Black Lives Matter 101 for white people

The following is an email I wrote to my (white) extended family and friends in July 2016. Unfortunately, the points I made nearly a year ago are still far too relevant. 

By now you have all heard of two incidents in as many days in which black men (Alton Sterling and Philando Castile) were fatally shot by police officers.  Yet Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are only the latest in a long line of black men, women, and children who were killed by police officers.  Tamir Rice. Sandra Bland. Eric Garner. Alexia Christian. Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin. Mya Hall.  Freddie Gray. Meagan Hockaday. And so many more.

In the cases of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, horribly graphic videos have surfaced.  These include multiple videos of the incident in which Alton Sterling was tackled, pinned to the ground, and shot at close range, as well as one video of the aftermath of the shooting of Philando Castile in his car, in which his girlfriend narrates what happened, watches him die, and is arrested along with her four-year old daughter.  I am not going to link to those videos here.  They are brutal and graphic and to watch them solely for the purpose of emotional reaction is voyeuristic and disrespectful to the victims.  That said, if you need to see them in order to believe what happened, then by all means go watch them.  The videos won’t be hard to find; they’re everywhere. Find them. Watch them. Understand.

 

Because we as white people need to understand what is happening. Our police officers are killing black people and this trend is not going away.
A study reveals that in 2015, police killed at least 346 black people in the United States.  (Click on “About the Data” at the top of the page to find detailed descriptions of their sources and how they defined their terms.)  From January 2013 to April 2016, police officers killed between 12 and 43 black people each month. Black people were three times more likely to be killed by police officers than white people were.  30% of black victims were unarmed, compared to 19% of white victims.  Importantly: when data was analyzed by city, numbers of black people killed by police officers showed no correlation to rates of violent crime.

 

So, the “Ferguson effect” (in which police killings are supposedly linked to increases in crime) is demonstrably false.
According to another study, police fatally shoot black civilians most frequently in cities where the black and white populations are close to equal but the police forces are primarily white.  By contrast, in cities where racial diversity in the police force accurately represents civilian demographics, these incidents are significantly less common. These factors influenced what the researchers labeled “(perceived) group threat.” Parentheses are theirs.
Perceived group threat.  Police in certain cities – in which black people are residents but not police officers – are considering black civilians to be a collective threat.  As a result, police in these cities are killing black civilians in greater numbers.  I should note again, these killings are not correlated with rates of violent crime.  Need more proof?  A writer for the Washington Post summarizes this finding from the FBI:

 

“In 2014, the suspects were black in only about 15 percent of homicides in which the victim was white, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Yet in cities where more such crimes were committed, killings of black civilians by police were also more common – although less so in cities where the make-up of the police force was similar to the population’s.

By contrast, there appeared to be no connection between killing of black civilians by police and the rates of homicides involving black suspects and black victims.

Uncomfortable yet?  There’s more.

 

A study conducted in November 2015 revealed “evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans” from 2011-2014. Specifically, “the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average.”  This racial bias was found to vary significantly by county, “with some counties showing relative risk ratios of 20 to 1 or more.”  This relative risk was greatest in large cities with “low median incomes, large populations of black residents, and significant income inequality.”  Again: “There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates) meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.” (Emphasis mine.)
With that out of the way, we need to talk some more about Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
By now you know the stories: Alton Sterling was selling CDs outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge when he was shot in the chest and back by a Louisiana Police Officer.  Philando Castile was pulled over for a broken tail light and then fatally shot – with his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter in the car to witness the whole thing.
Maybe you’ve witnessed the heartbroken friends and family: videos of Sterling’s 15-year-old son breaking down on national television, Castile’s mother reporting that she was not allowed to identify his body and she did not know where his girlfriend – who had livestreamed the aftermath of the shooting, including her own arrest – was (she was not released from police custody until the next morning).  I’m not linking to those videos here.  Again, it’s voyeuristic to watch them simply for the emotional reaction; again, if you need to see them to believe them, you can find them easily.
The anger and grief and shock that these people are experiencing cannot be understated and should not be ignored by anyone with a modicum of compassion. These people are furious, I’m furious, and you should be too.  If you’re not, it’s long past time to start asking yourself why.
We’ve already started to learn about the backgrounds of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.  Alton Sterling has a mugshot and a criminal history. As Justin Cohen says in his article:

“…the media will outline the various ways in which the victim behaved inappropriately in the past.  None of this matters, and it certainly does not change the fact that the police killed the person outside of any legal process. I smoked pot when I was in high school, for example, and if the police used that as justification to murder me, that would be ludicrous.”

