White Women: See You After The March?

This is a commentary about yesterday's as a friend called them 'Becky Marches' because of the lack of diversity in them or erasure of trans women.

It was an essay from Lucy Siale posted to her Facebook page.  It needs to be signal boosted because some of you white women who marched yesterday aren't understanding why I and many Black women cis and trans aren't feeling the Women's March, and Lucy's essay  expresses the emotions of many Black women who just aren't into the Women's March for a lot of reasons.

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TO THE WHITE WOMEN MARCHING TODAY, I’M TALKING TO YOU. 

The Women’s March has become a disappointing event for me. Today, I did not see community. I did not see a movement dedicated to RADICAL change.  did not see effective pieces of action taken to aggressively fight against the systems of oppression at work.

I saw a lot of white women who haven’t come out since the last women’s march. I saw signs dedicated to female genitals—excluding trans folks. I saw cis-sterhood, not sisterhood. I saw hundreds of white women marching in Walnut Creek, one day out of the year. I saw too many people who came out today because it’s easy, and socially acceptable, and it inevitably contributes to white, mainstream, non-intersectional feminism.

Y'all need to admit it. It’s easy for you to show up today and get some likes on Facebook, but it gets more complicated when you’re asked to show up for Black lives, or undocumented immigrants, or trans women of color killed by police. so you don’t. 

You don’t show up, you stay silent for the other 364 days of the year, and you, in turn, contribute to the white supremacy and oppression that disenfranchises communities of color.

That’s not what my future looks like. This is not what I dream of.  This is not what I march and fight for.  It’s important to show up today, but more importantly, EVERY day. We need to mobilize our communities and unite under plans and organizations that prioritize the people over profit.


Why am I angry? Because the women I saw today have been MISSING over the past year. Your absence as allies contributes to white supremacy. Your silence advances the oppressor. Your lack of commitment fails to revolutionize our movement.

We have to do better—we have to be better and expect more from ourselves. While you return to your lives of privilege after today, women of color will continue to occupy these streets—as we always have.  These streets that you claim once a year are stained by the blood of indigenous folks; this is the permanent home of resistance to those of us who can’t afford to take a break after this march.

So today, one year later, I ask you to join us. REAL change didn’t ever come easy.
#PowerToThePeople

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Thanks Lucy.