Photo by Kevin Banatte/@afroCHuBBZ of Angela Peoples/@MsPeoples at the Women's March.
Here's the thing:
I am black. I am a woman. I am for the rights of black people and for the rights of women. For me, because I have this intersectional identity, the issues I fight for are intersectional as well.
Let me rewind. For me, my awakening came when Michael Brown died. We watched, all of us watched, as his body got cold on the street. We watched as the police walked around him like forgotten trash. Did they even put a sheet over his body? Did they think about his mother watching her son's life seep out into the asphalt?
We watched, that night, and many nights after, as protestors and demonstrators, citizens, took to the streets of Ferguson. We watched them get beaten, pepper-sprayed, maced, arrested. We watched them be disparaged by the media. Called rioters. Face army tanks on residential streets. We watched them be treated like enemies of the state. Citizens, a lot of black bodies, we watched as they were brutalized.
Rinse, repeat. Sandra Bland. Korryn Gaines. Eric Garner. Rekia Boyd. John Crawford. Tamir Rice. Deeniquia Dodds. Walter Scott. The list goes on, and on, and on and on. That list doesn't stop.
And the thing is, black women were at the front lines for all of the marches, protests, gatherings, town halls. Black women were and are the faces of the resistance. Black women are the creators of #BlackLivesMatter. For us, for black women, these are our marches. These are our fights. Our call to arms.
For black people, for black women, Donald Trump is a white man in a long line of white men that will never have our interests at heart. He is not the first openly racist, white nationalist president, nor will he be the last. Maybe it is this perspective that allowed us to see through the veil from the beginning. Maybe it is this perspective that gave 94 percent of black women the will to put aside Hillary Clinton's history with black America and vote for her in the 2016 election.
53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump.
We know these numbers. So, what's the point? Donald Trump denied housing to black people. Donald Trump called for the execution of the Central Park Five. Donald Trump said that Mexico did not send its best, but instead it sent murderers and rapists to America. Donald Trump wants a registry for people who practice Islam. Donald Trump wants to build a wall between America and Mexico. The KKK supports Donald Trump. Neo-nazis support Donald Trump.
Donald Trump said he would grab a woman by the p*ssy, and global marches were spawned. Tens of thousands of white women banded together to fight this incredibly awful, terrible, very bad thing Donald Trump said. On tape! Where everyone could hear it!
Remember how we watched Michael Brown's body lay in the street bleeding? Remember how we watched protestors get gassed and beaten and chased down by white cops in a black city? Remember how we watched native protestors fighting for #NoDAPL get drenched in freezing cold water? How we watched dogs let loose on them? How the police blocked off access so they could not get the resources they needed? On tv! On cellphone cameras! Where everyone could see it! Where everyone could hear it!
Where are these marches? Where are the knitted hats for the trans women of color that get killed with no news coverage? Where are the accommodating transit services for #BlackLivesMatter protests? Where are the welcoming, helpful police for native people fighting for clean water? Where are the singers, and congresswomen and artists standing up for Flint, whose citizens have gone over 1000 days without clean water?
Okay, so, your p*ssy grabs back. Well, so do black women. So do Muslim women. So do Native women, and disabled women, and LGBT women. Women of color grab back. And so do all the women you bypassed on the way to the polls and to the womens' march in DC. The women who have been marginalized before Trump, and who will be marginalized when he is gone. The women who fight for you, even when you do not return the favor.
This black woman grabs back. It's my God-given American right. It's my right as a woman.
