Disclaimer: I am a white woman, and this is directed at white women, it’s not revolutionary for many, but it may be for some.
___________________________________________________________________________
While I’ve known this to be true, it’s never been more clear to me than this week, that whiteness and white supremacy, whether you actively understand you’re standing in it or not, is a cult. As our pop culture and political worlds collided last week, with both Taylor Swift’s engagement announcement and Taylor Lorenz’s WIRED hit piece specifically targeting Black female content creators, my view of this cult has never crystalized faster.
If you’ve been living under a rock, Taylor Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce in the culmination of 35 years of white womanhood in the United States. This is what we, white women, are born and bred for, regardless of billionaire status. Finding a white man to stand by is integral to reach our “highest potential” in the white supremacist culture we live in. For Swift, to me, it almost seems like kayfabe at this point. Our perennial millennial prom queen HAD to end up with the jock. There was no other ending to her story. And frankly, I don’t know if I actually blame her for that. I do think it’s what we’re socially conditioned to do, but I can blame her fans for the mental gymnastics they always jump into (without stretching, I may add, which is very bad for us millennials), to defend her silence. Because just five years ago, she proclaimed she had to be on the right side of history in her Netflix documentary, Miss Americana. But since meeting her now fiancé, she’s been eerily silent. A man who said he’d go to the White House, no matter who is in charge - even if it’s a man who has openly shit on HIS now fiancée numerous times.
Our second Taylor is more minor in the grand scheme of things, but under the WIRED banner, Taylor Lorenz wrote a hit piece claiming “dark money” is being funneled to content creators that is forcing them to say certain things, do certain things, and I CANNOT for the life of me, figure out how it got off the cutting room floor. From the article itself, it took ME, very much not a journalist, five clicks and two page jumps to find exactly who was giving the Sixteen Thirty Fund the money that was paying content creators. And about five more minutes of cross referencing to see that she was lying about her claims that they were not allowed to speak on Gaza or other “controversial” topics. Oh, and being in the content creation space myself, I actually know some of these people.
Lorenz mostly levied her criticism at Black female creators, calling them liars, and doubling down over the course of the week. Which led other white women on the internet to chime in, standing in their own whiteness rather than doing ANY. GODDAMN. RESEARCH. And again, I say research lightly because I did it myself - five clicks, a hop, a skip and voila, claims disproven. As recently as Wednesday, September 3rd, I saw real white woman tears from someone who I followed claiming that this internet discourse was a waste of time, though her mutuals are actively fending off real threats left and right. Or another white woman, who I once followed, falling back on the classic, “oh, I guess I’ll never chime in again.” Victimhood at it’s finest.
Jesus Christ, we are exhausting. And the overlap is what got me really riled up. Some of these white women rail against billionaires on the daily, yet cheer when their silent queen Taylor Swift announced her engagement. They rail on private jets, the environmental decline that PJs rapidly push, and they rail on silence on the multiple genocides happening, and they actively push back against the women who do say something about Swift. It’s so abundantly clear that white women would rather hold the white line than dig in and feel any discomfort (or admit they may have been wrong).
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over how quick white women will turn on a dime. That’s how I know it’s a cult. When your leader is critiqued and everything you’ve ever said and is public record goes out the window. Or when a disgraced journalist who has been fired from multiple publications publishes a tacky hit piece and you dive into the pool head first without a second thought. You choose whiteness every time and I can’t get over it. Where is your WOMANHOOD? WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE, LADIES? I mean it. If we all stood in our womanhood rather than our whiteness, we’d be a fearsome thing to behold.
To the white women who consume content, I beg you — vet the ever living shit out of the white women you follow. I beg you to diversify your friend groups, your FYPs, and every aspect of your life. Because sitting in this cult of whiteness does not serve you. It never will, and once you realize that you free yourself. You do - cliché as it sounds. And it’s an ongoing process, but I promise it’ll make your life better in all aspects.
Resist the urge to leverage your tears when you feel attacked. And resist the urge to leverage any other part of your identity when you are called out. Because when you feel attacked, you rarely are - it’s just your ego jumping out at you for being called out for a very white centric stance. Get uncomfortable now, it will lead to more comfort later, I promise.
Signed,
Another millennial white woman