In response to Marjorie Valbrun’s thoughtful piece about the eroding relations between black women Obama supporters and white women Clinton supporters, I can’t help wondering whether these difficult conversations about how sexism and racism undermine equal opportunities aren’t a necessary first step in a modern conversation about race relations.

I’ve been extremely interested in the XX conversation, driven by Kim McLarin and Bonnie Goldstein, on how feminists with radically different personal experiences of race relations might be able to forge the kind of coalitions that Marjorie sees as so unlikely. I have found many of the public feminist responses to the campaign, such as Gloria Steinem’s New York Times’ piece, painful to read, not only because they perpetuate the “my oppression is worse than your oppression and only one of us can win” myth, but also because they shine an uncomfortable light on the mantle of white privilege that many white feminists unconsciously carry. As Kim gently pointed out, the idea is not to extract apologies or lay blame on white women for centuries of racial inequity, but to ask white women to do what we ask of men who are feminist allies—understand that the experience of one person is fundamentally different from another and that our society has conferred certain important privileges on different groups of people. Women of all colors have a long way to go, yes (and the media’s reaction to Hillary’s campaign has evidenced just how far), but women who are not white, and particularly women who are African- American, have a different set of hurdles, and, often, a different set of priorities.

Perhaps I am overly optimistic in thinking that the painful accusations of “betrayal” that are currently being hurled among the feminist community could well give way (probably after the nomination battle is over) to a more thoughtful and more honest conversation about how we can build alliances across race lines, find common goals, and work together. But I think this public discussion, if nothing else, is opening the eyes of groups of feminists to the reality that whites who cling to the idea of “not seeing color” is just as self-serving and willfully blind as men who would “not see gender”. Although this nomination battle has set up a schism among women of different races, I think it has also opened up spaces for dialogue—particularly for young white feminists who, like me, support Obama, and have been forced to confront the very privileged narrow-mindedness of some of the feminist movement’s leaders. I am hopeful that, especially for those in younger generations, this dose of reality will shock us into a more honest conversation and help us to form genuine bonds of trust across color lines.