Whatever you want to say about Alton Sterling’s criminal history, it has nothing to do with the specific incident in which he was shot and killed by police. Using his criminal history to justify not feeling bad about his death implies that he deserved to die because of his past crimes.  That is not usually our intention when we refer to these criminal backgrounds, but we use excuses to make ourselves “feel better” about what happened, and the implication is the same.  This is not okay.
Tom Winter of NBC News has already pointed out, via Twitter, that Philando Castile had been pulled over by police 31 times since 2002 for traffic violations. Think about this one for a moment.  Traffic violations. If you are going to argue that traffic violations – even a high volume of them – can ever justify killing someone, then it is definitely time to stop and think.  Examine where that comes from.  Ask yourself if you would feel that way about a white victim with a similar traffic record, and be honest about your answer.
We as white people can ignore racial injustice because it doesn’t directly affect us.  If I’m pulled over for speeding, I do not worry that I’m going to be shot.  Nor does police violence feel like a particular danger to me when I’m walking down the street.  If I want to, I can ignore what’s happening to black people in our country because it doesn’t impact my life.  Meanwhile, acknowledging it – understanding that the institution which is supposed to serve and protect me is committing constant system-wide injustice against people whose skin is different from mine – is deeply uncomfortable.
I am not suggesting that white people honestly believe that a black person deserves to die because he (or she) is frequently pulled over for speeding.  I’m saying that we frequently use whatever excuses we can to justify these deaths.  Michael Brown was “a thug,” Sandra Bland shouldn’t have talked back, and Tamir Rice should not have been allowed alone in public with a BB gun.  We are smarter than this, and I sincerely hope we have more empathy and compassion than this, but thinking critically about these situations reveals truths that are deeply unsettling.  If this system has been so biased for so long, who are we for allowing that to happen?  Who are we for being complicit with and benefitting from a system that disproportionately kills people based on race?
The answer is uncomfortable, and on some level I understand why we want to avoid it.  But this is happening, and it will keep happening if we don’t allow ourselves to be uncomfortable with it.  After admitting to ourselves what is truly going on, we will feel guilt, rage, grief, shame.  We’ll feel uncomfortable, unsettled, less secure in our country.  We may feel frustrated and helpless.  All of that is okay.  If we don’t let ourselves feel these things, our system will never change.  We will continue to be complicit, and these deaths will keep happening.

 Philando Castile spent 10+ years working for St. Paul Public Schools, the most recent two years as a supervisor in their cafeteria.  One coworker is quoted in this article as saying:

“Kids loved him. He was smart, over qualified. He was quiet, respectful, and kind. I knew him as warm and funny; he called me his ‘wing man.’ He wore a shirt and tie to his supervisor interview and said his goal was to one day ‘sit on the other side of this table.”

He’s gone now.  His students, the ones who are old enough to understand, are mourning.  A four year old black girl learned firsthand that this is what police officers do to black men.  Friends and family and coworkers are grieving just as friends and family and witnesses are grieving for Alton Sterling. They are shouting that enough is enough.  As white people, it is long past time for us to listen.

Don’t just take my word for it.  Read, watch, educate yourself in whatever way you can.  Open your eyes to what’s happening and understand.  As white people, we have a choice to look the other way, and as long as we keep making that choice, the racism in our system will not change. Black people – men, women, adults, children, LGBTQ+, straight – will continue to be killed by the system that is supposed to afford them the same protections that it affords us.
Another email I wrote, to the same group, a few days later.  The first part is a response to comments about the Dallas Police shootings that took place shortly after Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were killed.
The Dallas Police shooting is also an important story and definitely needs to be included in the conversation.  We need to condemn these attacks and feel sorrow and compassion for the families and friends of Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarippa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, and Lorne Ahrens just as we feel for the family and friends of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.  We are human. We have space to mourn all of them and condemn violence in all its forms.

