks were in the room and on everyone’s tongue.
The language that was used to address the critiques was (and is still) intensely problematic. This is because we keep using words like “inclusivity” and phrases like “how do we convince people to join us?” This rhetoric is born of and perpetuates a climate and culture in which privileged identities continue to be centered and “others” are placed on the margins, to be swept up by the benevolent, well meaning centre. Fellow organizers, we need to stop using this language and this framing. If marginalized people felt represented by us, they would be in the room. We should already be an inclusive space and the fact that we even have to have this conversation is a mark of how we are not a safer, anti-oppressive space for everyone.
But it is not only our failure--- histories of struggle show how this is not a new problem, but in fact very common and indicative of how much we internalize and perform oppressive behaviour. Our organizing as birthed from the original SlutWalk, which is birthed from a canadian feminism that has a history of white-supremacist, cis-supremacist, hetero-supremacist, colonizing, nationalist politics. Our organizing in New York specifically is also the child of american feminism, which has all the same problems as canadian and other western feminist thought and action. If we want to move forward as a coalition which serves all people impacted by rape culture, then we have to decolonize ourselves. We need to step away from nationalist narratives, and respect the fact that the land upon which we do our activism is occupied by a colonial force, that the american state enacted genocide when they set foot upon this land, and any and all political ideologies that arise out of this national identity are problematic, colonial and perpetuate injustice against the indigenous peoples of this land. We need to express solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island; and yes this is directly related to rape culture, because rape was and is a tool of colonial genocide. Rape is a tool of war that america utilizes in illegal wars across the globe; that corporate entities use to silence and punish exploited workers across the globe. This is probably making a lot of americans uncomfortable, but we need to unsettle ideologies around national identity—it is an important part of all social justice work, and one of the least examined outside of anti-colonial and indigenous activism.
So, if I realized how problematic the foundational and entrenched issues with privilege within this organizing body were the instant I walked into the room, why did I come back? When the same issues with white supremacy, cis supremacy, accessibility, heteronormativity, etc., came up over and over again, why did I stick it out?
Because when I suggested we form an anti-oppression working group, more than twenty people expressed immediate and enthusiastic interest. Because when I spoke up about the issues that concerned me, I felt like I was actually being listened to, and that doesn’t happen often. Because I found allies who were on top of their shit within the first few meetings. Because that list of allies is growing. Because I need to challenge my own privileges. Because we are all learning. Because it is hard; if it were easy then we clearly wouldn’t be doing the work. Because I want to be around other feminists, to learn from them and challenge them, to build a more anti-oppressive movement.
I think this distinction between action and movement is incredibly important to make. SlutWalk was an action, WE are the movement. SWNYC’s march and rally is what we gathered around, but we all agree we are bigger than this one event, and we are about more than SlutWalk. So who are we? This is what we really need to concentrate on, community. We need to show up, not only when we are impacted, but when those who are not like us are affected by sexual violence; we were reminded of this by Audacia Ray, one of our speakers, on October 1st. Rape culture affects EVERYONE. No survivor or ally should be made to feel alienated based on another aspect of their identity when they come to the table to organize with us.
Here is where our work continues. These critiques are A GOOD THING. They are an opportunity for us to learn who we leave out and why. They are an opportunity for us to change. They are an opportunity for us to become better educated, to be more dedicated allies, to be fiercer warriors in the fight against rape culture. They are an opportunity to learn from and share resources with all the other communities and organizations in our city who are already doing this work.
When we received that open letter from Black Women’s Blueprint, we were reminded once again how important anti-oppression training is to movement building—although I have to say that particular organizers had been stressing that political discussions be a meaty part of our organizing meetings since the moment we formed as a group, and were often met with shut down comments like, “this isn’t as important as securing a permit.” These comments and this feeling became more and more dominant as we drew closer to our event. I know I am not the only one who is disappointed by this. While we all understand the intensity and importance of logistics in planning any event, what we absolutely must come to understand as well, and never forget, is that political discussions are also logistical. Our politics are the foundation upon which we build all other actions. THEY CANNOT COME SECOND. I think those of us who did not realize this at first have come to understand this now, but it does bother me that it took outside criticism to really make us wake up about this, when there are many people within our organizing body who have been voicing critiques of privilege within our group since the beginning of our organizing, whose voices have not been taken as seriously as BWBP or AFI3RM.
