THE WHITE WOMAN’S SCAT: FIVE WAYS WHITE WOMEN CAUSE HARM

By Michelle Shireen Muri, Co-founder of CCF, host of The Ethical Rainmaker podcast, nonprofit consultant at Freedom Conspiracy; and Fleur Larsen, Social justice facilitator and white women whisperer

Originally posted on Community Centric Fundraising

Have you ever heard the way vocal musicians “scat” during a jazz tune—improvising way up high, way down low, with nonsensical syllables… dancing from note to note in an improvisational melody? Artists like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and contemporary vocalists like Erykah Badu have created beautiful music with scatting.

In our nonprofit spaces, “the white woman’s scat” happens in a different way. White women evade taking responsibility for harm caused, pointing to distractions and dissonant tunes, squeaking up high and down low—anything to get away from the dread, guilt, shame, and responsibility we might feel. We distance ourselves from our eye-roll-obvi, problematic white colleagues because we are “one of the good white people.” This white woman’s scat is gaslighting, causes pain and harm, erodes goodwill, and burns all of us out. So let’s talk about it! 

In our work as consultants, we’re often invited into fragile and precarious organizations that are vulnerable and dedicated to moving forward in their journeys towards community-centered ways of being. Our clients hire us to share our recommendations, and when we notice oppressive dynamics, we name it as part of our work: “So, as you’ve been promoting DEI practices, your two newest hires on the DEI team are both white women?” 

Thus begins the scatt-a-tatt-tatt… the dodgy explanations and diversions: “We have history with them!” A dissonance or urgency: “I just needed to make a quick decision!” An excuse: “I wasn’t in charge of that part!”

This also happens in small interpersonal scenarios, and may sound like: “But I was just trying to… Actually it’s not like that… Wait let me explain…but I’m a good person…” These are all distractions from taking responsibility.

Here is the thing. Scatting doesn’t do anything for the problem you are trying to solve, and it shuts down the real conversation. It focuses on defense of the individual or obfuscation of the mistake. It shows a fear of imperfection and is highly self-centered (or organization-centered).

Helping as the Sunny Side of Control

While many people of color join the nonprofit sector in order to care for one another and support our communities, white women are often motivated to work in nonprofits to be helpful to others. This way of thinking is problematic, as it embodies a “power over” vs. “power with” dynamic similar to sentiments like “empowering others… a voice for the voiceless,” etc. A “power over” mentality is rooted in saviorism and paternalism, and it is entrenched within our sector starting at its origin story (see part 1 and part 2 of The Racist Roots of Nonprofits and Philanthropy on The Ethical Rainmaker.) White women have internalized (and benefited from) those frameworks; we often think we are being helpful when we are instead causing great harm.

The martyrdom rampant within the sector is built on the fallacy that our worth is dependent on our sacrifice (a key Protestant work ethic the U.S.capitalism was founded on). This concept of helping is such a core piece of who we are that, for many white women, having it called into question causes an identity crisis. The archetype of martyr and the myth of the benevolent white woman is pervasive within the helping professions.

One survival strategy for white women in navigating oppressive systems is to be well-liked, nice (vs. kind), and polite instead of focusing on being grounded in our integrity in voice and action. Hence the “scatting” out of taking responsibility for harm because we are so focused on trying to be helpful (i.e., intent vs. impact).

This need has also laid the foundation for us to collude with whiteness and white supremacy culture. Often there is a desire to control things under the guise of “helping.” This actually centers ourselves in the helping, fixing, and saving, making our egos the main focus instead of those we seek to be in service to. Who are we if we are not being or seen as helpful? How might we show up differently if our worth is not tied to how helpful we are? 

Traditional “helping professions” are full of white women. In fact, in the U.S., 69.7%  of K-12 teachers are white, and 60% are women. That’s a lot of white women’s norms and values shaping and potentially harming today’s youth. In the nonprofit sector, 87% of nonprofit CEOs in the U.S. are white and all-white boards govern 16% of nonprofits that serve primarily people of color. The data is similar in the medical field. That the social sector is so lopsided demographically points to the way that racism and patriarchy have continuously created inequities and power imbalance for people of color.

It is also important to acknowledge that being perceived as white (yes, we’re also talking to our white-passing friends) and embodying white cultural characteristics historically and currently protects and coddles white-appearing women. And it still does, no matter how much we may have felt oppressed by patriarchy and sexism.

Is it hard to envision how this shows up? Here are a few of the common ways white women cause harm, particularly when they think they are helping…

Five Ways White Women Cause Harm:

