Theresa Basile

Photo by Kevin Banatte

There’s something very specific about being a white woman in the United States. We have a privileged status because of our skin color, but experience disadvantages due to our gender. That intersection of whiteness and womanhood makes us convenient objects for the white supremacist movement, as those deplorable leaders will uphold the image of the pure white woman as victims of men of color who want to “prey” upon us, while also treating us as vessels to reproduce and maintain the white race.

Take the tragic death of Heather Heyer, a white anti-racist activist who died when a Nazi plowed into her with his car. The editor of The Daily Stormer called her a “fat, childless slut” who had failed to do her only duty in life, which was to have white babies.

It would be ignorant, however, to pretend that white supremacy is only upheld by white men, and white women are simply tools in their master plan, having no agency of their own. In the 1920s, white women were active participants in the Ku Klux Klan and in some ways more successful than their male counterparts (yay feminism?) Almost 100 years later, white women continue to participate in white supremacy: women like Lana Lokteff (who resembles an evil Kristen Bell) run their own “alt-right” media companies and spread propaganda maintaining the superiority of the white race.

And 53% of white women who voted in the 2016 election voted for Donald Trump.

Like many Americans, I was almost paralyzed with shock and dismay on November 9, 2016. The previous day had started on a note of energy and celebration and quickly devolved into despair and fear. I couldn’t believe that this was my country, and I especially couldn’t believe that a slim majority of white women voters would choose a misogynist sexual assaulter over an immensely qualified woman.

I was shocked, but people of color were not. My Twitter feed was filled with people of color expressing their dismay but complete lack of surprise that white women would betray their gender. One that struck me in particular: “Black women have been trying to tell us for YEARS that white women will choose their race over their gender, every time. And here we are.”

Here we are, indeed.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I first started to realize that many people of color don’t see white women as any more trustworthy than white men. I naively, and selfishly, thought that the systemic sexism we faced put us closer to our friends of color than white men. I wasn’t ignorant of racism among white women, but like the #notallmen crowd, believed deep down that the racist white women were the outliers.

Perhaps they are. Perhaps most white individually are not personally, hatefully racist. But we are ALL complicit in systemic racism and white supremacy, even if we find racism and white supremacy repugnant.

Realizing that white women en masse are no better than white men on the subject of race was an uncomfortable epiphany.

I have some advice for other white women experiencing a similar epiphany: don’t ignore that discomfort.

Sit with it. Ruminate on it. Think about how you can do better. Resist the temptation to say #notallwhitewomen; reflect on how similar that is to #notallmen and how much we dislike it when men try to disown their complicity in inaction.

Listen to black people. Listen to black women in particular when they talk about their complicated feelings about the feminist movement.

Quash the impulse to make your discomfort all about you and your white guilt. Take that discomfort and turn it into righteous anger to fight against racial injustice.

It’s not easy to come to terms with your culpability in an oppressive system when you’ve tried to be a good person in your life. But as Albus Dumbledore said, we all have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy.

Photo by Chuck Zlotnick – © 2017 CTMG, Inc.

Yesterday, I saw Spider-Man Homecoming during a matinee at the Alamo Drafthouse. My boyfriend and I laughed and applauded for almost two hours straight through mouthfuls of truffle butter Parmesan popcorn, enjoying, finally, a Spider-man movie that truly embraced the humor in Peter Parker and his Spidey alter-ego.

Today, I looked at reviews of the film and one in particular caught my eye – The Mary Sue’s Spider-Man Homecoming and the Bechdel Test. On The Mary Sue’s Facebook page, the line above the link reads, “The new Spider-Man has strong female characters, but…” and most of the article points out how none of the women in the film have scenes with each other.

They’re not wrong with that observation, but I’m still distracted by that line on the Facebook page. The new movie has strong female characters? Really?

There are three women in the film who are important in some way to Peter Parker – his aunt May and two of his classmates and co-members of the academic decathlon team, one of whom he has a crush on. (I’m avoiding using their names for a reason.) All three of them are well-played by the respective actresses (Marisa Tomei, Laura Harrier, and Zendaya). They all have distinct personalities. Zendaya in particular has some of the funniest laugh lines of the script in the most unexpected moments, and it was refreshing to see an Aunt May with a playful sense of humor who does more than grieve for her husband and worry over Peter.

But does that make them strong?

