8stitches 9lives's Reviews > White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

White Tears/Brown Scars is an explosive book of history and cultural criticism that argues that white feminism, from Australia to Zimbabwe to the United States, has been a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against black and indigenous women, and women of colour. Taking us from the slave era, when white women fought in court to keep “ownership” of their slaves, through the centuries of colonialism, when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics, to the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars tells a charged story of white women’s active participation in campaigns of oppression. It offers a long-overdue validation of the experiences of women of colour. Using examples of impressive breadth and depth, Hamad’s extensive research informs the narrative superbly.

Discussing subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and 19th-century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad undertakes a new investigation of gender and race. She shows how the division between innocent white women and racialised, sexualised women of colour was created, and why this division is crucial to confront. Along the way, there are revelatory responses to questions like: Why are white men not troubled by sexual assault on women? (See Christine Blasey Ford.) With rigour and precision, Hamad builds a powerful argument about the legacy of white superiority that we are socialised within, a reality that we must apprehend in order to fight.

Hamad has written a fascinating, searingly honest and vitally important book inspired by her 2018 Guardian article "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour” which became a global flashpoint for discussions of white feminism and racism. It is a timely, thought-provoking and exhaustive look at how White women perpetuate White supremacy at the expense of women of colour. Utilising personal anecdotes and geopolitical histories, Hamad’s accessible, engaging, yet authoritative, prose lures you in and forces you to confront some genuinely ugly truths. This is an eye-opening must-read for anyone who claims to be an intersectional feminist and those intent on dismantling White supremacy. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Trapeze for an ARC.