I think this sentiment is another way of putting product (the march and rally) over process (our organizing) which is the way patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism organize things in our society. We are taught in multiple ways that process and product are separate from each other, and that ultimately, product is more important. We need to flip the script--- no, we need to scramble it. Process IS product. The way we organize is the way we change the world. The way we organize is our product. Our goal is the end of rape culture and the formation of a new, body positive, sex positive, anti-oppressive culture. So we have to practice that within our organizing.
That being said, I want to put forth some critique of the critiques. In one Ms. Magazine article, we were accused of ignoring the particular ways in which rape culture impacts women of colour, specifically by not organizing around the DSK case. This was blatantly untrue. SWNYC organizers were present at protests in front of the courthouse in solidarity with Nafi Diallo and continue to talk about her case constantly; her case against DSK is an obvious example of the intersectional nature of rape culture, and how racism, misogyny, class exploitation, colonialism and capitalism intersect in the lives of women like Nafi Diallo, so how could we not organize around it? Fellow organizers, how can we not continue to organize around it? Nafi Diallo’s case came with a fair amount of media frenzy, but what about all the other women who are marginalized based on their race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, etc., who CONTINUE to be victimized by those in power. Who the legal system continues to fail, who the cops consistently disbelieve and violate? Just because we stood with Nafi Diallo, does not mean we have finished our work, or that we are an automatically anti-racist organizing body. Our action on this issue had a lot to do with how famous the case was--- what about all the cases we don’t hear about because we aren’t looking, or aren’t experiencing because we’re not necessarily in those communities? We can’t just show up once and say we’re allies. We have to show up consistently, and be vigilant.
Then there was the now infamous sign:
Yeah. INCREDIBLY offensive. And for those of you, my fellow organizers, who either don’t think this sign is a big deal, or intentionally hurtful (because I know you’re out there): THIS SIGN IS OFFENSIVE. And you know what else? It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t meant that way. Intentions do not do away with effect. If you kick me by accident, I will still have a bruise. I don’t really care what John and Yoko meant when they wrote it-- neither of them are African american, so neither of them can reclaim that word, say it, write it, utter it, as far as I’m concerned. The n word is not applicable to experiences that are not based on specific histories of racialization, slavery, displacement, rape, class exploitation, poverty and struggle. Woman is NOT the (I can’t even type it, it makes me want to throw up) of the world. Only people who share that history, that pain, and the continued racism, degradation and very real physical danger associated with that word can lay claim to it. For someone else to appropriate it is disgusting. I call upon those of my fellow organizers who have attempted to downplay the severity of this insult or explain it away to STOP DOING THAT. I do not share this history myself, but as an ally I will NOT stand by while YOU claim to be allies yet condone this quote. One oppression is not a metaphor for another. They are all very real and complicated and different and intersecting. This kind of offensive over-simplification is ridiculous.
Also: dear this sign, NOT ALL WOMEN ARE THE SAME, KAY? Women have multiple and intersecting identities--- this sign sets up a binary in which “woman” is a monochromatic identity (literally). This sign erases black women, and indeed all women of colour; it whitewashes the identities of diverse women into “woman”, which basically means cis-hetero-ablebodied-insert more privilege here-white woman, AND it assumes universal whiteness in the feminist movement.
And speaking of assuming universal whiteness in the feminist movement. HI. I AM A WOMAN OF COLOUR AND I AM AN ORGANIZER. AND I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE. Is SlutWalk, at its centre, a white supremacist action? You know what, at this point, I think so, for a variety of reasons. Fellow organizers, this is not me telling you that you are all racists, this is me telling you that your white privilege made this movement, it made western feminism, and it is the foundational work of women like bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Rosa Parks, Gayatri Spivak, Andrea Smith, and many, many named and nameless women who came before us that we women of colour and our allies, (and other women with marginalized and intersectional identities, and their allies) we continue to build upon in order to decolonize these spaces and movements and actions. THAT’S why I’m here. And by no means should every POC have to do this work. But I AM doing it, and so are the many WOC in our group, and to be told that we are not radical enough, not POC enough, that we are traitors, is incredibly unhelpful, and hurtful. I know that I personally have YEARS of unlearning to do, not only to be a better anti-racist, but a better ally to trans folks, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, basically everyone who is not me. But please, don’t pretend I don’t exist. I’m already invisible in so many places, and this is breaking my heart. I am not perfect, and I will own up to any and all my mistakes and move forward with humility and passion, but I am HERE. So many WOC are.
