Nice White Lady

It's weird being a white lady. The weirdest thing is people assume you're good. People assume you're good, and trustworthy, and need protection.

Cops love me. It seems it makes a cop's day when he pulls me over. Because he gets to be a nice guy who lets a nice white lady off. You can tell by the way he saunters back to his car he feels like a hero.

When I was canvassing in Gary, all the residents would constantly tell me I shouldn't be in their neighborhood because it was too dangerous. No one wants bad things to happen to white ladies.

I experience this with audiences a lot. When I have a story about someone being mean to me, the crowd is so immediately on my side. Why would anyone be mean to this nice white lady?! What kind of monster would attack this bunny of a woman?!

As a white lady, you can shop lift with abandon. I wouldn't, because I'm exceptionally nervous, as befits my white lady-ness. But I could break into people's homes in the broad daylight and no one would call the cops. They'd probably come over and assist me in crawling through the window.

White ladies are either perceived as angels or deeply annoying. I think underneath all that gentle handling is a strong resentment of white ladies, because we go from acceptable to annoying in a split second. EVERYONE has a white woman voice in their comic repertoire. I also do, even though my real voice is a white lady voice. But my comic white lady voice is even higher and sing-songy. She says "OH MY GOD!" a lot. Which is ironic, since I do actually say "oh my god" a lot. (That's not actually irony.)


I admire all the women in this video and yet my first instinct is that they deeply annoy me.

I get the resentment. Especially when white women complain, I think everyone, including white men, sort of go "you don't understand how easy you have it! shut up!"

Another thing about being a white woman- although I feel less sure about this one- is it seems you get to be sluttier. NOW I do not mean there isn't SERIOUS slut shaming that happens to white women. But if you are white and especially if you can give off the air of being upper class, people will really take your sluttiness in stride. (ie. Paris Hilton) People will just chalk it up to you acting out, and assume you'll still end up married in the suburb, crying to your therapist about the traumas of your slutty days but ultimately safe. If you're white but clearly poor, or god forbid NOT WHITE, people will define your whole being by your slutty instances. Or your behavior will have nothing to do it, you're branded as a slut before you even get to have any fun because you're clearly poor or not white or both. There's a lot less forgiveness available to you.

I find it pretty frustrating to be constantly perceived as a nice white lady. I would rather be perceived as a flaming sword of justice. I would really enjoy that. But instead I get perceived as a naive, idealistic, sheltered, foolish, acting out, nice white lady. I'm really lucky to have those perceptions working for me, but they still chafe. NOT that I would want to be shot for wearing a hoodie. I know I am exceptionally blessed to walk around in a bunny suit.

It is confusing to figure out how to be effective in dismantling systems of cruelty when part of your celebrated societal role as a nice white lady is being socially concerned.

I'd love to ditch my whiteness, but that's not how things work, no one gets to ditch the assumptions that follow their skin color. And in my case I get off the hook so much because of my skin color that it's annoying to complain about it. So I'm not complaining. Thank you universe for giving me a go around as a white lady. I'm just saying it's a weird thing.