What’s good? WE’RE STILL PISSED ABOUT THE ELECTION EDITION
11/17/2016
We’re back! And guess what?
I’m still pissed off about the election.
I’m very good holding grudges. I was icy to a college dorm-mate for an entire semester because she wouldn’t shut up while I was trying to watch a Top Model finale. So, yeah, I’ll probably have a lot to say about the election for a very long time and from the looks of Medium, a lot of y’all are in the same boat.
Here’s a round up of the best Medium writing about the election from Black women.
Ozzy Etomi reminds Black women not to lose our collective shine in light of a Trump White House:
Let us talk about how 94% of our black women stood behind the first potential female president and did our best to play our part to push America on the right side of history. Let us talk about how we were reminded once again that some white women will choose the protection of their whiteness over the solidarity of womanhood. Let us talk about how we were willing to fight for a candidate who we were not entirely sure would fight for us, as opposed to a candidate that made it clear he would not, and how that did not matter to our fellow womankind.
Let us talk about how we are exempt from the fight of “white” feminism; how our issues and concerns are ignored and sidelined. How we have been historically left out in the battle of gender equality, and how we do not share the same privileges as women of other races;But, let us also talk about our tendency to include, even when we are almost always excluded. Let us talk about our willingness to participate; to show up and show out and be a part of a conversation when our voices are not welcome. Let us talk about how we continuously stand with those who do not stand with us.
Sara Haile-Mariam addresses the fact that 53% of white women voted for Trump and what that means about feminism:
Donald Trump won the Presidency with the support of 53% of the white women who voted. I’m not entirely surprised that this happened.
Over the last several years, I’ve spent some time in online spaces for women many specifically for feminist women. I learned to lurk because it quickly became clear that issues that pertained to women of color weren’t inherently women’s issues in the eyes of the white women who spoke most frequently and fervently. I learned to lurk because it quickly became clear that communities of women supporting women were premised on the unspoken assumption that the women of color in those groups would protect the comfort, and defer, to the white women present. I learned to lurk because I was afraid — I’m still learning to choose awkwardly confrontational over quietly uncomfortable when those are my only options.
Shannon Barber says Black women have been warning white people about racism since always and they didn’t listen until it was too late:
We have been warning you. I personally have been doing this work in one way or another for more than half of my life. When Martin Luther King Jr, whom a lot of y’all are quoting AGAIN out of context and without thought, blocked traffic and caused delays and his people got assaulted, we told you. When the Little Rock Nine brought their city to a stop just going to school we told you.
When Emmett Till was beaten to death and hung, we told you.
When Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit, we sang it to you.
When your fave suffragettes called for our death, we told you.
When we had to fight and go to war to simply not be chattel, we told you.
When we survived post Confederacy racism, we told you.
When we survived Jim Crow, we told you.
When we send our most educated, most acceptable to Whiteness people to the government we are telling you.
When we have to watch on Facebook live, our own be murdered we are telling you.
You didn’t listen.
Ezinne Ukoha talks Black women, Trump, and the mayor who was fired for called Michelle Obama “an ape in heels.”
America was always a cesspool of grossness and Black women have always been the most prized station at the shooting range. The idea that our current First Lady is ape-like in her presentation — compared to the more finessed future First Lady who spent her best years being tucked under a disgustingly vile version of a human being — is a ridiculous concept.
But, so very American.
Comparing women of color to ravenous animals that scour the earth in search of ways to survive while they conquer the attacks of foreign objects that are also domestically inclined — is quite accurate.
We are apes. And we wear our heels as high as the Afros that none of you can steal from us — no matter how hard you try — in private.
Your First Lady is an Americanized starlet who sold herself to a dream that became a nightmare long before you peeped her.
