Nicole. This feels incredibly important. This insight is going to rattle around inside me for a bit. I’m feeling a call to community in ways that I never felt before — and as a white guy I think there are unrevealed reasons for that which I’ve never had to consider. Thanks for this.
It's definitely been rattling inside me something super disruptive as well, friend. Thanks for reading and more importantly for allowing these words to stir something deep.
I’m a middle aged neurodivergent white woman and I’m here to say THANK YOU for this piece. It articulates so beautifully something that I have struggled with my whole life, and watched my SilentGen working class mother struggle with: white women culture, which gets more and more individualistic the higher up the sociological ladder you go. Paradoxically the more white women strive to maintain the privilege they have individually, the unhappier and lonelier they become…it’s a trap. And it’s a taboo topic amongst white women. I’ve also noticed a trend among educated younger white women (I’m GenX) to compete for status by virtue signaling TO EACH OTHER how socially aware they are BY POLICING EACH OTHER (which I refer to as The Woke Olympics) rather than actually engaging with the “oppressed people” they claim to want to help. It’s tragic. I tend to litmus test white women by finding out how they feel about AOC and Bernie Sanders because it gives me a pretty good sense of whether they’re actually interested in any kind of real solidarity across class and racial lines. And I keep working at being a bridge. I’m discovering “elder solidarity” with women who are post menopausal and in their IDGAF era across these lines…working on building what I call the Matriarchal Elephant Herd of activist grannies 🤘🏻🤘🏽🤘🏾🤘🏿🐘🐘🐘
Thank you for sharing this!! I, a WW, found myself nodding while reading. I think the other thing WW lack is culture and tradition (not steeped in patriarchal religion) and so we lack a foundation or guidepost to build our community around. It’s nebulous to us because of how the patriarchy has boxed us into the nuclear family, and the US in particular has conditioned us for rugged individualism (because capitalism 😅) I’ve been thinking a lot about societal progress and how we need white people to start thinking about community if we’re to get anywhere. But it’s a struggle to break free of the noise. I’m adding your suggested reading to my list! 🖤
Mmhmm. This is good. And true. I’ll add my experience with “communities” in the white church have been very convenience based. My “community” needed me available at a particular time on a particular day in a particular way. Beyond that I was out of sight and out of mind. When I ran into trauma with the birth of my first son and then the burnout that came with being overextended at my ministry job, I couldn’t show up at the designated times and I was slowly cut out of jokes, texts, invites and then finally out of their lives all together when I left the church that this community was nestled under. I think we need to reckon hard with the fact that community is not convenient. People are not widgets meant to fill needs or check boxes. They are messy and sometimes you gotta step out of your routine to meet people where they need to be met and that crap is not Instagrammable. Thank you for sharing your experience and your call to action here. I feel deep down how needed this is.
Fabulous insight. I have seen people participating in the “fair weather friends” white churches, where they have supported others, but not been able to get reciprocal support when needed. It is heartbreaking to observe.
As a lifetime outsider due to neurodivergence and a few other things, I’m going to say that the lack of community in the white world is what made us sooooo susceptible to the far right. Trumpism, Q, Talk Radio and Podcast communities made people feel like they belonged. Same with the KKK back in the 1920s.
Living where I live, in the heart of Gym Jordan’s district, I noticed some things. Women don’t go outside much. It’s house to car to store or work to pick up the kids and back to the house. Men do most of the outside work. You will see the majority of women at school functions, at church, or at the store. I have immediate female neighbors I couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
I really loved this article, community involvement is something that I've had on my to do list for a long time, and you really nailed a key point that I think is making it difficult to execute on - and it's mostly an internal blind spot to this individualistic mindset. Thank you for articulating what I could not quite put my finger on!
I loved your essay. As a white woman living in very red rural Ohio, I have thought a lot about community. I’m 53, and when I was young, there was a very strong sense of community among all people in my small town. People helped each other, and we spent a lot of time with our neighbors, at church, at 4-H meetings. But it was a very homogeneous community. I don’t live in my hometown anymore but I’m not far away. I do see some people having a sense of community, but it includes people like them. It doesn’t stretch beyond their white neighborhood. I would love to find ways to make change happen, so I’ll start with the books you recommended.
Nicole, you’ve recognized one of many important differences between our individualized cultures and more traditional cultures (which are also more typical globally and historically). I saw this in the Black community when our NC city’s gang task force leader was called home (to another state) by members of his college fraternity because they understood he was needed to do the more important work of caring for his ailing father. The shift into these communities is one that occurs more readily as a step of positive purpose than in fighting mode. Otherwise, you’ll land in the new setting requiring them to care for your rage instead of being free to listen and learn.
Yes...entering into these communities with a posture of listening and learning vs. seeking to meet our own individualized wants and needs is so crucial. Thank you for giving words and experience to that!
Yes thank you – this is a really important frame to look at how cut off white women are from even the idea of community. As a colonized group - by this I mean living with and being controlled by member of a group that represents its repressive/oppressive culture - white women are cut off from thinking about (even learning about?) issues that many of us are now deliberating, and trapped in the patriarchal/capitalist models of living and media. As another writer mentioned these isolationist tendencies seem to become more pronounced as white privileged women get older. Although she may volunteer at a food pantry, her experience with people there may not actually penetrate the armor, or facilitate friendships with others “not like” her or her family.
Your writing and that of commenters here inspires me to make greater efforts at creating community in my town.