After watching and enjoying almost every moment of both Guardians of the Galaxy movies but being very disappointed that Gamora is the only team member who never gets to be funny, the wit and energy that came from Aunt May and Peter’s classmates was a delightful change of pace.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that Spider-Man Homecoming is a male-driven story, and all of the interesting backstories and clearest character motivations are reserved for the male characters. Peter Parker wants to help people while also having adventures and find meaning in his life. The Vulture wants to provide for his family and will do anything to reach that goal, including criminal activities. Tony Stark wants to mentor Peter and mold him into a better superhero than Iron Man is. And Ned wants to be “the guy in the chair” and live vicariously through his super cool friend.

What do the women want? Well…I guess his classmates want to do well in the academic decathlon. And have fun in high school. And Aunt May wants Peter to be safe. Oh, and Zendaya wants to fit in some “light protesting” before the decathlon begins.

Their motivations, if they’re clear at all, aren’t related to the story of the film. They take no part in the main action.

I don’t even mean this as a criticism; I’m just stating it as fact. There are a lot of things to like about the women in this movie. As I said, they’re given witty dialogue, and they’re victimized a lot less than most women in superhero movies that aren’t Wonder Women. I suspect that Aunt May and one of the other classmates will be fleshed out in the second movie in this franchise, so I’m not annoyed that they didn’t have much to do in the first installment. I also loved that both of Peter’s classmates are women of color – in fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a diverse supporting cast in a superhero movie, and I was thrilled that a movie set in New York City actually looks like the population of New York City.

Still. Let’s not go calling female characters “strong” just because they’re better than the average sexy window dressing we have to settle for in most action movies. The women in Spider-Man Homecoming have potential for more growth in the sequel, and I’m optimistic for that possibility. As of now, the girls are all right.

I saw Wonder Woman on opening night in New York. We went with a large group of friends, our seats scattered through the sold-out theater. The excitement in the room was palpable, with women, men, and children eager to see the most famous female superhero of all time finally brought to the big screen.

I felt almost a collective moment of breath-holding in the midst of all this excitement. We knew the reviews were positive and the word of mouth was strong, but we were still anxious. We didn’t just want the movie to be good. We needed it to be good.

Our prayers were answered within the first few minutes of the movie. Seeing little Diana in all of her fierce, determined glory in the paradise of Themiscyra surrounded by powerful women was the first of many incredible scenes that stuck with me long after the film ended. Watching her come into her own as a hero in No Man’s Land, her powerful bonds with her aunt and mother, her sweet friendship and romance with Steve Trevor, and her love of ice cream was a delight, an affirmation, and an inspiration. And Gal Gadot gave an even better performance than Stewie Griffin as Darth Vader.

Imagine my surprise (and by “surprise,” I mean “not actual surprise at all, because this is the world we live in”) when CNN published an opinion piece with the actual headline “Wonder Woman: Feminist Icon or Bodacious Fantasy Figure?”

But this pseudo-news site isn’t the only location where people have questioned Wonder Woman’s feminist credentials because of her costume. I’ve seen comments from other men and a few women who want to deduct feminist points from the film because Diana wears a costume where we can see a fair amount of her body.

The discussion of objectification indicates to me that we are so used to being inundated with images of female body being objectified that we’re trained to see ANY display of the female body AS objectification.

This is the same argument we see from people appalled and shocked by public breastfeeding, after all. They find something obscene about a breast being exposed while a baby’s having their lunch.

Wonder Woman’s outfit shows skin. All the Amazon warrior outfits show skin. They also give the women a lot of mobility while fighting. The first few more modest outfits Etta Candy gives Diana to assimilate into society do NOT give her mobility – she rips the skirt when doing a kick.

It’s notable that Diana doesn’t think twice about walking around in her Amazon warrior garb because objectification of female bodies doesn’t exist in her culture. Steve Trevor has to tell her to cover up because he knows others will objectify her. And in fact, every man she comes across does wants to reduce her to a pretty face no matter HOW modestly she is dressed – before she quickly puts them in their place by displaying her physical, mental, or linguistic prowess.

The women show skin, but the camera doesn’t linger on their bodies except to show their power and skill in fighting – no gratuitous T and A shots. The closest we get to an objectifying a body in a sexual way is when Steve Trevor takes a bath.

If we see Diana fighting enemies, saving innocents, and becoming Wonder Woman in the thrilling No Man’s Land scene and the first thing we think is the fact that she’s showing a fair amount of skin, that says more about us and our ingrained sexism than it does about the film.

On Saturday, I went to the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. I took a car with my mom, one of my aunts, one of my cousins, and one of my best friends, and my cousin drove us for about three hours until we reached the New Carrollton train station.

We took a bathroom break at a rest top along the way, noticing as we walked in that the parking lot was filled with buses. The plan was to go in, use the restroom, grab coffees and a hot breakfast sandwich, and head back out.