That said, we need to be very careful that we do not allow our outrage and grief at the Dallas shootings to overshadow our reaction to police brutality against black people across the country.  Obviously, the Dallas Police were not involved in the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling any more than those two men were involved in incidents of black people killing cops.  As I said, we have space to be angry for both, and we should not attempt to diminish or simplify our anger by using one tragic incident to justify another.

 

The difference is that people who kill police officers are severely punished, while historically the reverse has not been true.  This should not affect our emotional response to the tragedy of either situation, but it should color our desire to get involved in the outcome.  If nothing else, the violence of this past week shows us that this cycle will keep happening unless something drastically changes.
Another point I want to address: the conversation about Philando Castile’s traffic record is relevant outside of the context of his shooting, because black drivers are pulled over far more frequently than white drivers.  Even something as silly and innocent as playing the game Pokemon Go is more dangerous for black people or other people of color.  So while Philando Castile’s laundry list of traffic violations has no place in discussions about his death, it does need to be included in the conversation about injustices that black people face every day in America.  All of it needs to be addressed if we want to see change.
This is still relevant.  In a recent entry, I suggested some ideas for fighting oppression and injustice in a post-Trump America. I won’t repost them all here, but I will include this one: the homepage of Black Lives Matter movement, which outlines their mission and aims.  Read about BLM directly from the women who started it instead of the myriad of politicians who are framing them in different ways to suit their own agendas.

In conclusion, as I stated in my original email to my family:

 

Think. Listen. Acknowledge. Be uncomfortable.  Maybe then we can find a way to put an end to this.

 

Books by people of color: A rec list

In early 2016 I realized that the overwhelming majority of books I had read were written by white authors. It was one of those “duh” moments that formulated my privileged-white-person-becoming-aware-of-pervasive-systemic-racism process.  To some extent, I blame American public schools, the media, and the publishing industry, but the bottom line is that I had neglected to examine all of the ways that white supremacy has seeped into the cracks and seams of my life.  So, I made a resolution to only read books by authors of color for a year.

I highly recommend that other white readers do this: if not a full year of avoiding white authors, then a close examination of the diversity of the authors you’ve read and conscious effort to expand it.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: listening to people of color has never been more important than it is now.

I’ve created a list of some of my favorites.  I did my best to include a variety of genres, but there are definite trends.

Feel free to add your recs if you have any!

Nonfiction – Essays

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

This is a collection of thoughtful, well-written, and occasionally hilarious essays on gender, race, sexuality, body type, higher education, and Scrabble. Anything by Roxane Gay is worth a read (I’m currently reading Difficult Women, which I love so far), and this award-winning bestseller is a fantastic place to start.

Ijeoma Oluo’s articles

Okay, you caught me. Two items on this list aren’t physical books. To my knowledge, Oluo hasn’t published anything off the internet (except for the Badass Feminist Coloring Book, which I discovered while researching her and will be placing on my wish list right…now.) Nonetheless, her writing is too important to exclude, especially now.  I specifically recommend “Welcome to the Anti-Racism Movement” and “When a Woman Deletes a Man’s Comment Online.”

Nonfiction – History

God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis

This one was obviously written for people who either read about history for a living or want to read about history for a living. I am not one of those people. Still, it was worth pushing through the dense material in order to see a perspective on Medieval Europe that we never got in my overwhelmingly-white American public school.

Nonfiction – Memoir

The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin

Staceyann Chin, a lesbian speaker and activist from Jamaica, describes her childhood, biracial identity, adolescence, coming-out, and emigration to the United States.  Her story is emotional, charming, and powerful, and the audiobook – which she narrates – absolutely blew me away.

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

This memoir was published long before Obama ran for president, and it beautifully outlines the way that his biracial identity and early activism uncovered complex issues about American race relations.

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith

I think, at a minimum, every American needs to read or listen to this book. Smith uses his life experience to illustrate hard and complicated truths, not just about the experience of black men in America but also the experiences of women, LGBTQ+ people, people with mental illness, and people with multiple marginalizing identities. There’s an audiobook narrated by actor Kevin R. Free, and it is phenomenal.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

A lawyer in Alabama who started a non-profit organization to provide legal counsel for Death Row prisoners – among a myriad of other things – Stevenson uses tragic and horrifying case examples to highlight the cruelty and racism in the American criminal justice system. This is another book that all Americans – especially white Americans and/or people who feel complacent with our justice system – need to read or listen to. (Stevenson reads the audiobook.)

