It’s been a minute since a Facebook post got me so fired up I had to rage write a blog post before bed, but here we are.
Someone who I’m not sure how I’m connected to posted a fake Times cover calling Trump America’s greatest president. My feed is typically scrubbed sparkling clean of any pro-Trump activity, so I clicked into it to see if she was serious.
Little did I know I’d just stepped into a steaming pile of bullshit. I read in horror as her friends continued to agree with her about how much good he’d done.
Like failing to implement gun control so kids are safe at school. Like condoning white supremacists and their actions. Like being a known rapist who consistently degrades women.
Reason didn’t matter. These people were part of the Fox News believing, misogynist block, and no appeal to logic or even facts would shake their beliefs.
And what did they all have in common? Naturally, they were all white women. Of course they were. That’s how this works.
Let’s backtrack a second.
A few years ago during the 2016 primaries, I lost almost all of my clients because I came out and took a strong stand against anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-family policies and people. (In case you need a reminder, that’s just a taste of the current reality of what it means to be a conservative in the United States.)
I maxed out my limited credit. My company went belly up, and I let my team go. I started working as a barista again. I am still paying for the choice I made to have a fucking backbone and stop taking the money of white women profiting off of their ability to say absolutely nothing.
Nothing about politics. Nothing about the complexities of their lives beyond #firstworldproblems. Nothing about what they believe beyond a very whitewashed version of Christianity that is pro-capitalist and pro-gun, and it’s just too bad about other people’s kids getting shot because it only happens in public schools.
No. You’d never see anything of substance – just love and light.
The kind of love that thinks it’s okay to rip apart families and keep kids in cages. The kind of light that shines bright on faces who couldn’t care less as long as it doesn’t affect their bottom line. Love that always has a price too high, light like on a stage always playing games to distract you from their more cruel, more sinister purpose.
When white women do nothing, we are harbingers of death.
I shudder to think of the things I’ve accepted, the things that I’ve choked down because I was so convinced it was the only way to survive.
That’s what they what us to think.
That’s how they want us to feel – scared, helpless. Like they only way out is by playing their game by their rules. But the truth is no one gets out. By participating in the system, you’re trapped into giving up a little of your power at a time, sometimes so small you barely notice it being sapped away, and before you know it, they’ve already come for everyone else – and now it’s your turn.
Even with my background. Even being from a family experiencing intergenerational poverty, being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, being a woman, being a sexual assault survivor: I am still so fucking privileged. Because of so many isms, I have been given chances I didn’t deserve over and over again. And for the moment, I can breathe a little.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen exactly how easy it is to just stay quiet, look pretty, and get my way. The longer and blonder my hair gets, the more I look like a version of myself that society says is preferable, the more yeses I get.
But I will never, ever forget what it felt like to be an outsider.
I will never forget how many people helped me along the way. And I will never renege on my moral obligation, my personal responsibility, and my duty as a human and a patriot to help others find a way out of the system and into stability.
Starting today, I’m implementing a firm policy: If I find out I’ve taken money from someone who supports Trump or his policies, I’ll donate the amount directly to the ACLU or Together Rising. Someone has to stop him, and throwing as much legal red tape at his nonsense as possible is one way.
(If this resonates with you, and you’d like to have a brand with a backbone, I’ll be running a week long free challenge called Braver Than Before starting on July 29th. Click here to join the waitlist.)