The bathroom break was the only part of the plan that took place. Lines to both restrooms were so long, filled with mostly women and some men wearing pink hats. The lines to the breakfast places were even longer, to the point where we nixed the idea of hot food altogether and ate granola bars in the car.

As it turned out, it wasn’t the only place where we would run into long lines.

We got to the New Carrollton station and waited in line for an hour and a half just to purchase train tickets. Every few minutes, another bus or car pulled up with another group of people, decked out in pink hats or other radical outfits, carrying signs, and trying to find where the line to buy tickets began.

After ninety minutes, we made it to the platform and one of the transit workers welcomed our presence and used a megaphone to congratulate us on attending the Women’s March in DC. We cheered back and we felt a swell of collective hope that the people working that day were supporting us.

And the feeling of collective good will continued throughout the day with an assortment of little moments, little sights and sounds that added up to the wonderful spirit:

– In the train station, a few women made an attempt to run up the down escalator to get to the top faster (since the stairs were packed to the gills). Watching these women valiantly struggle to get to the top despite the odds was incredible, since every one of them did eventually make it, and other women and men cheered them on the entire way. A fitting visual metaphor for the seemingly insurmountable obstacles we have to face, and how wonderful it feels when we finally succeed.

– A man wearing a Syrian flag as a cape and holding up this sign:

A woman in the crowd shouted, “Welcome, Syria!” and everyone cheered for the man and clapped for him. He nodded his head and smiled in thanks. Several people said a second time, “You are welcome here!”

– I wore a sign that read “Dumbledore’s Army: Resistance. Education. Peace. Hope. And Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans,” with a small #imstillwithher scrawled in the corner. A little girl told me my sign was her favorite and we took a picture together.

– We waited in even more lines for the bathroom when we finally emerged from the train station. A security guard held the men’s room open and allowed a woman to use it every few minutes once stalls were available. Someone thanked him for doing it, and he said that he had to do the same thing the day before for the inauguration. My mom asked, “What are the crowds like today compared to yesterday?” He said, “Oh, today has so many more people. It’s not even close.”

– During the march itself, people came up with different chants and calls and responses. “Black Lives Matter” was one of them, and no one tried to interrupt with an “All Lives Matter.” The chant that had the longest staying power was “Tell me what democracy looks like!”/”THIS is what democracy looks like!”

The person leading that chant in our part of the crowd was a short-haired, thin, young white woman with a surprisingly powerful voice, and she kept the chant going even as her voice became hoarser and hoarser. When it became harder to hear her, a tall man with a loud, booming voice, took over the lead for the chant.

It’s rare that a man taking over for a woman is a sign of allyship, but it was in this case, and it was beautiful. He was giving her a break and carrying on the message so she could rest her vocal chords.

– At one point, a small group of us started singing at the top of our lungs, “We’re not gonna take it! NO, we’re not gonna take it anymore!”

– Near the White House lawn, a small parade was led by little girl on her father’s shoulders. She couldn’t have been more than eight, and she was holding and banging a small drum and chanting at the top of her tiny lungs, “MY BODY, MY CHOICE!” and the crowd shouted back, “HER BODY, HER CHOICE!”

– The woman who dressed as the “Shame!” nun from Game of Thrones ringing her bell, and the guy in a Trump mask walking in front of her on his own walk of humiliation…bless you both.

I’ll never forget the size of the crowds that day, the sight of the streets, White House lawn, the Washington Monument filled with people. But the small moments, the small actions of allyship and bravery from individuals, will stay with me even more.

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

[This post discusses events of season 4 of Orange in the New Black in detail.]

The women of Litchfield take a stand. (Photo courtesy of Netflix.)

I was late to this season of Orange is the New Black, but once I had the time to concentrate, I devoured the episodes in less than a week. Like the rest of the viewing audience, I was sickened and deeply saddened by the death of Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), a beloved character (and my personal favorite on the show). Unlike some viewers, I was deeply conflicted about how I felt about the storytelling choices that lead to Poussey’s death and the storytelling choices that followed her death.

Some critics thought this season was by far the best one of the show. Others described it as black suffering trauma porn. A good piece by Ashley Ray-Harris, “Orange is the New Black Fails to Make a Black Life Matter” and the subsequent discussions in the comments section capture this debate nicely. (I recommend reading the comments section for thoughtful analysis and discussion. No, really.)