Fiction – Non-speculative

Trumpet by Jackie Kay

A famous jazz musician dies, and his death reveals to the world that he was transgender in an age when trans* issues were even more poorly-understood than they are today. The book uses alternating points of view between between the late musician’s wife, adult son, and people with varying degrees of involvement in his life in order to weave a tragic and heartwarming story.

Burnt Shadows by Kamala Shamsie

I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Kamala Shamsie (see also: In the City by the Sea, Kartography), but this one is my favorite. It follows a survivor of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki as she transitions from houseguest in a British home in Delhi, to refugee in Pakistan, to wife and mother in Karachi, to elderly woman watching New York City struggling to recover after 9/11.  There is love and tragedy and destruction and the sense that everything is endless and cyclical.

(Kamala Shamsie is my former creative writing professor, which is how I found out about her. I wish she were better-known because she is a fantastic writer with important things to say, especially about politics in the Middle East and the USA.)

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

Tragic and complex and layered, this series of interconnected anecdotes centers on two Native American families living on a reservation in North Dakota.  The book meanders between time period and point-of-view as aimlessly as many of its characters wander through life.  Several of Erdich’s other books are on my to-read list.

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a good one for people who like unreliable narrators and hazy, ambiguous non-solutions to mysteries (I’m told that many of Ishiguro’s books are like that, so check him out if that’s your thing).  Slightly creepy, it’s a beautifully written study of mothers and daughters in post-WWII Japan and beyond.

Guapa by Saleem Haddad

A man in an unnamed Arab country narrates the 24 hours of his life after his grandmother discovers him and his boyfriend in bed together.  As he attempts – and fails – to go about a normal day, we see commentary on politics, society (Arab and Western), marginalization, and family secrets, all through the eyes of a traumatized man trying to redefine himself in a world that consistently fails to understand him.

Fiction – Spectulative (Sci Fi/Fantasy/Magical Realism)

Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler

Anything by Octavia Butler is necessary reading (I read and loved Kindred, and the rest of her books are on my to-read list). She was woke before most white people knew woke was a thing, and she used sci fi/fantasy to illuminate difficult truths about racism, sexism, and classism in America. These two books, about a new religion fighting to emerge in a harsh, dystopian America, are beautiful, tragic, and surprisingly prophetic.  The second book in particular has some frightening parallels to our current political environment.

The Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

The first two books in what is so far an incomplete series, these novels represent epic fantasy at its finest.  My words can’t do them justice, except to say that Jemisin 110% deserved the Hugo award she earned for the first book.  She is another author with several books on my “to-read” list. The audio books, read by Robin Miles, are also mind-blowingly good.

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

Most people know Amy Tan from The Joy Luck Club, though I actually enjoyed this one more. This book fits the “magical realism” genre because the narrator is speaking to us not long after her tragic and sudden death, describing a group tour through China and Myanmar that goes horribly wrong in part because she isn’t alive to lead it. The Bonesetter’s Daughter is also a good real-world-fantasy book.

Infomacracy by Malka Older

In the somewhat-distant future, our political, social, corporate, and globalization systems will have undergone some massive changes. Two parts political thriller, one part biting social commentary, this book (the first in a yet-incomplete series) holds up a funhouse mirror to politics, capitalism, and the information age, showing us a caricature of where we could be headed.

Fiction – Young Adult

Akata Witch by Neddi Okorafor

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the Harry Potter series. There is magic, detailed world-building, compelling friendships, and an emphasis on standing up for what you believe in, even when it’s hard, even when it’s terrifying, and even when you have virtually no idea what you’re doing.  (I also enjoyed Lagoon and Binti.)

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Think Diary of a Wimpy Kid only far more profound and compelling, with an added focus on disability, segregation, poverty, death, and injustice to Indigenous people. At the same time, it somehow manages to be uplifting and occasionally hilarious. I fell head-over-heels for the protagonist and was genuinely upset when the story ended.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Another disabled-underdog protagonist with a sharp voice and compelling fish-out-of-water story; simply subtract the illustrations and add alternating points-of-view to create a more comprehensive look at this character’s life.

