Racist anti-violence strategies strengthen rather than weaken patriarchy in embattled communities

Evidence

In showing the operation of the fantasy of a superior West and an inferior non-West, as it is evident in the law and in arguments made by those supporting racist legal measures, I hope to underline that the only possible route out of the dilemma in which I find myself is to begin with racism itself, tracing the many ways in which it shuts down opportunity for meaningful anti-violence strategies. In sum, you can’t fight violence against women with racism because racism is likely to strengthen patriarchal currents in communities under siege. Through their exclusive emphasis on culture as the sole source of patriarchal violence, culturalist approaches obscure the multiple factors that give rise to and sustain the violence. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 255

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Parallels the logic of the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece: moral panics over dress/behavior in marginalized communities function as class/identity signaling rather than addressing the underlying issue.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ongoing thread on how dominant groups use protectionist narratives to discipline marginalized communities (like colonial ‘white men saving brown women from brown men’ rhetoric).