Reading different analyses of the season left me with many questions about the storytelling choices. Was the choice to present Bayley sympathetically an indictment of systemic racism and racist institutions, or was it a tone-deaf cop-out? Did Bayley’s flashbacks actually make him sympathetic, or did they portray him as a privileged mediocre white dude who coasted through life? Did the focus on her friends’ grief and anger show respect to the grief and anger felt by black people when a black person is murdered, or was that ruined with cheap comic scenes of Flaca/Maritza and Leanne/Angie goofing off and not taking the death seriously? Was the buildup to Poussey’s death after a season of happiness appropriately tragic, or was it just a little too pat, like she and Brook Soso were two days away from retirement and just bought a boat called the Live 4-Ever?

(Next season: Taystee and Soso team up to get…Mendoza!)

I could certainly have done without Flaca and Maritza’s stage-crying (even though I usually enjoy their scenes together), but the other questions weren’t as easy to answer, and they all lead to one larger, overarching question: did the show do justice to the issues important to Black Lives Matter while evoked real-life incidents of police killings of black people?

There’s no question that the writers intentionally referenced real-life incidents in their story. Poussey’s life was choked out of her and she couldn’t breathe, like Eric Garner, and her body was left on the ground for hours, like Michael Brown.

However, the events leading up to Poussey’s death were very different than the events preceding the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, or many other deaths of black people at the hands of the police.

While only racists and/or knee-jerking defenders of police could attempt to justify the actions of, say, Timothy Loehmann (the killer of Tamir Rice), even the most passionate Black Lives Matter supporters who watched the end of episode 12 would have to admit that Bayley killing Poussey was an accident. He only went to restrain Suzanne because Piscatella ordered him to (he was just following orders). He couldn’t restrain Suzanne without harming her and making the situation worse (he wasn’t properly trained). He held down Poussey when she grabbed him from behind while trying to help Suzanne (he couldn’t see who was attacking him). He held her to the ground and she slowly suffocated in the din of the chaos around him (it was a chaotic situation and everyone was confused and emotional).

In short, the show went out of its way to absolve Bayley of Poussey’s death even before he killed her.

The choice to make Bayley sympathetic isn’t necessarily a problem in of itself. Had Poussey’s killer been one of the meaner or more violent COs, it would be too easy for white viewers to disassociate themselves from that character. An overtly sadistic villain would be easier to tolerate than an entire dehumanizing system. In fact, in one of the smarter moves of the show, the company that owns the prison tries to make Bayley a one-dimensional villain in the media to make the death of a prisoner easier to swallow. An easy problem with an easy solution – get rid of that one violent guard and the violence problem is resolved!

The problem is that, while the show is clear on its position on violence, it is less clear on its position on systemic racist violence.

There’s no question that some of the other COs are completely terrible people. Humphrey is a sadist and Piscatella lacks empathy. They, more than Bayley, are at fault for Poussey’s death. If Humphrey had not terrorized Suzanne, Suzanne would not have had an episode, and if she didn’t have an episode, Piscatella wouldn’t have ordered Bayley to restrain “that animal.”

However, while they are terrible people, they are not necessarily racist terrible people.

Yes, Piscatella does give Maria Ruiz (a Dominican woman) an extra 3-5 years on her sentence, and Humphrey does hold a gun to Maritza (a Mexican woman) and forces her to eat a newborn mouse. But Piscatella also enjoys tormenting Red (a white Russian woman) and depriving her of sleep, and Humphrey enjoys pitting Sankey (a white woman) and Suzanne (a black woman) against each other in a fight. There’s little sense that either of them – or, in fact, any of the new COs – target women of color specifically. They’re mean, cruel, violent fucks, but they’re egalitarian, cruel, violent fucks. If Sankey yelled that “white lives matter,” Piscatella would cut her off to say, “Actually, NONE of your lives matter, criminals.”

The only indication that Piscatella is racist is his use of the term “animal” to describe an upset Suzanne, but given that the theme song of the show, “You’ve Got Time,” indirectly describes all of the prisoners as “animals,” it’s not clear that he used the term because she’s a black woman. He seems to share equal contempt for all of the prisoners (with the possible exception of Lolly, given that she was clearly delusional with a more obvious mental illness than even Suzanne. If he showed zero empathy to other prisoners, he showed maybe half a teaspoon of empathy for her.)

We did see plenty of overt racist comments come from other characters this season, but those characters were all other prisoners brought together by Piper “Oops I Created a Hate Group” Chapman, and none of them are meant to be taken seriously. They’re used as dark comic relief…until the violence from the COs becomes too much for them and they approach Taystee and Maria to join forces against a common enemy.

