Several “Women of Color” Walked Out of the Room that Afternoon in Solidarity: Multiple Logics of White Supremacy

When racial justice is still far away on the horizon, I welcome Judith Plaskow’s candid reflection on the ways in which the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (JFSR) has operated in the white supremacist ethos for the past thirty-five-plus years. In doing so, Plaskow does not locate racism either outside of JFSR or herself, but instead examines how she, as cofounder of JFSR, has been implicated in the perpetuation of “white space” in spite of having “powerful Black women and other women of color” on the editorial board and in leadership positions (3). Plaskow also rightly points out how JFSR has been “unable to escape” Christian hegemony (7). As someone who has been affiliated with various units of Feminist Studies in Religion (FSR), including JFSR, and am therefore implicated in the organization’s power structures and operations, though in different terms and extent, I offer this brief response.

I was at the 2017 FSR conference when Plaskow publicly criticized a “younger Black scholar before a room full of colleagues” (6). I remember that my eyes rolled back as I was listening to what and how Plaskow was responding to my Black colleague that afternoon. I also remember seeing a few other colleagues rolling their eyes. We rolled our eyes as an “expression of collective exasperation.”¹ As soon as Plaskow finished speaking, my Black colleague stood up from her seat and walked toward the door to leave. Several “women of color” colleagues and I joined her. What was clear even then was, as Plaskow notes, her colleagues of color including myself were “pulled into a drama with a white woman that was clearly all too familiar and painful” (13).

Plaskow’s lead essay evoked mixed emotions from me. On one hand, I felt relieved because Plaskow confirmed that incident. On the other hand, I felt uneasy. Such feeling was not necessarily about Plaskow’s recollection of the incident as such, although it was related to it. It is commendable that FSR has identified concrete action items to take so that antiracism work does not become just performative or virtue signaling. Plaskow’s lead essay is indicative of it. Yet I felt uneasy about the ways in which “the dynamics of race” and “racism” are evoked both in Plaskow’s lead essay and the FSR’s recent response to anti-Black racism—especially as they influence the ways cross-racial solidarity is imagined and practiced. Various constituencies of FSR should continue to examine how “our” work and network engender anti-Blackness or value whiteness or white proximity as we continue to witness the ongoing deadly force of anti-Black racism. At the same time, I wish FSR had also attended to multiple logics of white supremacy and Christian hegemony, since white supremacy is undergirded by not only anti-Black racism but also anti-Muslim racism, pernicious orientalism and anti-Asian racism, and settler colonialism.

When FSR issued concrete action items to combat anti-Black racism on July 1, 2020, the nation was well into the fourth month of the intensified COVID-19 pandemic. An organization called Stop AAPI Hate reported on the resurging cases of anti-Asian violence that were exacerbated by the politicization of the corona-virus as the “Chinese virus.” It was not, however, until the killings of six Asian women in the Atlanta area in March 2021 that people started paying attention to anti-Asian racism and violence. Many academic institutions and organizations hurriedly issued statements condemning violence against Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders. It should not have taken the killings of six women of Asian descent, nor of four members of the Sikh community in Indianapolis, for anti-Asian racism to be recognized. It should not have taken the killings of Muslims for anti-Muslim racism to be recognized. How can FSR combat multiple forms of racism against different groups of people that are entrenched in US history?

To be clear, I am not trying to compare visibility of one group with invisibility of another group, as if...