Emma Louise Zimmerman

Woes of a White Woman

I am a descendant of colonizers and enslavers. I am intentionally centering my whiteness within this white space. I am named after my maternal great-great-grandmother, Emma Washington, a distant cousin of George Washington, the first President of the United States. Through my maternal line, I am also related to Stonewall Jackson, a confederate general in the United States Civil War. This is an examination of my foremothers, the white women who have preserved, mended, and celebrated white supremacy in the United States. My grandmother, Diane (Brown) Ayres, provided me with the documents required to prove our lineal descent to a patriot of the American Revolution (George Washington), so I could follow in her footsteps and become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). I am eligible for membership of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) with my relation to Stonewall Jackson. I am unraveling my heritage and airing our dirty laundry; rather than participating in these associations of racial purity, celebration, and white supremacy. I will not remain ignorant to my family’s involvement in white supremacy. Through the ideals of presentation and performance, white women are taught to comply with the inequitable structures of white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonization. Whiteness has historically been deracialized and manipulated to achieve the binary construction of race. This critique of my ancestors investigates the generational bond of whiteness and womanhood. The tradition of sewing and making has been passed down from mothers to daughters in my family. I use these tools to explore “women’s work,” utilizing fabric, mending, inherited objects, and craft to transform material outside of its intended purpose. I am exposing my family’s history in defiance of toxic traditions, complacence, and silence. As a woman, I am oppressed by the patriarchy, but as an individual with white privilege, I am an oppressor. White women have historically manipulated this status of the in-between. When we feel attacked, we can step into the role of victim and use our tears to signal we are damsels in distress, and in need of rescuing. Our tears are weaponized and used to center our whiteness, under the guise of hurt feelings.We need radical honesty, self-investigation, and to have these uncomfortable discussions. To my fellow white women, I implore you to sit in this discomfort and begin the hard work of dissecting the past. There is no completing this work, but through consistency, curiosity, and commitmentI hope to follow in one of the traditions of my maternal line: encouraging the next generation to be better than the one before them.