As a child, I was fascinated by history. I can’t pinpoint exactly when I fell in love with it, but I remember not being able to get enough stories of the past. I was ravenous for them and consumed them whenever and wherever I could. Because I grew up with a single mom who worked two jobs, I was often left at home alone when I became old enough. On the days that she worked overtime and came home late, I was thrilled. But unlike many middle school-aged kids who might have been prone to trouble while left alone, I couldn’t wait to be unsupervised because it meant that I could stay up late into the evening watching the History Channel. I was obsessed with it.
Like any good history buff, I cultivated a specific genre and would only watch the documentaries about that time period. My love affair was with the late 1950s into the late 1960s. This was because of the civil rights movement. As a young black girl watching history shows on TV, I rarely saw myself reflected in the endless documentaries the channel would show about World War II. Because the absence of black people in these shows was so notable, I was shocked when I later found out that blacks did, in fact, play a large role in the war effort both at home and abroad. I was even more surprised to learn that I had a great-uncle who was a Tuskegee Airman—though I wouldn’t learn that until he died in 2000.
As a pre-teen and well into my teenage years, I identified strongly with the spirit of protest and revolution that marked the 1960s. I was captivated by images of black people fighting for the their freedom and right to humanity in a country that had systematically denied it to them for centuries. Despite the fact that their demonstrations often meant they were risking arrest, firehoses, police brutality, and sometimes murder, they persevered. Even at age 12, I understood what a sacrifice that was. Looking back, I understand now that these were some of my first lessons on freedom and justice—and I know that I learned to associate activism with fully putting yourself on the line, even physically at times, for what you believe in. It is a core value that I hold this very day and it guides me in everything that I do.
The most memorable images for me from this time period were the grainy black and white videos of Ruby Bridges and Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, integrating all-white schools in their respective states of Louisiana and Arkansas. Ruby Bridges is only two weeks older than my mother (both having been born in September 1954) so, while to many it may have seemed long ago, it wasn’t hard for me to connect to a little black girl walking into a school during that time period. I simply pictured my mom. I’ve often wondered what it felt like for a 5-year-old child to be surrounded by angry white adults—throwing things and shouting at her as she tried to enter a new elementary school. One of the U.S. Marshals who accompanied her to school back then recalled that Ruby never cried. She was courageous and steadfast, even as bigotry and white supremacy surrounded her.
I also recall images of Elizabeth wearing sunglasses and walking bravely into Little Rock High School while being pursued by a mob of white people, shouting and threatening to hang her. While my mother and grandmother were my first black female role models, it was these two black women who were my first activist heroes. Watching these videos taught me that black women have a special kind of bravery and an ability to face all kinds of racial hatred in service of greater equality, inclusion, and liberation for all people. These images have been with me for my whole life: black women standing up for what they believe in while white people shout them down and try to silence them or harm them. It reminds me that there is always a price to be paid for black women’s activism.
I never imagined that one day I would experience the very same things.
Two weeks ago, I attended Netroots Nation in Atlanta—my first time at the conference for activists and members of the progressive community. I was thrilled at the opportunity to be able to spend time with my colleagues and take in all that the conference had to offer. There were some incredible sessions and I mainly took them in with other black women I knew. For us, having a space to be able to learn together and hear from incredible thinkers, influencers, politicians, and activists was invaluable. Having become used to being the “only” or one of a handful, black women know how to create spaces for ourselves so that we can feel welcome and included. We made certain spaces for ourselves where we didn’t have to deal with some of the micro-aggressions that accompany being in a majority white space. It was affirming and life-giving. But it was also very heavy. On Friday night, white nationalists staged a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This served as yet another reminder for us that black bodies, bodies of color, and other marginalized people are not safe in America.
On Saturday morning, many of the black women I knew who were at the conference participated in a planned protest during the morning plenary. This was discussed on Friday so we knew it was happening and why. It was in response to Stacey Evans, a Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia who is a white woman, and her planned speech at Netroots. There were several reasons that they wanted to protest her appearance. In part, it was a response to her invitation to the conference—period. Evans is a supporter of school vouchers and has voted to take millions from Georgia public school funding. Education is a central part of black women’s political and social platform—both for our own children and for our community. To many of us, school vouchers and charter schools are not progressive. In fact, they are very often the reason why Republicans take money away from the schools in our communities, leaving us with a lack of resources and schools with crumbling infrastructure.
So Evans’ presence at a conference which is supposed to be for progressives wasn’t well-received, along with the fact that she was slated to speak right before Becky Pringle, vice president of the National Education Association. Pringle is also a black woman. Lastly, some of the women were Stacey Abrams supporters. Abrams is the other Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia. It did not escape black women’s attention that while Stacey Abrams spoke on Thursday as part of a slate that had a number of candidates of color speaking, Stacey Evans was given a position to speak on the same day as Elizabeth Warren—a darling of the progressive community. It appeared as if this was an intentional way to elevate the candidacy of one woman over another, and the black woman was getting the short end of the stick.