This brief detente is like a bizarre twist on the arguments you hear from white liberals when they ignore contributions from POC progressives – “Okay, we know racial relations and racism is a problem, but let’s put that aside and focus on the real issues here like corporate greed.”

Because the corporation of MCC, above all else, is portrayed as the real villain of the season. They’re the ones who wanted to hire untrained guards and cut corners. They’re the ones who immediately went to villainize Poussey and make a black woman responsible for her own death – but once they saw that the task was impossible due to her low-level crime, pretty face and smile, and respected military family, they changed course and decided to make Bayley the villain instead. They traded her photoshopped “thuggish” picture with his Halloween costume as Rambo.

In the eyes of MCC, a white straight man and a black lesbian woman were equally dispensable, both props in their corporate narrative.

But straight white men and black lesbian women are not viewed equally in our society. We cannot write off all of the ills in our society as the result of corporate greed. Male privilege, white privilege, and straight privilege are all challenged, but they still exist.

To make Bayley and Poussey equal victims of a colorblind classist system is egregious, but to make them equal victims in a storyline that obviously and explicitly refers to real-life events of police violence against black people is a different level of tone-deaf.

Ironically, the writers did seem aware of the differences in Bayley and Poussey’s privilege in the flashbacks that preceded Poussey’s death. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Bayley is shown getting a slap on the wrist for a low-level crime while Poussey gets 6 years in federal prison for a similar offense. But the events preceding and following her death indicate a different agenda – to place blame on systemic, corporate (but not necessarily race-based!) greed and show sensitivity to the feelings of white liberal viewers.

So – does Orange is the New Black do justice to Black Lives Matter?

In my estimation as an anti-racist white woman…Yes. And No.

I want to believe that the writers had a specifically anti-racist agenda, and I think they tried to implement it. I look at Caputo’s last action of the season, to reject the script MCC gave him and defend Bayley, and I believe that we’re meant to side with Taystee and the other inmates in anger and betrayal. I believe that, while Caputo had the best of intentions, he made the situation worse by erasing Poussey in his speech altogether, and we’re meant to empathize with but ultimately condemn this action.

But this is also a show that, a few episodes prior, had Linda From Purchasing hold a gun to Crystal Burset when she (Crystal) was defending her transgender wife. A white woman held a gun to a black woman’s face, and Caputo was turned on by this, and the scene was played for laughs.

This leads me to think that the writers believe that Black Lives Matter. They believe that  racism is bad…unless it can be played for comedy, and corporate greed is worse anyway.

Earlier today, the Huffington Post published a piece by Melody Moezzi called “Ten Things White People Need to Quit Saying.” Succinct and to the point, the article lists ten oft-repeated phrases by well-meaning (or at least not ill-intentioned) white people who don’t mean to be racist.

My friend posted this article on his timeline a few hours ago. As I read through the list, I cringed a few times because I have definitely participated in some of the behavior that Moezzi mentions – never with the intention of being racist or harmful, but out of ignorance and/or boneheadedness.

Let’s go through them one by one.

1. “Do not use the word ‘exotic’ to refer to humans who don’t look like you. We are not fruit, and it is not a compliment.”

I don’t think I’ve ever used this word to describe a person, but I did read it or hear it used in this context without seeing it as a problem. The first time I really thought about the meaning behind the word “exotic” was college, where one of my roommates related an anecdote about herself or someone she knew being described as “exotic.” She wasn’t very happy with the usage.

That’s when it first occurred to me that a word typically used to describe wild plants or animals could maybe be a bit insulting to people who have often been treated as less than human by people in power.

I did include “exotic” in my novel Fanged, where the protagonist describes one of his friends as “exotic-looking” and mentions that the friend is offended by that word “for some reason.” I intended for that passage to show the protagonist’s ignorance. Whether I succeeded in that goal or not is up to the reader to decide.

2. Do not use the word “ethnic” as though it were a distinct race or nationality.

I’m guilty of this one much more recently, probably a little over a year ago. I mentioned to someone that I wanted to get a variety of “ethnic” actors when we cast future projects for Second Star NYC.

What I really meant to say was that we wanted diverse casting. The intention was good, but I fumbled on the execution. That’s a lesson in connotation vs. denotation.

3. “Do not ask people where they’re from more than once.”

I learned this lesson back in 2008 when I started teaching in a middle school in Canarsie. The sixth grade social studies teacher on my floor had a strong accent that sounded Caribbean, but I couldn’t quite place it. During one conversation, I asked her, “Where are you from?” She curtly responded, “Brooklyn.”

That one word was all it took for me to understand exactly what was wrong with that question, and I never asked it again. Thankfully, she didn’t hold my mistake against me.