(If you liked one of the above two books, chances are good that you’ll like the other. Obviously, I highly recommend both.)

Shadowshaper by Daniel Older

This urban fantasy condemns police brutality, white supremacy, cultural appropriation, and gentrification. The magic is fascinating, the world-building complex, the story twisting and mysterious.  The audiobook, narrated by Anika Noni Rose, is phenomenal to the point where I would almost recommend that over the written version.  Her performance adds life and depth to the characters, sweeping you along with every step of the plot.

If You Could be Mine by Sarah Farzian

A teenage girl in Iran is in love with her (female) best friend, in a country where being gay is a crime but being transgender is not. This book uses the forbidden-queer-teenage-love story (see also: Finlater by Shawn Stewart Ruff) to explore issues of sexuality and gender identity in a way that is thoughtful, sad, and surprisingly uplifting at the same time.

Short Stories

Happiness, Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta

A series of moving and beautifully written short stories about Nigerian women of different ages, classes, and sexualities.  I also enjoyed Under the Udala Trees, which is a full-length novel about a gay woman growing up in 60s/70s Nigeria.

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

Yet another fantastic author who has produced a bunch of excellent works, Baldwin is particularly focused on the intersection between the black male identity and the queer identity in America.

Karma and Other Stories by Rishi Reddi

I actually read this series of somewhat-interconnected stories a few years ago. Each story depicts Indian American culture in a different way, presenting the different struggles, losses, and successes that Indian people of multiple generations face in America.

The Water that Falls on You from Nowhere by John Chu

This one is actually a single short story, rather than a collection.  It’s available to read for free here at Tor.com, so I’ll let the story speak for itself. Check it out!

Honorable mentions: 

(books and authors I enjoyed but didn’t include because I had to cap this list somewhere)

Nonfiction: A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Non-speculative Fiction: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Speculative Fiction: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord, The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino,  The Between by Tananarive Due.

Young Adult: Waters Between by Joseph Bruchac, Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova.

Short Stories: Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan, The Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Other authors to check out: Isabel Allende, John Chu, Toni Morrison, Gene Luen Yang, Malinda Lo, Salman Rushdie.

Authors I haven’t read but I’ve heard good things about from multiple and/or reliable sources: Shamim Sarif, Audre Lourde, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Junot Diaz, Nalo Hopkinson, Gabby Rivera, Zadie Smith, Manil Suri.

SUGGESTIONS FROM OTHER PEOPLE AFTER I POSTED THIS:

• Birth of a Dark Nation by Rashid Darden
• The Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
• This comprehensive list of Science Fiction by black authors

Beyond the Women’s March: A PSA for fellow white people

Between 2014 and 2016, I attended several protests and rallies in Boston responding to the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and the non-indictments of the officers who had killed them.  Although I didn’t keep a diligent count of the demographics, it did not escape my attention that visibly fewer than half of attendees were white, more than half of white attendees were women, and more than half of white people at these events presented as queer in an obvious way.

So it seems that, despite their abundance, cisgender, heterosexual, white people – especially men – are a rarity at Black Lives Matter events in Boston.

But the few cis-het white men who did show up? Wow, did they enjoy leading chants.

In the proximity of a cis-het white man, we rarely if ever experienced more than a few seconds of relative quiet without him bellowing a chant and expecting the crowd to follow along.  Cis-het white women were similar.  Often, chants initiated by white people would interrupt and ultimately drown out a chant led by people of color.

This is a problem.

It’s a problem that we white people didn’t show up when the Black Lives Matter movement needed us, and it’s a problem that those of us who did felt that our voices needed to be heard more than others.

Why?  First: Black Lives Matter exists because white people have systemically ignored black voices for a very long time. We do nothing to help the cause if we show up only to speak over them yet again.

Second: chants led by people of color were different from chants led by white people.  White people raged against racist police; people of color decried white supremacy and a corrupt system. That difference matters.

Then there were the white people who happily joined or started chants that we have no business shouting, such as “I can’t breathe” (yes we can – we aren’t the ones that systemic racism is oppressing) or “Whose streets? Our streets!” (Yes, they are our streets. That’s the problem!).

