On Women's History Month, International Women's Day, and the Perils of White Women

It's International Women's Day today, and March is Women's History Month in the United States. While so many women have influenced me and how I view, approach, and navigate the world, from my mother in my formative years to women I am happy to call friends, chosen family, and long-time colleagues; I must admit that all of my gratitude for those women comes with a side-eye to white women.

They are the most dangerous people in my chosen profession.

They have placed me in more dangerous situations than any other group.

They have threatened my livelihood and earning potential on multiple occasions.

So it makes it hard for me and many other melanated folx to celebrate all women as deeply as we could when the specter of whiteness and the power and positionality of white women is under the surface of celebrating progress and perseverance.

Yes, it's International Women's Day, and this month is Women's History Month in the United States. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be honest about our world and how white women impact that world. If you live in western culture and have decided to be remotely observant, you've seen firsthand how white women are placed at the forefront of women's history, like they are the only entity that has fought for earning and maintaining women's rights. But then you look at how white women vote, who they collectively posit as their "oppressors," and how they have exploited and benefited from the work and energy of melanated communities in similar and sometimes more harmful ways than white men. And that sh-- hits different. Like, women as a whole have to constantly fight for the right to exist in this world, in the United States, but I've seen so many of those fights for rights, equity, and equality be uphill battles against the opinions, power, and positionality wielded by white women.

Look, I'm not trying to be divisive or disrespect women. I am from a family of women who've persevered despite the constant harm of our world. Talking about this will likely find me dealing with a whole mess of Karen-energy emails and DMs. But real talk? I call it as I see it. And besides, I'm gonna delete your emails, so save that energy for doing better.

We should all be able and willing to celebrate, fight alongside, support, and stand with all women. But to make an already hard battle a little easier, we need white women to step it up beyond lip service and evolve away from their white supremacist ideologies.

Y'all are the roadblock for all women, white women.

It's time to start clearing the road.

P.S.: Before some of y'all chime in with the "your wife is white" comments: yes, I know. I'm aware of the fact that my wife is white. I'm also mindful of how she atones for her whiteness and consistently shows up in spaces to support Black women, melanated women, and all women with the privilege she has while taking in feedback and checking herself. We wouldn't be together if she didn't, so find a new talking point to diminish the truth.

Monday's Opening Thought: March 21, 2022

This week's opening thought: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the CROWN Act on Friday. The CROWN Act is a bill that provides federal protection against hair discrimination with a primary focus of combating racial discrimination against Black citizens for hairstyles like braids, cornrows, and locs in federally assisted programs, housing programs, public accommodations, and employment.

The bill was passed along mostly Democratic Party lines 235-189.

Mostly Democratic. Mostly. House Republicans were practically unanimous in their nay vote. House Democrats, part of the party that swears it cares about Black lives while doing performative things like wearing kente cloth and saying horrible things like thanking George Floyd for "sacrificing himself for justice," were not all on board with getting this passed.

Another version of the CROWN Act was previously introduced in Congress and subsequently passed in the U.S. House but has failed to be passed in the U.S. Senate. This one may likely face the same hurdles.

While hair discrimination affects the majority of Black and Brown folx in the United States, Black women and femmes are the most affected when it comes to employment, social service access, and federal assistance.

What does this all mean?

Even when this country doesn't say it out loud, it says "Black women don't matter" loud and clear.

You don't even have to listen that hard to hear it.

On Hot-Takes, Work Ethic, and Wealthy Reality TV "Stars"

If you're a person of privilege who scolds those who don't have the privilege that you have about what you perceive to be their work ethic?

You're legitimately out of touch with what 99% of people in the United States deal with every day.

If you're a multiracial woman with white privilege who has always had it easier than others due to your father's notoriety, family money, and your willingness to put every aspect of your life on television in return for celebrity and cash?

It would be best if you weren't sharing any hot takes about what you perceive as the work ethic of 99% of U.S. Americans.

And if your business advice to women who are starting or looking to start new chapters in their lives and be entrepreneurs is to "get their f---ing asses up and work," followed by "it seems like nobody wants to work these days"?

You're a tool. An insensitive, disconnected, patriarchal, elitist, classist tool. And you're another hurdle, another obstacle in the way of women in the United States having opportunity and equity.

I think it's time for entertainment media to stop interviewing wealthy reality TV stars whose only exposure to the 99% of us who don't have their wealth and privilege is their maid or nanny.

Monday's Opening Thought: March 7, 2022

Image description: Three images of women at protests across the United States, holding protest signs. From left to right: a white woman holding a sign that says "Our lives are on the line"; a Black woman holding a sign that says "We are stronger together"; an illustrated protest sign with a Black woman, her daughter on her shoulders holding a sign that says "Our feminist future." The mother and her daughter are flanked by a Brown woman and a white woman holding up signs that say "Power to the Polls" and "Tax the Rich."

This week's opening thought: This month is Women's History Month in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Tomorrow, March 8, is International Women's Day. We should all celebrate the impacts, achievements, and the drive and determination of the women in our lives and the women throughout western and world history. They have made our world the rich and lush tapestry of art, ingenuity, passion, empathy, resiliency, and strength that shape our lives.

But then we should all take the words resiliency and strength out back and put them out of their misery so that they never pose harm to another woman ever again.

And when I say "another woman," I mean ALL WOMEN. Don't @ me.

Women have to be resilient and strong because societal cultures are built on patriarchal hate and oppression.

Women have to be resilient and strong because we live in a society that thinks the Weinsteins, Cosbys, R. Kellys, Kanyes, Epsteins, and Trumps of our world should be given the benefit of the doubt when they harm women.

Women have to be resilient and strong because we live in a patriarchal culture that pushes the narrative that it's somehow a woman's fault if they are sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, fetishized, or objectified.

Women have to be resilient and strong because we live in a world that views women as secondary and tertiary citizens undeserving of rights and autonomy over their lives, choices, and bodies.

Women have to be resilient and strong to live, to survive. There is no choice for most women to be anything other than strong or resilient because the patriarchy only offers two options: assimilate and be docile or be harmed until you assimilate and become docile.

Resilient and strong are what women have to be to make their own choices in a world that offers them none.

We need to collectively work toward a world where resilience and strength can be viewed as positive acknowledgments of women's achievements and power and not definitions that box women in from being their whole selves. And the only way to work toward that is to dismantle the patriarchy and build something better.

And that work is not just "women’s work.”