COMMENT
American comedian Chelsea Handler has made a refreshing admission about how she has benefited from white privilege and urged white women to vote in solidarity with black women as the polls close in the US mid-term elections.
“I just started to think about all the privilege I’ve benefited from in this industry, specifically being a Jew is a bonus, being a girl as a comedian when I was coming up,” she told host Ellen DeGeneres on the Ellen show. “I had every advantage. Every door opened for me.
“When I started to look around at people that don’t have as successful of a career or are working twice as hard to achieve the same things, I started to feel very gross about myself. On a very fundamental level, I wanted to explore it further … [starting] with my own white privilege. I’ve been badly behaved for 20 years and getting tonnes of money thrown at me for being a loudmouth. You could say I’m talented, but you could also say I’m not talented.”
"For me, it's an important subject matter right now," she added. "It's like, what are the people that are benefiting from this gonna do about it?
Handler said her interest in the subject comes as she works on a new series with streaming giant Netflix on the subject of white privilege.
Handler has well and truly embraced the intersection, calling out white women on capitalising on their race privilege at the expense of women of colour in voting for US President Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
President Trump has been widely criticised for rolling back reproductive rights for women, introducing a ban of Muslim migration and stoking racial fears in the electorate.
"I think we always have to look at black women. Black women always vote in their best interests. 94 per cent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton. Well, 53 per cent of white women voted for that guy," Handler said.
"Black women vote in their own interests always historically. They always know what's up. And we have to be sisters to them. We have to vote in their best interests as well."
A clip of Chelsea Handler attracted over 46,000 likes on Twitter.
Handler’s latest Netflix project comes as she announced she was going to focus on political activism after her talk show Chelsea was cancelled last year after two seasons.
While cynics may point to the fact that Handler's move is a savvy one, reading the changing winds of a heightened political climate and capitalising on contemporary race conversations, it's nevertheless a good call out of white women from one of their own.
Just like male feminist allies, ally-hood done well without dominating the conversation can provoke important self-examination. We can only judge by the outcome of the proposed series.