4. Avoid statements like, “Wouldn’t it be great to live during [insert any era during which the person you’re talking to couldn’t vote or own property]?”

I don’t understand how any woman asks this question. Almost any era where people of color weren’t allowed to vote or own property were the same eras where white women also had considerably fewer privileges than they do today.

You admire early 1960s fashion? Then go to a vintage store. We don’t need to travel back to that time. Unless it’s to stop the JFK assassination. (Why JFK in particular? Why isn’t 4/4/68 a Hulu series? I need to look into this.)

5. Resist the urge to ever say, “I have a lot of [fill in the blank with the racial, religious or ethnic group with which you are least familiar] friends.”

I’ve never used the “I have a lot of [fill in the blank] friends” as an excuse for a racist joke or express a racist attitude. 

But I have done the “ironic racist” bit, which is just as bad (or a little worse, or not quite as bad, depending on your point of view). I’d say a racist joke and then say, “I’m doing it ironically. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t really mean it. I’m making fun of the stereotype!”

I didn’t do that all the time, and I haven’t done that for maybe ten years, but I did it enough to make me cringe at that past behavior.

6. Remember that reverse racism isn’t a thing. Racism is about the abuse of power and privilege.

One day during my senior year of high school, I passed two girls of color in the hallway on the way to the bathroom. As soon as I was out of their line of vision, one of them exclaimed, “DAMN, that girl could glow in the dark, she’s so white!” The other girl said, “She can hear you!”

I related this anecdote every chance I could. Some people were appalled at the “racism” of these girls, making fun of me because I was white. Others didn’t bring race into it, but commented that it wasn’t very nice of them.

Me? I cracked up laughing.

See, I am very white. I’m not just culturally white. I am almost translucent.

I don’t always make this face, though.

A lot of people teased me for being very pale. Most of the teasing came from boys, most of whom were also white. They called me Casper, they called me Snow White, they called me Flan (one of the more creative ones, I admit). They teased me about anything and everything. My whiteness was just one easy target to attack.

I didn’t conflate those girls’ reactions with the boys’ teasing. The first girl was just so shocked at my whiteness that she made a loud exclamation about it, and the other girl was appalled that I might have heard it, just struck me as so funny.

It never occurred to me to consider their behavior racist. How could they be racist against me if I’m white?

7. Unless you are one of “those people” making fun of other people calling you “those people,” then never say “those people.”

This reminds me of an episode of Community when Britta uses the “you people” mock outrage on Shirley, then gleefully says that she’s so glad she got to use the “you people” line, and Shirley is not impressed.

I have no deeper commentary on that. I miss Community.

8. Think before asking people to explain an entire race, religion, civilization or geographic region to you simply because they happen to identify with that background.

This is something that I think most of us have trouble navigating. We meet someone new from a different background. We don’t want to define this new person by his or her background, but our backgrounds have a profound influence on who we are, and what better way is there to get to know someone than by asking questions and showing interest?

If you can navigate this balance, please let me know.

9. Remember, we are not all from any one place. Pretending we are just makes you look delusional.

I totally relate to this! People should STOP asking me if I know this person they know from New Jersey because I used to live in New Jersey! It’s exactly the same as assuming all black people are from the same country!
(Note: this is absolutely nothing like assuming all black people are from the same country.)

10. Unless you have achromatopsia, never say “I don’t see color.”

But what if I’m a dog, huh? WHAT IF I’M A DOG?

In conclusion (or, why did you write this?)

I’m a white person who considers herself anti-racist, but that doesn’t mean I never make mistakes, and my past mistakes can’t all be chalked up to childhood or even adolescent ignorance.

I hope to lead by example to the other not-ill-intentioned white people who think they’ve never done anything racist.

Odds are, you have. Odds are, you probably will again. And if you care about being anti-racist, you should reflect on those mistakes and think about how you can do better next time.

Woof.

I’m a feminist and I want to lose weight.

I wrote about this subject one month ago and received positive responses from friends and readers. A few people offered some good advice on how to approach weight loss. They told me that diets don’t work and looking at making a lifestyle change is the right way to go. They told me that it’s not anti-feminist to want to take care of my body and eat healthy food. They told me that they related to my story and appreciated my honesty, and that there are ways to adopt a healthier lifestyle and still treat myself to Shake Shack once a month.

I appreciated the comments, I responded to some of them, and I was grateful for the positive reactions, but I took every compliment with a grain of salt because none of them addressed a key part of my story.

