These women are protesting Trump’s speech with the ‘State of Our Union’
Tarana Burke, Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Cecile Richards to name a few
Three weekends ago, Tarana Burke, Ai-Jen Poo and Mónica Ramirez accompanied some of Hollywood’s most famous to the Golden Globes. Today, they are capitalizing on that moment with a small-screen event of their own dubbed the “State of Our Union.” Organizers say the protest offers counter-programming to President Trump’s State of the Union address.
At 8 p.m., activists representing #MeToo (Burke, who first made the phrase a rallying cry in 2006), MomsRising, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and others will gather with elected officials to raise the volume on issues important to women in America right now.
Ramirez, co-founder and president of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas says several of the organizers were invited to attend the State of the Union and, though they were grateful for that opportunity, couldn’t bring themselves to go.
“The idea emerged to have an event where we would be in community, where we could lift up and center the voices of women and our vision for the future,” she says.
The State of Our Union is free to attend (as of publication, registration is still open). It will also be livestreamed.
“This is our own form of nonviolent resistance,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wa.) writes on Medium. She will be among the speakers tonight.
“This is a time for crystal clarity and courage. We cannot send mixed messages — to him or to the millions of people he demeans. That is why I will not attend the official State of the Union, and instead will join activists from across the country, women of color and others in holding our own State of Our Union, where we resist this racism and put forward our own progressive vision for our beloved country,” Jayapal says.
Ai-Jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, says there is suffering in many communities right now, and the organizers’ vision is “one that is unifying and not based on fear and resentment, and not zero-sum. We have enough dynamism and creativity and wealth in this country that everyone should be able to succeed.”
From speaking out against sexual assault and for safety for Dreamers, to pay equity, reproductive freedom, workers’ rights, and more—the group has a big to-do list, and are only emboldened by it.
“We want to find both policy solutions and changes in our culture that make sure no woman, and no person, gets left behind in the 21st century. We want to solve these problems not just, you know, spin on the the Twittersphere,” she says.
Mónica Ramirez’s optimism about this monumental task is clear: “I haven’t seen something like this, and it gives me a lot of hope,” she says.
Additional participants include Arisha Hatch of Color of Change, Alicia Garza representing #BlackLivesMatter, and Ledisi performing as the musical guest. The event will start with an hour of women’s stories, including from assault and trafficking survivors, children of DACA recipients, and others painting a picture of their America. The collective will also be releasing new polling data, which Poo says will contradict what we can expect to hear from the president (“that it’s all great and getting better”) and mobilize allies ahead of important elections coming later this year.
In a statement to the press on Monday, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of MomsRising, said:
“Make no mistake: The fight for women’s rights is the fight for our nation’s future.”
Separate from the State of Our Union, plenty of Washington players are reportedly planning to skip the president’s speech tonight. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) told MSNBC’s Katy Tur that he will be boycotting Trump’s State of the Union, after the president reportedly characterized Haiti and several African nations as “shithole countries” in a closed-door meeting earlier this month.
According to The Hill, several members of Congress, especially representatives of the Black Caucus, will uphold the tradition they started by boycotting Trump’s inauguration one year ago.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Politico reports, has other plans tonight.
The activists’ night out isn’t the only counter-programming to Trump’s first State of the Union. On Monday in New York, organizers of the Women’s March hosted The People’s State of the Union, a hopeful event where Andra Day and Common performed their Grammy- and Oscar-nominated song “Stand Up for Something,” for a celebrity-studded crowd of noisy progressives, including Mark Ruffalo, Whoopie Goldberg, Rosie Perez, and Cynthia Nixon.
Actress Alyssa Milano is planning a peaceful resistance of her own, which she’s calling #StateOfTheDream, a video series sharing the dreams of Americans for the country. The clips will go live on Twitter at 9 p.m., just as the speech begins.
“There is a way women are taking responsibility for the future of this country that is incredibly moving powerful and hopeful,” Poo says.
“The women who have never voted who are running for office. The women who believe we should have workplaces and communities where everyone can be safe and live well and have a quality of life: That’s the ‘our’ we are talking about.”
And as for the regularly scheduled programming, Trump is expected to discuss his recent tax overhaul, and to touch on a peaceful-yet-strong national security policy en route to laying out the “framework” for his ideas on immigration, Politico reports.
There’s no telling how many people plan on tuning in, but as Peter Hamby wrote in Vanity Fair on Monday, the tradition has seen a steady decline in viewership for a decade, and the practice “faded long ago into meaningless ritual.”
