White women’s violence against people of colour is race-coded, not gender-coded, in empire

Evidence

In the pursuit of redemption for white women, namely, the drive to show that white women are less culpable than white men and that their violence towards people of colour is somehow a lesser violence, it is easy to recognize the staking of a claim for justice by confining white women to the margins as victims and not as oppressors. The problem posed by women’s active participation in racial violence is resolved, however, if we begin with the fact that in empire (which Eisenstein acknowledges exists, while Ehrenreich does not) white women signify principally through their race and not their gender. The call to participate in the practices of empire is a powerful one, as I have argued about men of colour who have participated in peacekeeping violence against Somalis, and answering it brings rewards. White women secure access to citizenship when they participate in the violence of nation, as indeed we all do. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 182

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Anti-feminist-seeming but precise argument — white women’s racial privilege outweighs their gender subordination within imperial structures, upending the ‘gender decoys’ feminist rescue narrative.
• XREF: Echoes intersectional analyses of white women’s complicity; parallels work on how subordinated groups can still wield racial power (compare to KKK women’s auxiliaries, suffragette racism).