In this real-life scenario I was hoping for an honorable white sister to pull the woman into a separate space, and as a white woman, sister to sister, share her sense of danger and validate her feelings. Only one with similar privilege could do this � or should do this, for there are too many injustices in expecting women of Color to educate the more-privileged. Ideally, once this acceptance was established, the white sister could discuss with the victim woman the reasons why what happens to white people, members of the privileged majority in racial matters, is not racism. It can be bad or horrible or even deadly. But it is not racism, because racism requires institutionalized power to enact, and to enforce. Death by other names is just as deadly, and no one is taking violence against white people lightly, not at all. But racism is a certain kind of violence, and if we don�t stick to words� real meanings, we lose the naming power of our words.
There is a special problem in losing the meanings behind words which name oppressions. For if whites and people of Color can all be racist, if men and women can both be sexist, if all we have is discrimination, then there really isn�t a hierarchical cultural problem, it�s just a matter of people simply being nicer to one another. And with this, oppressions cease to exist, and whites and people of Color are on a playing field made artificially level. In reality white skin and male gender are both highly privileged. The institutions which bolster the inequality are pardoned fully, and patriarchy has been rendered invisible, in this view. People�s problems are simply personal problems for them to take care of on their own.
There is also a problem in using the wrong words to explain a situation. The discomfort and danger the white woman feels while receiving unwanted attention from men who happen to be Black, who are exercising their power as men, is because of their apparent sexism. Her fear is real, her sense of danger is real, and there are certainly reasons to trust that her assessment of the situation is valid, as well. What clearly is not real is using the word racism where her discomfort is owing to the sexism she has experienced in the situation.