I want to address the issue of responsibility for this sign. There were over three thousand people present on Saturday. We had approximately one marshal per one hundred people on that march. There were forty organizers and about three thousand signs. And we organizers actually had multiple conversations about what we should do if we saw an offensive sign at the march/rally, and decided that IF you felt safe and secure in explaining to a marcher why their signage was offensive, that you would have every right to do so as an organizer. But frankly this sign existing is not the fault of SWNYC organizers, or even SlutWalk generally. It is the fault of a culture of racism and white-supremacy, patriarchy and misogyny. The woman who was carrying it is responsible for it, as is the historical and current state of this culture that allowed for it to happen. Did we hope that the march and rally would be a safer space for survivors and allies of all identities? Yes. Did this sign seriously compromise the safety of that space? YES. And I for one am so, so sorry for that. It was our responsibility to make the space as safe as possible, and we failed. We will do better next time. Which is why we are doing this work! So we can shift culture and make it so no one feels like they can carry a sign like that around. The fact that the woman carrying this sign (and apparently there was more than one) feels this way is fucking heartbreaking to me, but it should also galvanize us to keep doing work around the intersections of race and gender issues, around the intersections of all oppressions. When an organizer saw the sign, she asked for the woman who was holding it to put it away, and she did. That’s a positive thing. I know that it’s been noted that that particular organizer was a woman of colour, a black woman, and that there were a number folks who snapped pictures of this sign, or who probably saw it and said nothing. Again, that is why this work is SO important; hopefully the next time ANY of us something like this we will speak up if we feel safe to do so. Anti-racism work is not the sole responsibility of people of colour. I also know now that this young woman and her friends have been massively offensive on SWNYC FB comment threads, and are pulling that oh so familiar white guilt/racist bullshit. And that is NOT OKAY. Personally, I haven’t had the emotional strength to deal with FB, so I can’t say much more on that particular issue, other than to ask my fellow organizers to remove the photograph, as the psychic damage it is doing to black women, black people and their allies is deep and painful. And issue an apology for it having been up there so long. I know you were all trying to school this young woman on why what she had written was beyond offensive, but frankly the internet, much less FB, is the least productive space to do this. People are not likely to feel accountable unless we speak to them face to face.
Fellow organizers, the fact that this sign was out at our rally is a call to action. We have points of unity—we need to make it clear that we stand by them with our actions and our words, and our organizing. We need to make it clear that oppressive language and behaviour of ANY kind will not be tolerated at any of our future events. And we need to do the work to ensure we ourselves know what this means in our own organizing. This will not happen overnight, but I know we can commit to it.
A lot of critiques have put forth the idea that WOC who are engaged in this movement are the tools of tokenization, that we will be coddled and pushed to the front and used to show diversity within the movement like little dolls. The women of colour organizing in this coalition have DEFINITELY not been coddled. Trust me. I am one, and I certainly haven’t felt like this process has been warm and fuzzy. It’s been an incredibly difficult journey, and to be honest I almost dropped out at least once a week. This is a reflection of how I feel about feminism and social justice movements generally. At no point do I ever feel like I fit, like everything I am is being addressed and supported by the activism I do. I’m sure this is true for most people with multiple identities. We feel torn to pieces in our work; when we are in feminist spaces we encounter racism, cissexism, heterosexism, classism, ableism, etc.; when we organize around anti-racism, our gender, sexuality etc. is asked to be left at the door; when we organize around queer issues, inevitably issues of race, ability, class get sidelined. No space completes us, no community fully gets us. No matter where we go, there is work. But we stick it out in all those spaces, because we dream of a space and a community that ultimately will get us. And because we want to be the allies we wish we had.
Don’t you deny me my agency! If you are my sister in struggle, then don’t tell me I’m a puppet of a white-supremacist feminist movement. Don’t tell me I’m a fucking oreo—have I internalized a ton of oppressive bullshit? Yes. Am I committed to unlearning? Yes. I am coming to this work from a very complicated position of being exoticized, seen as a model minority, and I FUCKING HATE THIS SHIT, SO DON’T TELL ME I DON’T CARE.