Nicole. This feels incredibly important. This insight is going to rattle around inside me for a bit. I’m feeling a call to community in ways that I never felt before — and as a white guy I think there are unrevealed reasons for that which I’ve never had to consider. Thanks for this.
It's definitely been rattling inside me something super disruptive as well, friend. Thanks for reading and more importantly for allowing these words to stir something deep.
I’m a middle aged neurodivergent white woman and I’m here to say THANK YOU for this piece. It articulates so beautifully something that I have struggled with my whole life, and watched my SilentGen working class mother struggle with: white women culture, which gets more and more individualistic the higher up the sociological ladder you go. Paradoxically the more white women strive to maintain the privilege they have individually, the unhappier and lonelier they become…it’s a trap. And it’s a taboo topic amongst white women. I’ve also noticed a trend among educated younger white women (I’m GenX) to compete for status by virtue signaling TO EACH OTHER how socially aware they are BY POLICING EACH OTHER (which I refer to as The Woke Olympics) rather than actually engaging with the “oppressed people” they claim to want to help. It’s tragic. I tend to litmus test white women by finding out how they feel about AOC and Bernie Sanders because it gives me a pretty good sense of whether they’re actually interested in any kind of real solidarity across class and racial lines. And I keep working at being a bridge. I’m discovering “elder solidarity” with women who are post menopausal and in their IDGAF era across these lines…working on building what I call the Matriarchal Elephant Herd of activist grannies 🤘🏻🤘🏽🤘🏾🤘🏿🐘🐘🐘
Thank you for sharing this!! I, a WW, found myself nodding while reading. I think the other thing WW lack is culture and tradition (not steeped in patriarchal religion) and so we lack a foundation or guidepost to build our community around. It’s nebulous to us because of how the patriarchy has boxed us into the nuclear family, and the US in particular has conditioned us for rugged individualism (because capitalism 😅) I’ve been thinking a lot about societal progress and how we need white people to start thinking about community if we’re to get anywhere. But it’s a struggle to break free of the noise. I’m adding your suggested reading to my list! 🖤
Mmhmm. This is good. And true. I’ll add my experience with “communities” in the white church have been very convenience based. My “community” needed me available at a particular time on a particular day in a particular way. Beyond that I was out of sight and out of mind. When I ran into trauma with the birth of my first son and then the burnout that came with being overextended at my ministry job, I couldn’t show up at the designated times and I was slowly cut out of jokes, texts, invites and then finally out of their lives all together when I left the church that this community was nestled under. I think we need to reckon hard with the fact that community is not convenient. People are not widgets meant to fill needs or check boxes. They are messy and sometimes you gotta step out of your routine to meet people where they need to be met and that crap is not Instagrammable. Thank you for sharing your experience and your call to action here. I feel deep down how needed this is.
Fabulous insight. I have seen people participating in the “fair weather friends” white churches, where they have supported others, but not been able to get reciprocal support when needed. It is heartbreaking to observe.
As a lifetime outsider due to neurodivergence and a few other things, I’m going to say that the lack of community in the white world is what made us sooooo susceptible to the far right. Trumpism, Q, Talk Radio and Podcast communities made people feel like they belonged. Same with the KKK back in the 1920s.
Living where I live, in the heart of Gym Jordan’s district, I noticed some things. Women don’t go outside much. It’s house to car to store or work to pick up the kids and back to the house. Men do most of the outside work. You will see the majority of women at school functions, at church, or at the store. I have immediate female neighbors I couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
Another critical insight. Thank you.
So important - thank you for putting into words something I’ve been confounded about for some time.
I really loved this article, community involvement is something that I've had on my to do list for a long time, and you really nailed a key point that I think is making it difficult to execute on - and it's mostly an internal blind spot to this individualistic mindset. Thank you for articulating what I could not quite put my finger on!
I loved your essay. As a white woman living in very red rural Ohio, I have thought a lot about community. I’m 53, and when I was young, there was a very strong sense of community among all people in my small town. People helped each other, and we spent a lot of time with our neighbors, at church, at 4-H meetings. But it was a very homogeneous community. I don’t live in my hometown anymore but I’m not far away. I do see some people having a sense of community, but it includes people like them. It doesn’t stretch beyond their white neighborhood. I would love to find ways to make change happen, so I’ll start with the books you recommended.
Nicole, you’ve recognized one of many important differences between our individualized cultures and more traditional cultures (which are also more typical globally and historically). I saw this in the Black community when our NC city’s gang task force leader was called home (to another state) by members of his college fraternity because they understood he was needed to do the more important work of caring for his ailing father. The shift into these communities is one that occurs more readily as a step of positive purpose than in fighting mode. Otherwise, you’ll land in the new setting requiring them to care for your rage instead of being free to listen and learn.
Yes...entering into these communities with a posture of listening and learning vs. seeking to meet our own individualized wants and needs is so crucial. Thank you for giving words and experience to that!
Yes thank you – this is a really important frame to look at how cut off white women are from even the idea of community. As a colonized group - by this I mean living with and being controlled by member of a group that represents its repressive/oppressive culture - white women are cut off from thinking about (even learning about?) issues that many of us are now deliberating, and trapped in the patriarchal/capitalist models of living and media. As another writer mentioned these isolationist tendencies seem to become more pronounced as white privileged women get older. Although she may volunteer at a food pantry, her experience with people there may not actually penetrate the armor, or facilitate friendships with others “not like” her or her family.
Your writing and that of commenters here inspires me to make greater efforts at creating community in my town.