What are the problems, here?
The woman has come to the conference believing that her definition of racism is or should be shared by all the other participants. It is not, or is not completely. I prefer to have working definitions up front, just like I prefer to have a floor on which to set my chair. It�s the foundation we rest on when we begin.
In the case of racism, people of Color have forged a comprehensive enough definition of racism and an expectation that white progressives, at least, will honor it that there is widespread acceptance at this very basic level. Racism must be that form of oppression heaped upon people of Color by the larger culture, and backed by that culture�s institutions. Racism may hit at an individual level, but it is always backed, directly or discreetly, by the culture�s most powerful institutions � law and business, education and politics, and others. Racism differs from simple discrimination, wherein anyone can discriminate against any other without there being any institutional power reinforcing it. The simple definition is PREJUDICE + POWER = RACISM.
The notion of Black racism, while comforting to whites who do not want to be singled out as the only racists, is really a nonsense concept. White privilege creates racism; denying one�s privilege does not change the fact of racism, but privilege can be shared in order to benefit those left out, for in U.S. culture, it is white people who have the power.
The woman has come to the conference already troubled, upset and frustrated. She wants desperately to be heard on her own terms. There is no way she can listen until she is heard. This is how we all tend to work when we are in emotional turmoil. And we cannot move on until we are heard out, until we feel we are understood. For most of us there doesn�t need to be agreement, but there cannot be disagreement, for what we are revealing are our innermost emotions. And how could anyone disagree with these, when only we are inside feeling them? The woman who claims to be the white victim of Black racism cannot hear until she has, herself, been heard.
The timing of the knowledgeable white woman�s offering is wrong, because the white victim woman needs her feelings acknowledged, first and foremost. Once her feelings have been acknowledged, once her urgent needs have been met, then the conference needs to resurrect its original focus, and see to the needs of the women of Color who have gathered there. �Knowledge� of Black sexuality had better be offered humbly, for far-greater experts than a white woman are present; she may be, however, useful for translating between the two cultures, but then again, she may not, and a perceived �need� for translation may feel like making Black women �Other.