Not that I blame anyone for that. They didn’t address a key part of my story because I didn’t talk about it in my original post.

I didn’t talk about my depression.

I was diagnosed with clinical depression in September 2014 after a mental and emotional breakdown. Since then, I have been in therapy and on medication to treat it. Since then, I have had many positive breakthroughs and made serious headway into becoming a happier, better me.

The biggest breakthrough I made was understanding that depression did not define me as a human being. It’s a part of me, and it’s something I will have to deal with for the rest of my life, but it’s not the most important thing about me.

But it’s still a beast lurking inside me, a dragon pacing in a den, ready to strike whenever it notices vulnerability. It breathes fire when it smells fear.

Sometimes that fear is panic about weight gain and a number on a scale – an admission that should surprise no one. Women are trained to be sensitive and obsessive about our weight from a early age, to the point where Reductress can publish “8 Adorable Swimsuits for Any Body Type But Yours” and it barely feels like satire.

It’s actually very good satire – no disrespect to the writer. But the humor is momentarily lost when you realize you’ve said almost those exact same things to yourself when trying on clothes or swimsuits in a store and seeing all the fat rolls and imperfections that you can only see in fluorescent lighting.

Body insecurity is not unusual for women, and depression makes it worse. Typical insecurities are magnified, enlarged, embiggened to the point where failing at your diet makes you feel entirely worthless and that gluttony is the deadliest of the 7 sins.

But there’s another aspect of my weight loss goals and my depression, and the intersection of the two, that has only recently become clear to me.

Depression is a mental illness that makes me feel hate myself. Liking myself, even for a small amount of time before the dragon wakes from her sleep and sends me into another cycle of crippling self-doubt, is a major accomplishment.

Why would I want to sabotage that accomplishment by thinking about my weight?

Thinking about my weight doesn’t make me happy. It doesn’t make me feel good about myself. It makes me feel frustrated and guilty when I don’t see the results I want in the time that I want them.

The depression exacerbates these feelings, and while the logical part of my brain tells me, “Well, you’ve eaten healthy food for a week and indulged in only small snacks, and you’re not supposed to lose more than a pound a week because it’s just water weight, so you’re on the right track! Just keep it up!” the depression drowns it out by shouting, “YOU HAVE NO WILLPOWER! YOU SUCK FOR SO MANY REASONS, AND THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW MUCH YOU SUCK!”

And sometimes I don’t want to deal with those feelings. I don’t want to go out of my way to eat extremely healthy foods when I know I’ll be tempted by something less nutritious later that day, and then feel guilty about indulging in a large serving of pasta. Instead, I’ll eat something that’s less healthy but not complete junk, something that won’t make me gain or lose much weight.

Exercising is easier for me than keeping to a healthy diet. I can move my body when I need to. I get more immediate satisfaction from exercising than from eating well. I feel the difference in my body. I feel stronger and faster and my muscles feel tighter. But I’ll still skip a session if I have the opportunity to spend time with friends or if I win tickets to Hamilton via the digital lottery (not yet, but keeping fingers crossed) because those things will bring me more instant happiness.

Immediate happiness and gratification is considered to be shallow and less meaningful than long-term happiness, but when I have a mental illness that makes happiness a challenge and self-loathing a default state, shouldn’t I grab every opportunity I can for any kind of happiness?

(Even now, I wonder if writing this blog post is the best use of my time, because I’ve had a solid week of feeling good about myself and I’m worried about sabotaging it by writing about my depression. At the same time, I promised that I would update my blog every week and it’s been a month since my last post, and if I delay writing any more, I know I will feel worse in the long run.)

So I put the weight loss goal in the back of my mind. I try to focus on eating until I’m full and not overeating just because food tastes good. I try to eat small portions and drink a lot of water. I try to exercise to make myself stronger and faster and more capable. And I enjoy a girls’ night out with close friends as we indulge in cocktails and nachos, saying we’re not that hungry and will just pick at the chips and cheese, but turning ourselves into liars and devouring the whole platter in five minutes.

And for a moment, I think about how weight management is overrated, and how, after years of feeling friendless, I wouldn’t trade this night of nacho and cocktail indulgence for anything in the world, much less a loss of 15 pounds.

And then I remember how some moments of our female bonding were inspired by the presence of the nachos – how we exclaimed that we weren’t that hungry, how we inhaled the cheese and chips and jalapenos, how we commented on how quickly we ate that cheese and chips and jalapenos, and how funny it was when we ate so much despite claiming not to be hungry.

Eating the food wasn’t enough. We had to comment on how we ate the food and how much we ate on a night of celebrating a friend’s birthday.