All this to say, the few cis-het white people who do show up for Black Lives Matter consistently fail to listen to the voices we are trying to support. 

Which brings me to the the Women’s March.

Anyone who hasn’t avoided the news for the past several weeks has likely heard about the overwhelmingly-well-attended Women’s Marches around the world on January 21st.  News sources disagree on how many people attended, but minimal estimates count millions of people at marches in all 50 US states, at least 60 countries and all seven continents. Everyone except Sean Spicer seems to agree that the D.C. Women’s March alone was better-attended than Trump’s inauguration.

This fact on its own is fantastic. My girlfriend and I attended the Boston march with some friends and the experience was powerful and moving.

Unfortunately, after the march I heard and read too many stories about black women, indigenous women, Muslim women, disabled women, and trans* people being ignored or outright disrespected by well-meaning white marchers. So there’s a few issues that we white people need to address before we become too complacent about our role in improving the world.

First:

Congratulating ourselves on organizing a protest that resulted in zero arrests. 

Again, this is an objectively good thing.  Peaceful protests are meant to be exactly that, and the fact that organizers managed to keep all events free of rioting or aggression is a feat to be commended.

That said, we as white people can’t take all the credit for this.  In the days following the march, I witnessed a trend of self-congratulatory posts gradually evolving into white people wondering why, if we managed it, the BLM and No DAPL protestors couldn’t avoid violence.  Why couldn’t they just do what we did?

This is where white people need to stop and check our privilege.

At every BLM protest in Boston, I saw long lines of mostly-white-cis-het-men police officers standing shoulder-to-shoulder, staring straight ahead with blank expressions, occasionally resting their hands on their guns.  Full riot gear was rare in Boston, but I did see it from time to time. As instructed by march organizers, we ignored the police and kept to our route, but the tension was palpable.

At the Women’s March, the atmosphere was completely different. Police officers still lined the route, but they were visibly more relaxed than any of the officers I saw at BLM events.  Many of the officers at the Women’s March were smiling. Some made eye-contact with people in the crowd and nodded. One or two even cheered.  I didn’t personally witness this, but there are videos of police high-fiving marchers in other cities.  I saw no riot gear in Boston. No officer’s hand was anywhere near a gun.

It is unfair for white people to claim credit for the difference in police response to the Women’s March.  Many of the marches changed their routes at the last minute (which they are not supposed to do), and at Boston alone I saw tons of people ignoring requests that the police had made before the march: holding signs with wooden pickets, wearing backpacks, and carrying bags that were not at all transparent.  Meanwhile, BLM marches in Boston showed zero threat of violence on the part of the marchers, no weapons, and no engagement with the police.  Like the Women’s March, BLM events had volunteers specifically present to make sure that attendees followed all of the rules.

In short: the palpable difference in how the police treated us had nothing to do with attendees’ behavior.

Police felt more comfortable with the Women’s Marches because they consisted primarily of cisgender-heterosexual-white women. People of color and LGBTQ+ people were present, yes, but cis-het white women were the clear majority, and this prevalence put the police at ease.  White women are not a threat.  White women are “on their side.” Events consisting primarily of people of color marching for their lives feel more threatening to the police, and as a result they are treated differently.

So think twice before you say something smug, comparing the Women’s March to the BLM or NoDAPL movements. Acknowledge your privilege and the role that it played. Sit with that. Process it. Feel uncomfortable with it.

Then use your privilege for good.

How do we do that? The obvious answer is to attend more events supporting people of color. I have frequently seen or heard people of color asking: “Where were all of you when we marched for Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown…(etc)?”

In general, we weren’t there, but we can change that. We can attend protests and rallies supporting people of color, Muslims, refugees, and indigenous people. We can show up for marginalized people and pester our friends into joining us, and it will do these marches good. The increased presence of white people – especially cisgender-heterosexual-women, will likely help the police to feel less threatened. It’s sad, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s true.

Walk on the edge of the crowd, where you will be most visible.  See a woman of color holding a particularly contentious sign? Walk near her. Watch her back.

I did not come up with these suggestions, by the way; women of color have been saying all this since before the Women’s Marches took place.

Can’t show up physically? Research other ways to support people of color and their causes, whether by donating money, spreading the word, or doing something else that these movements are asking for. The Women’s March is a perfect example of how white feminists need to improve at listening to and supporting  people who are marginalized in other ways.

