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.

Hell Naw I'm Not Supporting Megyn Kelly

One of the major reasons I identify as a womanist is because far too often, I see situations in which white feminists will rush to the defense of any white woman who has been slimed by 'the menz' or call for across the board female solidarity in those situations, but you're cricket chirping silent when it is women of color who are being attacked.

Yeah, that's why that #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag exists.   We have glaring examples of it popping up and not being reciprocated with depressing regularity

Another glaring example of it popped up in my Facebook feed today when I was sent a link to a Salon article by Mary Elizabeth Williams in which she asked feminists to support Megyn Kelly in the wake of Donald Chump Thump's misogynistic attacks on her, even though she has never declared herself to be one, and sides with a political movement that believes feminists are The Enemy.

I'm damned sure not down with what Trump said about her and it needs to be forcefully called out.  But stand in solidarity with her?  Not no but hell naw am I not going to stand with her. 

Since when has Kelly ever stood with women of color, much less not said anything  that wasn't straight up racist? 

And while she has her broken clock moments every now and then, on balance she earns every penny Rupert Murdoch pays her for being the pretty blonde face peddling that odious right wing agenda.

Her azz had the nerve to say from her FOX Noise propaganda perch that a Black female teen manhandled by an out of control McKinney, TX cop earlier this year 'was no saint'.   She declared that Santa Claus and Jesus were white.   She tried to downplay the racist e-mails discovered in the DOJ probe when Ferguson was on everyone's minds last summer by claiming 'racist e-mails are everywhere'

And yeah, I would be remiss in not pointing out that one of her broken clock moments involved trans people on September 1, 2011.

The transgendered, they go through so much pain and emotional turmoil in dealing with the effects of that disorder or whatever you want to call it and I don’t think they need people piling on and mocking them once they do something that many people consider very brave. But that’s me, that’s my two cents. [emphasis added]

But ever since them, she has devolved on trans issues as her FOX Noise employers shift tactics to attack trans people.

So not no, but oh hell no am I as an proud unapologetically Black trans woman going to support Megyn Kelly's behind, especially when she can't seem to do the same on a consistent basis for women of color and trans women.