From the New York Times:
But the tone of the discussion, particularly online, can become so raw that some would-be marchers feel they are no longer welcome.
Ms. Willis, the South Carolina wedding minister, had been looking forward to the salve of rallying with people who share her values, a rarity in her home state...
But then she read a post by ShiShi Rose, a 27-year-old blogger from Brooklyn.
“Now is the time for you to be listening more, talking less,” Ms. Rose wrote. “You should be reading our books and understanding the roots of racism and white supremacy. Listening to our speeches. You should be drowning yourselves in our poetry.”
It rubbed Ms. Willis the wrong way.
“How do you know that I’m not reading black poetry?” she asked in an interview...“The last thing that is going to make me endeared to you, to know you and love you more, is if you are sitting there wagging your finger at me.”
Ms. Rose said in an interview that the intention of the post was not to weed people out but rather to make them understand that they had a lot of learning to do.
“I needed them to understand that they don’t just get to join the march and not check their privilege constantly,” she said.
That phrase — check your privilege — exasperates Ms. Willis. She asked a reporter: “Can you please tell me what that means?”
That must be fun - checking your privilege constantly. Interestingly, the only specific evidence for white women's privilege given in the article is that white women earn more than black or Hispanic women. What isn't mentioned is that Asian-American women earn a lot more than white women do - and yet Asian-American women get to be part of the "oppressed" group rather than the privileged group:
Nor is it mentioned that life expectancy for black American women is going up but for white American women it is declining (the upward trend shown in the graph is for mortality):
White women should know that in the future envisaged by the "rainbow coalition" they will occupy a low moral status, one in which they will be expected to always defensively justify themselves as white women; to focus on making amends for their supposed privilege; and to deconstruct their own identity and culture to make way for that of others.
Much better for men and women to make a culture together they can be proud of and positively identify with.