“I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describes structures of privilege based on race and gender.And therefore women of colour and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist because we do not stand to benefit from such a system.”
This is what Bahar Mustafa, a students' union diversity officer in the UK, said this week. She had organised an event on Facebook for black and minority ethnic (BME) students, but posted a comment saying.
“Also, if you've been invited and you're a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME just cos I invited a bunch of people and hope you will be responsible enough to respect this is a BME Women and non-binary event only.”
She was accused of being racist and sexist, and responding with the comment at the top of this post.
I have a few questions about this.
(a) Who decided that racism “describes structures of privileges”? And why are they more of an authority on the subject than anyone else?
(b) What's wrong with the traditional understanding of racism, which is treating people in a different (usually negative) way because of their skin-colour or background?