On White Women, Handmaids, and (Maybe) Stepping Up

As we end June 2022 and wind down Pride Month and Juneteenth celebrations, we walk away from a month of tumult with a hazy horizon in front of us. I’ve seen a lot of joy and pride in embracing oneself and celebrating culture and perseverance in the face of hate and oppression.

That joy and pride conflicted with the hard-to-miss fact that the United States is trending toward becoming more dangerous and harmful to most of its citizenry than it already is.

As Roe v. Wade was overturned, as the religious right began its long-gestating power play to obliterate the line between church and state, I’ve seen many white people shocked at what’s happening around them. Many white women are suddenly distraught at the future ahead of us if the citizenry doesn’t collectively stand up and fight for rights and safety. Bodily autonomy is officially on the chopping block, and the future of women’s rights and reproductive health looks a little murky. I’ve seen many white women with tears in their eyes, sharing their stories of needing reproductive health access and saying their eyes are now open. They’re proclaiming they’re ready to stand up and fight on every social media platform they can find. Because I’m human, I can feel for those white women and their fear and anxiety, at least a little bit. But as a Black man in the United States?

They can miss me with their shock.

And they can Matrix miss me with those tears.

In the 2020 election, among White women, according to NBC News, 43 percent supported Biden, and 55 percent supported Trump. There was little meaningful change from 2016 when the same exit poll showed that 43 percent of White women supported Clinton and 52 percent supported Trump. Other significant polling data found the same or similar percentages, give or take a couple of percentage points.

You can miss me with those tears, white women.

More white women are in the U.S. House and Senate than at any point in United States history. They are primarily Republican, and a sizable portion of them are Christian conservatives. Those who are Democrats are mostly moderate or centrist in their voting habits. And most of them have voting records that set the stage for everything we’ve seen over the past week by supporting and enabling white supremacist and oppressive policies, bills, and laws.

On top of all those mentioned above, Black women and Black, Brown, and Indigenous movements have warned white women of the dangers of aligning with white supremacist patriarchal values since before the Women’s suffrage movement. We’ve stressed the need for understanding the intersectional impacts of siding with whiteness and white Christian dogma over the unethical and hateful treatment of women and people with uteruses in the United States.

You can miss me with those tears.

You have nothing to be shocked about, white women. What are you shocked about? That the safety you thought you had by aligning yourself with white patriarchal nonsense doesn’t exist? You thought they were only coming after the “colored women?” You thought these repeals and Supreme Court decisions would skip you as a white woman and oppress everyone else?

That’s a dangerous game to play, white women.

But you already knew that, and many of you played it anyway.

You played the game, lost, and now it’s time to do more than cry. Mourn a little. Mourn the loss of your conscious obliviousness. Feel the weight of the moment. Begin processing the trauma and anxiety of it all.

Then step your asses up to the plate and fight for EVERYONE. Not just for white women. Not just for white people with uteruses.

For ALL people with uteruses.

For ALL women.

Are you going to step up now? Or will you keep comparing the current state of things to the Handmaid’s Tale and posting your personal stories for sympathy while levying microaggressions toward Black women who aren’t coddling you now?

If I shake my Magic 8-Ball, something tells me all signs will point to no.

How about you prove me wrong?