Facebook Publication Date: 1/25/2018 3:01

And let me tell you what is the most frustrating part of this debate: just how much time has been wasted that could have been used in moving the needle and insuring flipped districts in ten scant months.

And before anyone fixes their mouths to say differently, that is not on marginalized women. Not one bit.

It rests (literally) on the heads of women steeped in dominant culture supremacy (and yes, woc and other marginalized women who place themselves in adjacency with supremacy can do exactly that).

Are any of you, any of you cognizant of the fact that other women are watching you and making discernments based on your words and actions?

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From the pen of Lace on Race

Predictions and the Aftermath of the March:

As I sit here, contemplating a second wine cooler, scrolling through some of my previous essays, I am realizing a troubling truth.

The fallout, both relational and political, from the 2018 march will be significant. There will have to be some real bridge building between different cohorts of women.

This work, if done well, will take tons of time and effort.

Meanwhile, the midterm elections are a scant 10 months away.

I would invite the women who insisted on making the hat the first, but by no means only, offramp of 2018 (the year is young), to truly meditate on the implications of the last few weeks of debate.

This was a case study in derailment. A case study in missing the point. A case study in individualism–insistence on a transient symbol for one’s own feelings and aggrandizement–over collective good, community building, and the making of true coalitions that would have had a better shot at moving the discussion and praxis that would insure victory in November.

This is why I am not at all convinced that a plurality of white women truly *want* to win in November. As we have seen from the White House, it is easier to bellow than to govern.

Easier to preen than to write policy. Easier to prance than to to door knock. Shouting resistance, secure in the cover of police charged to protect you, and not your sisters whom you passively betrayed by the hat.

You know and I know.

Your hat was, at least a little bit, a symbol of supremacy and power adjacency. It was an identifier–that you were a ‘safe’ marcher, that you wouldn’t go after empire, or structures or institutions.

It was, literally, your ‘get out of jail free’ card, in case shit went down. The cops would pass on the pussy hats to get to the BLM marchers (I know of at least one arrest).

It has never been about the hat. It has always been about hard limits and offramps and who you were and are wiling to leave behind.

And because of this, our collective effectiveness is sorely, if not irredeemably, compromised.

Alliances between groups will be that much harder; those of you who do doorknock and phone bank will find it harder to reach the marginalized people you scorned; women whose voices you ignored (like, well, ahem, mine for one) will think longer and harder about aligning with women who refused to stand with us–women you have shown you needed, as the cohort you disrespected and minimized saved you again and again in 2017.

So don’t dare, don’t you dare sigh heavily and roll your eyes and again disparage women you discarded when they give you side eye.

If we lose 2018 midterms, this will be the ground zero.

Mark it.

And all because of a hat.

And, again, because the laborer is worthy of her hire, even when she makes you frown:

paypal.me/mennolacie

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