Many of us feel silenced and rendered invisible, and that our hard work means nothing. By no means was it perfect, by no means was the organizing or the event safe or even that much safer, by no means was it as intersectional and anti-oppressive as it could have been, but I commend my fellow organizers who are of colour, who are queer, who are trans, who are working class. I commend my allies. We have worked damn hard and will continue to do so. Of course we are taking these critiques seriously, of course they hurt. We have to maintain a balance of challenging each other and supporting each other.
Every critique I have read has not engaged with the fact that many women of colour were organizers of SWNYC. Hardly a one of them has linked to the speeches given by our MC’s (three whom are women of colour, and all of whom are queer, and one of whom was me) or by our speakers, three of whom were trans women of colour, two of whom are black women. The fact that we had Lourdes Hunter and Ceyanne Doroshow speak at our rally, and that they are not being acknowledged as black women in any of these responses is deeply disturbing to me and speaks to the need for EVERYONE to deconstruct cis sexism. There were a lot of problematic things that happened that day, but there were a lot of beautiful things too. Revolution should be about support, celebration and self-care, as well as critique.
One thing that has been particularly frustrating to me about much of the critique of our particular march, is that folks don’t seem to realize that our organizing body is working extremely hard to address them and move forward. A lot of folks seem to think that we are not responding to critiques, or that we are responding too slowly. People: there are at LEAST forty people on our organizing team, which means we had thirty to forty people in every meeting, voicing their opinions and voting on things. There are over a hundred on our listserv, who also make their opinions known. We committed from the very beginning of our organizing to be a deomcratic non-hierarchal collective coalition, which means we are trying our best to make decisions together. Which means it takes us a while to create a statement, any statement on behalf of the group. So please, give us a minute. We are new, we are a young organization, many of us have never organized around diverse (or even any) feminist issues before. We don’t even have a name yet.
And I say this to my fellow organizers as well: we need to work on determining a more accountable organizational structure in which unspoken hierarchies form-- because even though we’ve said time and again we are a non-hierarchy, a collective, a power structure have arisen, and we need to dismantle that and put measures into place to check and prevent hierarchies from forming. We need to be honest about privilege, about oppressive behaviours and language in our organizing, to call each other out constructively and respond respectfully, to be real about burn-out and self care and boundaries.
Though it takes us time to respond, WE HAVE RESPONDED. Our MC’s addressed the letter from Black Women’s Blueprint, and AFI3RM in their speeches on Saturday. We are also meeting with Black Women’s Blueprint, to have a conversation in regards their letter to us. We hope to have conversations with all of the undersigned on that letter, as well as conversations with other groups who have brought up justified, intelligent critiques. I am confident these will be productive and educational partnerships. We have much to learn from each other, and much to give each other. I look forward to our future together, for I know it will be challenging and rewarding and revolutionary. BWBP has been great on that note—they made it clear from the outset of their letter that they commend our work and ended on the note of hopeful continued solidarity work.
Furthermore, we are having a feedback session on October 13th, at Walker Stage. This event is open to everyone, was talked about multiple times at our rally; we handed out flyers, and it was on the back of every single event program which we handed out at our info table. It’s on Facebook and our Tumblr. It’s not a secret. So anyone writing about us should be taking that event into account. I will say this over and over again—these conversations MUST be productive. We ALL need to show face in the revolution or it will collapse. This means that we will be frustrated, angry, offended, heartbroken, but the things we are up against: racism, patriarchy, colonialism, cissexism, heterosexism, ableism, xenophobia, etc., etc. ARE FUCKING HUGE AND MAJORLY INTERNALIZED. I am not saying this to excuse us from any mistakes we made/make as individuals or as a group. We need to do the work. And the work is intimidating. And going to take us time and energy. So we gotta commit.
In eleven weeks, forty people who have never met before put on a massive protest in New York City. We put on a STELLAR event. We managed to get over three thousand people to show up. Our MC’s were gorgeous and eloquent. Our speakers were brave and inspiring. We didn’t let the cops intimidate us, we held them accountable in our words and presence for the violence they do to us and our communities daily.
So let’s slow down, take a breath and make good on our words. THEN we can move forward.
