A Letter To White Women About The Election
Dear White Women,
First, let me say that I love you. This is going to be a rather harsh critique, but I think it’s something that needs to be written.
We had this election in our hands. It’s become clear now that demographics have been released, who handed this election to Donald Trump, and it was us. It was white women who decided to side with their white men instead of other groups that also experience forms of oppression. It was white women that decided to vote not only against THEIR best interest, but the best interest of many others who’s livelihoods are now at stake. It was white women who lived in the shadows, in silent support of Hillary, unwilling to use their influence to change the minds of people around them.
White women took a chance on Trump because as white people we have the privilege to do so. Yes, there is a war on women, but there is an even bigger war on women of color. Yes, we experience sexism and sexual harassment, but women of color experience that on a horrifyingly large level.
Let me be clear about something: I’m not just talking to white women who voted Trump. I’m talking to white women who didn’t stand up to their bfs/husbands/dads who supported Donald trump because the conflict was too messy.
I’m talking to white women who didn’t think supporting Hillary was cool, so they didn’t vocalize that support. I’m talking to white women who, although actively and vehemently supporting Hillary Clinton didn’t use their influence as white women to enter circles of other white women, who were trying to deal with their own internalized oppression, to have real conversations with those planning to vote for Trump.
I’m not surprised people came out of the wood work, and I’m also not surprised that 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump.
I’m not surprised because even the white women who weren’t voting for him were quiet in the spaces that mattered most and loudest in the spaces that didn’t.
White women, I know you mean well. I know what you want is what’s best for your family, for your friends, and for you. I know standing up to your angry white husband maybe just didn’t feel worth it to you 2 weeks ago, but things have changed now.
The election was in our hands from the start, we decided what to do with it, and this is the decision that we made.
We have so much influence on our society, in the white spaces and pockets that live and thrive without exposure.
Without exposure to new ideas, exposure to new people, exposure to the future.
White people have controlled our society since we built it on the backs of minorities. And every year, month, day, we rely on those minorities to make us better, to push us forward, to be the bigger people. But not today, white women. Today we take responsibility for what we’ve done. Today we will stand up with the people that are not only oppressed but we have actively, through our history of white feminism, worked to keep oppressed. White women, we are ready. We are ready to take our influence to drive change. We are ready to speak up, to be loud, to take up space when it’s hardest, when it matters most, when we’re outside of our own echo chamber. We will not only stand with the people who are oppressed, but we will amplify them.
This is not our time to be on the front lines, it’s our time to be in the back, doing the less glamorous work, having the hard conversations with other white people, creating change by slowly changing the minds of other white men and women around us.
We held the power of this election in our hands. And now it’s time to clean up our own mess. But I have full faith in us to step up to that challenge.
Sincerely,
A White Woman