Which brings me to my next issue:

Ignoring the needs and struggles of trans* people.

(I’m using “trans*” as an umbrella term for trans men, trans women, and everyone who identifies as gender non-binary.  I did not invent this term.)

Although Boston’s pre-march program made a fantastic effort to include women of color and disabled women, at most a few cursory mentions were made to trans* people.

Worse, many marchers’ signs mentioned “uterus,” “ovaries,” and other reproductive anatomy that cisgender women often mistakenly assign to all – and exclusively – women.  After the march, I heard and read responses from trans* people saying that these signs and slogans made them feel invisible, excluded, even dysmorphic.

Simply saying “trans women are women” helps no one if we’re going to exclude trans* people from our actions. Already we’re ignoring trans men and non-binary people when we claim abortion as a “woman’s right,” but using “uterus” or “ovaries” as a stand-in for “women” excludes trans women from the conversation.  Trans* people are already fighting for recognition, inclusion, and safety in a country that is openly hostile to them, and for many people losing Planned Parenthood means losing access to vitally important hormone therapy.  It’s unfair and counterproductive for cisgender women feminists to exclude trans* people from our cause, but unfortunately it seems to happen unintentionally.

So how do we counter it? Again, I have a solution presented to me by a person who was directly affected; I cannot overstate how important it is for white feminists to listen to marginalized groups.

Instead of focusing on reproductive rights specifically, lets fight for body autonomy for all.  Let’s acknowledge the services that Planned Parenthood provides to trans* people. “My body, my choice/their body their choice” does not need to specify cisgender women. It can include trans men and non-binary people who need abortions and birth control. It can include trans women who need access to hormones. We can protest Trump’s open and unapologetic history of sexual assault without implying that only cisgender women are ever assaulted.

Beyond that, lets show up for trans* people when they need us.  There’s plenty to do, especially now.  If you live in a state where trans* students could be affected by Trump’s withdrawal of trans rights from Title IX, find out what you can do to fight back.  If you live in a progressive state with its own anti-discrimination policies, research ways to support trans* people who need help.  This article is a great place to start.

Speaking of extra work, issue #3:

Potentially quitting activism after the March “high” wears off.

I’m thrilled to see people still involved in activism more than a month after the march, but this is a problem that we as white people need to keep in mind over the next four years. Non-marginalized groups tend to lose interest in civil rights movements more quickly than marginalized groups do. White people get fired up on issues, sure, but we tend to spring into action one day and then return to our regular lives the next.

As a gay, cisgender, white, able-bodied, middle-class woman with chronic health problems in Massachusetts, I am protected by state law in the ways that my disadvantages might affect me.  My privileges take care of the rest.  I, like many people, have the ability to stop paying attention to issues that deeply affect minorities across the country.

But we can’t let that happen this time.  There’s too much at stake.

How do we counter this?

1. Stay informed. Follow reputable news sites and fact-check everything you hear or read.  Listen.
2. Pace yourself.  I’ve heard from multiple people in multiple contexts: this is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t push yourself to every event, just more than you would have attended before. Take breaks, engage in self-care, then come back.
3. Don’t get discouraged when you do things wrong.  Most of the issues I’ve addressed above are things I myself have done. I didn’t protest police brutality until Michael Brown’s death in 2014, and even then I happily chanted “OUR STREETS” until the problem was pointed out to me. Acknowledge your mistakes and do better the next time.  Let your attempt to self-correct be the momentum that keeps you involved.

Speaking of self-correcting mistakes:

Speaking over marginalized groups.

I mentioned that this happened at the BLM events, and it happened at the Women’s March too.  As the last few speakers – all of them women of color – addressed the crowd, a chant gradually took over the audience.  People – most of them white – started shouting “March, march, march!” Our impatience to walk led us to literally shout over women of color who were trying to inspire us.

I will acknowledge that the size of the crowd meant people at the back couldn’t hear all of the speakers, but that does not excuse the people around me who started chanting. It does not excuse our tendency to value our white voices over other voices.

So let’s stop and listen. There are so many ways to do this, especially in the age of the internet.  Marginalized voices are speaking on Twitter, Facebook, on blogs of all sizes, at rallies, panels and public addresses. It’s time for us to listen.

