What does it mean to be a sister in the struggle for gender justice? For Black women, the answer is often more complex, and more isolating, than it should be.
Again and again, I see a familiar pattern: white women who admire Black feminists, who quote our words, repost our insights, even brandish our theories in classrooms and boardrooms. Yet, when it comes to action — sharing power, confronting racism, or putting resources behind their words — the solidarity disappears.
This is what I call “parasocial feminism.” It’s a one-sided relationship, where white women consume Black women’s labor — our intellectual contributions, our emotional resilience, our lived experiences — without real engagement or reciprocity. Admiration becomes consumption. Our ideas are lifted, but we are not uplifted.
We see it in what’s supposed to be the most progressive space in Los Angeles, West Hollywood, a so-called safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community. Safe, that is, unless you are a queer Black woman. My friend Tracee Michelle Porter experienced this at a Democratic club meeting just after the election. She was applauded for saying that if progressives were serious, they needed to show up in Black communities around voting. But that was a false sense of security. She was fooled again into thinking the applause meant solidarity.
Consider how often Black feminist thought is cited, especially online. Intersectionality, for example, has become a buzzword in mainstream feminism. But in practice, far too little has changed. Black women are still expected to be the educators, the healers, the moral compasses of the movement, until our truth becomes “too much” for white comfort. Tokenism and saviorism remain alive and well, even in spaces that claim to be progressive.
The cost of this dynamic is not just intellectual theft; it is emotional and spiritual exhaustion. Black women are asked to pour out wisdom, to hold space, to guide conversations, often without acknowledgment or compensation. When white women limit their engagement to reposting quotes or citing us in a classroom, they may feel they’ve done something radical. But admiration without action is just performance.
Porter saw that performance collapse not even hours later. Over lunch after the West Hollywood meeting, she joked, “White women’s tears are my elixir.” She doesn’t even remember what led up to the comment (probably something about white women overreacting) but it was a line she had said in countless rooms before and it always got a laugh. This time, the white woman across from her froze and said, “What do you mean by that? It makes me sad.”
Porter tried to explain how white women’s tears have been weaponized against Black people and, before long, came the predictable response: “But I’m a good person. I’m doing the work.”
Fragility could not even take a joke. Cue the tears. As Porter put it later, “That is the lie of safe spaces. They cheer in the meeting but the second you tell the truth the tears show up.”
True solidarity is not a quote on Instagram. It is not the performance of allyship at a conference or the carefully worded diversity statement. Solidarity requires power-sharing. It demands discomfort. It insists on relationship-building that goes beyond admiration and enters the messy, necessary work of accountability.
This means white women must be willing to interrogate how they benefit from systems that harm Black women. It means relinquishing the need to be centered, to be comfortable, to be the “good feminist” in the room. And it means putting resources (time, money, access) into supporting Black women’s leadership, not just consuming it.
Porter’s experience in West Hollywood makes the lesson clear. Applause can feel like support, but solidarity shows itself when the conversation gets uncomfortable. When a simple joke turned into tears and defensiveness, the mask slipped. That is parasocial feminism at work: loud affirmation in public, but retreat the moment power is questioned in private.
If white women truly want to stand beside Black feminists, then the call is simple:
Don’t just follow us. Stand with us.
Don’t just quote us. Compensate us.
Don’t just listen. Build with us.
Feminism cannot afford to remain parasocial. Our liberation is bound together, but it requires more than applause from the sidelines. If we are truly committed to gender justice, then solidarity must move from consumption to action, from admiration to accountability, from words to change.
The question, then, is not whether white women admire Black feminists. hey clearly do. The question is whether they are willing to move from parasocial feminism to actual solidarity. The answer will determine the future of the movement.
S. Denise Rivers is a Black feminist writer and speaker whose work examines the intersections of race, gender, and power. Her research and advocacy challenge white-centered feminism and call for deeper accountability and solidarity across movements.
