White Women –
While many of you are upset with the outcome of the election, Black women are suffering more deeply than you will ever imagine.
This pain has many roots, but betrayal may be the most profound of them.
We had hoped and prayed and believed that this country would, at long last, do the right thing by us, and we gave our everything to help America get it right this time. And, in return white America not only slapped us in the face, they made it very clear that we don’t matter and never did.
And, as has happened so often in the past, that assault was made possible by a majority of white women, who locked arms with white men, forging a united and unstoppable force that went straight for our throats, hearts, guts, and kneecaps. And as also has so often been the case in the past, they didn’t miss their aim.
And, no, please do NOT “not all white women” us today or any time soon. You will not like the response, but you will deserve it. Because if this doesn’t apply to you, it doesn’t apply to you, and today is not the day to circle your wagons to protect and deflect blame from the white women it does apply to.
And don’t even THINK about pointing fingers at men of color. Our Black and brown men did not betray us. White women did.
For all the Chucks and pearls and chirpy “I know the assignment!”, in the end, y’all didn’t move the needle one bit.
We begged you to go get your fellow white women, and we showed you how to do it, telling you it would take more than sympathetic hand-holding and gentle words, and trying to bond over cheese plates to shake them out of their racist voting patterns. It required, at the very least, some uncomfortable conversations and difficult choices.
But many of you told us we were too angry, and pushy, and demanding, and insisted that you knew best how to do this. You couldn’t bring yourself to provoke any rude awakenings among your fellow white women, because God forbid you be rude. That might make the next book club meeting just too awkward and you can’t let politics get in the way of friendship.
And then Black women gave you the choice on a silver platter, breaking our necks to present the most perfect candidate of all time, a woman many of you had openly smeared and dismissed until she performed so adeptly that only the most craven among us could claim she was anything other than exquisite.
And still, she wasn’t good enough for the majority of you.
A whole lot of you said you were with us and then went into the voting booth and, no matter what you said to our faces, willingly gave the power of the universe to a white supremacist who hates us. Because you can’t convince me that the 52 percent of white women who joined with 59 percent of white men to shove white supremacy down our throats is made up only of “those women” somewhere “over there.” Plenty of them are right here in our midst. The problem is that we can’t tell which ones they are, which smiling neighbor or acquaintance knowingly used her political power to return an authoritarian racist to power and cement white supremacy into the nation for at least another generation. It’s like being surrounded by zombies.
So, today and for the foreseeable future, do not be surprised or offended if the Black women you know are disgusted and angry with you and look at you with distrust and fear. Because you may think you understood the assignment, but a tragic and unforgiveable too many of you failed miserably.