1. Gaslighting: Undermining or denying another’s experience in order to control the narrative, cause self-doubt and/or invalidate someone’s experience.
   Examples: Discounting achievements, sugarcoating bad situations, withholding information, denying abuse, and minimizing feelings (your own or others).
   Damage: Erosion of relationship, burnout, insecurity, anger, stress, and loss of trust.
2. Gossip and triangulation: Indirect communication, often behind someone’s back, especially to push an agenda or strategically discredit someone. Pitting two people against each other to keep attention away from an issue.
   Examples: Creating conflict to maintain confusion or control, bringing an outside person into a conflict without addressing the person they have an issue with directly. Venting or gossiping in a way that is not healthy or productive and instead further pits people against one another. It’s gossip when the information is like currency and only accessible to a few..
   Damage: Loss of trust, resentment, loss of credibility, loss of autonomy and respect from others, and burnout.
3. “Weaponized niceness” and people-pleasing: Using friendliness to shut down conversation or to avoid receiving feedback. Faking concern for others with platitudes and presumed closeness. Performative allyship to maintain the illusion of being “one of the good ones.” Contradicting the values you profess in order to gain favor.
   Example: Forgiving each other’s behavior without conversing with the offended party (e.g., a white woman saying, “it’s okay, we know you didn’t mean anything by it” to another white colleague.) Check out this article and this work on Healthy Boundaries for Kind People)
   Damage: Loss of trust, resentment, anger, inauthentic relationships, self-doubt, burnout, and stress.
4. Perfectionism: Demanding an extremely high or flawless level of performance in excess of what is actually required. It can be of oneself but often applies to others. Using the pretense of care for the mission or donors for perfectionism anchored in your way being the best or right way.
   Example: Needing to know or have planned every detail before taking action, not wanting to move forward in a decision or project because it could be “better.” Not speaking up because you aren’t sure what to say.
   Damage: Slows our growth and progress, keeps us from self-expression, avoids hard conversations, wastes valuable time, stress, burnout, and lack of satisfaction or completion. See NPR LifeKit article on Perfectionism for more.
5. Gatekeeping: Using your power and position to control access and criteria for access to resources, often under the pretense of business or urgency.
   Examples:  Not inviting every stakeholder to a meeting because you want to “protect their time,” but you actually gain control of the agenda. Often used to take autonomy and opportunity away from others.
   Damage: Stifles diversity of thought and experience, denial of self-expression, loss of trust, and opportunity costs.

You may feel the urge to ask, “But are there exceptions?” Or to say, “I do that, but you don’t understand how complicated my situation is…”

Is that a scat we hear? The most important piece of this article and this journey in unlearning white cultural norms is to identify how and where this is happening for you as a person, and work to address it. This isn’t easy work.

When we receive feedback on how we’ve been complicit in upholding harm, we may become defensive, often vacillating between numbness and hyperdrive. Think of how organizations responded to the lynching of George Floyd; some organizations froze, not taking action (numbness), while others tried to take every action and then burned out (hyperdrive). This is not how we affect change.

The invitation here is for white women and organizations to look at our habits and engagement in this system. What is your version of this playing out? It takes a level of honesty to self-reflect and admit we have perpetrated harm.

So What Can You Do?

Instead of singing high and low, searching for an excuse “but…but…but…” breathe deeply and stop.
Here are some ways you can take ownership of the harm you cause (it’s useful to say those literal words):

Healing as a form of accountability: Commit to identifying your habits and biases, and work to unlearn them. Healing can take many forms, from therapy, peace circles, somatics, and more. The important piece is to hold it in the context of power and privilege. Take a look at these opportunities: Decolonizing Wealth and Somatic Abolitionism.

Own your learning: Take ownership of your own learning, and seek spaces that support this journey. For example, Race-based caucusing is one space for white folks to learn and unlearn without negatively impacting their colleagues of color. People of color also need spaces to unpack these dynamics and habits.

Reach out to other white women: First for relationship building, and then to center racial equity as a strategic action for liberation. Yes, even white folks who are problematic! Distancing ourselves from problematic white people is not useful and burdens people of color. Claim all white women as part of your group and take responsibility for the collective impact.

Study with discernment the White Supremacy Culture Characteristics and this reflection piece on how to identify where they operate in your own life and work. This recent book ‘White Women Everything You Already Knew About Your Racism and How to Do Better by Rao and Jackon is on point.

Center relationships: We can get caught up in the doing and skip over the piece about connection to others that is central to dismantling oppression. This includes making amends after mistakes. Be accountable for your impact by not sidestepping (or scatting).

Take Bigger risks: Chances are, white women can take bigger risks with our gatekeeping and positionality than we feel like we can. How bold can you be? Where is the edge of your learning and action? Resist playing small in your anti-racism.

Don’t Go It Alone

When we join groups and choose places to actively engage, instead of punishing ourselves with the intention of being a “good white ally,” we find ways to show up as co-conspirators in the struggle for justice.

Oppression disconnects us from ourselves and others. The antidote? Connection. When we learn hard truths about ourselves, the tendency might be to step away and be alone, wanting to punish ourselves thinking, “I’ll go away and fix myself and come back and be better.” But we flail in isolation. Individualism and perfectionism creep in, and we don’t make much headway, or worse, we crumple in shame.

So what if, instead, we frame this opportunity as one where we get to heal from the oppressor training of whiteness? What if we accepted that we can be both racially biased and be good people? What if we left scatting behind and resisted our compulsion to create babbling distractions that dance around the issue? This is an opportunity for unlearning and healing from the indoctrination of whiteness and to do it together.

When we join groups and choose places to actively engage, instead of punishing ourselves with the intention of being a “good white ally,” we find ways to show up as co-conspirators in the struggle for justice. Participating in accountable communities brings us self-reflection, greater self-awareness, and self-regulation. So even when we are flailing, we can do so in community to contradict our individualism, resist our urge to scat, and actively dismantle the belief that we have to figure it out alone. 

Friends and collaborators, Fleur Larsen and Michelle Shireen Muri have just co-authored their first article and facilitate cohort intensives for white women in nonprofits who are committed to anti-racism and want to use their gatekeeping status to make big impacts within their organization and the sector overall.