Timmah Ball’s memoir “Still talkin' up to the white woman” explores instances of corporate racism, in particular those perpetrated or instigated by white women, in an experience based examination of white feminism, highlights the need to for intersectionality in modern, corporate feminism.
The author begins the piece with an anecdote about the poster of Jean-Léon Gérôme‘s “Moorish Bath” depicting a black slave woman washing the back of an upper class white woman, hanging in her which female boss’s office. Ball speaks of the power this status symbol held over her colleagues and herself, explains how signs can be an “uncomfortable display of power” and delineating how power symbols can “visibly divide the social world into categories of persons, …show more content…
Marxism theorises that the maintenance of systems of production - the roles humans play in it and thus the hierarchical relations produced - is of fundamental interest to the ruling class. Consequently, “knowledge serves social function of legitimation,” manipulating people to ensure the stability of social order and thus the system of production. Simply put, power manipulates people by masking reality and therefore compromising the individuals knowledge and claim to truth and Ball’s examples demonstrate this (Sherman, 2016). While this vague area of Marxism seems to apply very clearly it must be noted that Marxist application to racial and gender issues is problematic and widely …show more content…
Ball conveys how the program in her work place did little to inspire any change, and the coordinator, a white woman and supposed leader and advocate for indigenous employees, showed little interest or ability in effecting change for them. Instead, feigning concern and suggesting they further their skills and training, unwilling “to confront the lack of racial diversity in management and the reasons why so few Aboriginal staff progressed beyond mid-level project officer roles.” Ball elaborates on a kind of ideological manipulation, throughout her career such advocates and supervisors had amounted any failure to succeed or obstacles to her own individual failings. The general lack of aboriginals in high positions was solely and consistently explained as a lack of will, effort or skills of indigenous people and they were, as a people, made to feel inadequate and inferior. This is a clear use of ‘racial gaslighting’ propagated through “narratives that obfuscate the existence of a white supremacist state power structure,” such as these (Davis & Ernst,
The author begins the piece with an anecdote about the poster of Jean-Léon Gérôme‘s “Moorish Bath” depicting a black slave woman washing the back of an upper class white woman, hanging in her which female boss’s office. Ball speaks of the power this status symbol held over her colleagues and herself, explains how signs can be an “uncomfortable display of power” and delineating how power symbols can “visibly divide the social world into categories of persons, …show more content…
Marxism theorises that the maintenance of systems of production - the roles humans play in it and thus the hierarchical relations produced - is of fundamental interest to the ruling class. Consequently, “knowledge serves social function of legitimation,” manipulating people to ensure the stability of social order and thus the system of production. Simply put, power manipulates people by masking reality and therefore compromising the individuals knowledge and claim to truth and Ball’s examples demonstrate this (Sherman, 2016). While this vague area of Marxism seems to apply very clearly it must be noted that Marxist application to racial and gender issues is problematic and widely …show more content…
Ball conveys how the program in her work place did little to inspire any change, and the coordinator, a white woman and supposed leader and advocate for indigenous employees, showed little interest or ability in effecting change for them. Instead, feigning concern and suggesting they further their skills and training, unwilling “to confront the lack of racial diversity in management and the reasons why so few Aboriginal staff progressed beyond mid-level project officer roles.” Ball elaborates on a kind of ideological manipulation, throughout her career such advocates and supervisors had amounted any failure to succeed or obstacles to her own individual failings. The general lack of aboriginals in high positions was solely and consistently explained as a lack of will, effort or skills of indigenous people and they were, as a people, made to feel inadequate and inferior. This is a clear use of ‘racial gaslighting’ propagated through “narratives that obfuscate the existence of a white supremacist state power structure,” such as these (Davis & Ernst,