And the cycle begins again.

I’m a feminist and I want to lose weight.

That shouldn’t be a loaded statement. Those two concepts (being a feminist and having a weight loss goal) shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. But I feel conflicted, resentful, and a little dirty for typing those words.

Because feminism is supposed to be about “loving yourself” and “appreciating my body” and “rejecting beauty standards imposed on us by the media.” I’m supposed to be okay with the fact that my metabolism slows down after turning thirty, and take it in stride that I’m not going to weigh the same at thirty-one as I did at twenty-five, and that gaining five to ten or even fifteen pounds over six years is not gaining that much weight.

But then it became impossible to ignore the fact that, no matter the reason for gaining weight, I had a few pairs of perfectly good pants that didn’t fit me anymore.

And that’s when I decided that I needed to try to drop some of those pounds, because losing a little weight and making a few lifestyle changes in my dieting habits was more practical than buying black pants and pencil skirts one size larger.

So I became another woman trying to lose weight. Sort of.

What I basically look like. Never mind that this was taken at an event for women artists and I was reading from my novel – I’m focused on how I look in this picture.

I took the advice of a good friend and downloaded an app that would let me track my calories, and I made a promise to myself that I would continue to eat the foods I enjoyed most, just in moderation.

I was so proud of myself. Not just proud, but smug. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who went from scarfing down burgers and processed foods every day to munching on carrot sticks and dreaming about the junk food I really wanted to eat. I was smarter than that, and I never ate that much processed food to begin with. Making the transition to healthier eating would be a piece of cake – a small but satisfying piece of cake eaten in moderation while I filled the rest of my diet with more healthful options.

One of my strategies towards healthier eating worked quite well. I took the “5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day” recommendation to heart and planned my daily meals around plants. Then I worked backwards and made sure that I planned for enough protein and grains for the day. It was surprisingly easy to fit those daily recommended amounts into my diet. I found the fruits and vegetables I liked best and looked forward to my daily side dish of garlicky kale. (I live in Queens now, not Brooklyn, but I’m pretty sure I’m still allowed to like kale.)

The rest of my Plan for Healthy Living (I won’t call it a diet) has met with mixed success.

The app I use to track my caloric intake is a good one. It works, for the few days a week I choose to follow it. But it only takes a few days for me to feel angry and annoyed that I’m tracking my calories in the first place. I grew up with a father who cooks like an Italian grandma, and while he believed in healthy eating, he also emphasized that food is culture, food is life, and food is meant to be enjoyed.

Nothing sucks the joy out of eating like the numbers on a calorie-tracking app letting me know that even though you ate all your vegetables and had a high-fiber breakfast, 10% of your daily fat intake came from saturated fat when it should have been 7% or less, and maybe you should’ve had a third of a cup of ice cream instead of a half.

But then I think of those pants that no longer fit, that are juuuust too tight for me to wear comfortably, hanging in the closet unused when they go with every single top I own. I remember that the 7% saturated fat rule comes from the American Heart Association, and that cutting back fat is about long-term health, not vanity.

And then I start over again, thinking that this time, I’m really going to follow this weight loss plan until I’m at my goal. After a few days, I notice that I feel full and satiated after eating smaller portions of food more slowly, and I no longer have that bloated feeling I get when I eat to excess because it tastes good.

That lasts for another week. Then a co-worker buys Shake Shack for lunch, and then I can think about nothing but having my own Shake Shack meal for lunch, even though I have perfectly tasty, nutritious, homemade leftovers sitting in the fridge.

Then I feel guilty for “cheating” on my diet, like having a burger and fries with a milkshake for lunch one day is a moral failing, akin to cheating on an exam or a partner.

Then I either a) resolve to be extra “good” with my Plan for Healthy Eating the next week or b) give up completely and eat an entire pint of ice cream, because what does it matter, I’m going to fail anyway.

And then I take a minute to reflect on the ridiculousness of the situation that I’ve put myself in, where the simple act of eating food – something we all need to do to survive – is fraught with expectations, guilt, and a dichotomy of accomplishment vs. failure. I think about the number of people putting themselves through the same situation. I wonder how much more we could all accomplish, individually and collectively, if we stopped obsessing over weight.

But then I think about those perfectly good pants, how I want to cry when I squeeze into them and feel that they’re tighter than they were two years ago, how my sense of worth is momentarily stripped away because I can’t fit into them anymore. My character and accomplishments become meaningless because my pants don’t fit and my face is a little fuller than it used to be.

Then I tell myself that I’m really doing this for my heart. And I begin the cycle again.