It’s time to make sure our feminism is intersectional, meaning it includes people who are non-white, Muslim, poor, disabled, fat, and/or LGBTQ+.

It’s time for us to learn and acknowledge the ways that different marginalized identities interact and how their problems may differ by state, city, even neighborhood.

It’s time for us to listen to and amplify marginalized voices without speaking over them.

It’s time for me to shut up so you can start acting.  Listen. Acknowledge. Keep fighting. Keep showing up.

I’ll see you there.

More ways to fight our impending dystopia

Two months later and Trump is still our president-elect. As predicted, multiple issues have arisen since he won. Examples include conflicts of interest, cabinet nominations (some of whom are being confirmed too quickly to investigate potential conflicts of interest),  potential gutting of the Affordable Care Act (about which many people are still willfully ignorant), this gem of a bill, and the upcoming fight over Planned Parenthood.

Oh and I almost forgot the part where Russia may have had a hand in Trump winning the election in the first place.

Two months out and there’s still so much to do. So here’s a few more actions we can (and should) be taking:

Know where your legislators stand and tell them where YOU stand

Don’t know your Senators? They’re easy to find; just google your state plus “senators” and they’ll come up right away. You can find your U.S. Representative here.   Finding your state senators and representatives will vary, but Massachusetts constituents can find theirs here.

Once you find them, read about them.  Follow them on social media. See where they stand. Learn what they’ve done.

Then – this is key – contact them.

In general, calling is better than email and email is better than social media. The best option for the U.S. legislators is to call them at their state office instead of their DC one. If you’d rather write a letter, mail it to their state office, not DC.

Open with your name and hometown (street name if you feel comfortable) so they know you’re their constituent. Then tell them what you feel and what you want them to do.

Obviously, you’re not going to have heartfelt conversations with your Senators and Representatives. You’ll reach a voice mail, talk to an intern, or receive a form letter. This does not mean your attempt doesn’t matter.  Make your voice heard anyway.  If your legislator agrees with you, urge them to take action.  If they’ve already taken action, thank them and tell them you support them. That matters too, especially with the amount of hate some of these legislators are getting.

Make – and keep – yourself aware of issues of oppression in America

To a large extent, hatred and bigotry in this country is fueled by ignorance, much of it willful. For example, this WaPo article (despite the clickbaity title) illustrates key misconceptions that anti-immigration activists have about American immigrant communities.

“Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching” by Mychal Denzel Smith is a great resource for understanding racism in America and the ways it intersects with issues of gender, sexuality, mental illness, and other American problems.  It’s powerful and beautifully written.  Prefer audiobooks? There’s a version narrated by Kevin R. Free, and it is phenomenal. Other fantastic resources include “Bad Feminist” by Roxanne Gay and “Between the World and Me” by Ta Nehisi Coates.

(Full disclosure: I haven’t read the Coates book, but I’ve heard wonderful things about it from people whose opinions I value.  I have read the Smith and Gay books, and I highly recommend them both.)

Educate yourself on what Black Lives Matter really is, directly from the women who founded the movement.

Educate yourself on what Planned Parenthood really does and what ‘defunding’ women’s health care really entails. Yes that second article is from Teen Vogue, but the entire thing is worth reading.  Stay informed.

Get involved at the local level

Depending on where you live, Facebook can actually be a good resource for this. There are “Action” groups at the state and regional levels where people post articles, charities, and events. Use your local news outlets to find out what’s happening in your town. Connect to people who are involved in local politics and activism. Donate, show up, spread the word, and support these causes in any way you can.

Don’t get discouraged if/when dystopia still happens

Make no mistake: we’re in this for the long haul.  Things are about to get terrible, and our actions are not going to change that overnight. To be honest, they probably won’t change that at all.

Our system of bigotry and oppression, in fact, has been in place for much longer than the two months since we elected Trump. It’s just that for many of us, these issues have gone relatively unnoticed and/or unaddressed.  Racism, misogyny, systemic oppression and the other “American problems” (see: Smith) are not going to vanish simply because more people are starting to face them. The best that we can do is help chip away at them until, hopefully, the situation improves for people in future generations.

Do you have other ideas and/or resources? Post them!