In short, there wasn’t one sole reason for the protest. Black women are not monolithic and neither are the reasons why we feel compelled to participate in a protest action. But the mainly white crowd assumed this was solely about race and Stacey Abrams—even though her name was never mentioned by the protestors and neither she nor her campaign had absolutely anything to do with this protest. In their defense of Stacey Evans and white womanhood, the majority white crowd was not surprising. However, they were also very dangerous.
I was not one of the protesters in front of the stage. I got to the room after the protest had begun and was looking for a colleague of mine. As the protesters began shouting “Trust black women,” a reference to acknowledging our insight and standing with us on issues of justice, they were shouted down by a room full of white people. To be clear, since there were and are so many misperceptions about this, “Trust black women” was not and is not about trusting Stacey Abrams. This is a slogan that has deep roots in black female activist communities and there is an organization called “Trust Black Women” that does work on behalf of reproductive justice for black women around the country. It was founded in the early part of this decade out of the SisterSong, a reproductive justice collective by and for women of color. Black women are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and our votes prove it, despite the party’s obsession with getting white working class votes—which really haven’t been with us since Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
So in saying “trust us,” these women were saying trust that we know what is best for our kids and our communities. Trust in our leadership and our vision. Trust that we believe that Stacey Evans’ stances on education are not good for us or our families and they are not progressive. Trust that our 94 percent percent voting record for Hillary in the 2016 presidential election means that we know what we are doing. But it seems as if black women can never be seen by white people as anything other than supporting a black candidate. Because instead of meeting those voices with curiosity or support, these black women were harassed, yelled at, and threatened for staging this protest.
As soon as I heard the roar of white folks chanting “Let her speak” to the protesters, I ran to the front of the room. It was my intention to go to the stage and join and support my colleagues and fellow black women, since I knew exactly why they were doing this. I stopped however, when I got close to the stage and saw a black woman standing in between tables being shouted at and terrorized by two white people. She was not in front of the stage. She had stood up and joined other people who were offering their support of the protest and who were chanting in the audience. These two white people (a man and a woman), along with many others, decided that the protest was disrespectful and that Stacey Evans had the right to speak. They were yelling at this black woman with such intensity that it was overwhelming. At one point, the man was literally in her face screaming. I was afraid for her safety. Everything about the images of Ruby Bridges and Elizabeth Eckford came back to me in that moment. I remembered exactly what white rage at black women’s activism looks like, and how it can become violent.
White supremacy is violent. In fact, it requires violence in order to maintain itself. So even though I didn’t know her personally, I knew I couldn’t leave this woman alone. I pleaded with the man and woman to leave her alone. They would not listen to me. They kept arguing with her. So it was then that I chose to physically place myself in between her and them. If I could only do one thing, I would create a barrier to keep her from harm. They continued shouting at my back even though I was there. At one point, I became worried for my own safety. And I kept thinking to myself: this is supposedly a space for progressives. It was then that I looked around and was jarred by the fact that I was in a sea of shouting white people. While there were plenty of people of color and a few whites supporting the protesters, all I could see and hear were angry white people yelling and screaming about how this wasn’t the right time, how Evans deserved her chance to speak, how we were all on the same side but that black women choosing to make their voices heard was an inconvenient interruption.
My nerves were heightened. At one point, my knees even started to shake. I could make no distinction between them and the white people I watched in those grainy black and white videos so many years ago. If “good white people” were in that crowd, I did not see them in that moment. And it was terrifying. White liberals like to make clear distinctions between themselves and the racist bad guys. They believe they are above the kind of violence, supremacy, and white rage we saw demonstrated in Charlottesville. However, I can assure you that after my experience at Netroots, I know that they are not.
The shouting at black women continued long after the protest was over. Once things were done, my colleagues, the protesters, and I sat down at a table, where we continued to be surrounded by angry white voices. One white woman took it upon herself to sit down at our table and insist that “we are all on the same side.” This type of one-sided dialogue, intended to admonish those who had participated in the protest, lacked any curiosity about why the protest had even happened. It was intrusive and upsetting. She had to be asked to leave. The same white man and woman who were shouting at the black woman I stood behind continued their diatribe, yelling at our table full of black people, despite our asking repeatedly to be left alone. It wasn’t productive and it didn’t look very good. It also interrupted the moderator at the plenary—another black woman, Angel Kyodo Williams.
White people policing when it’s appropriate for black people to exercise their right to protest is a theme in the progressive movement. It’s as if white people’s support for our causes is conditional. When it’s convenient, many white folk are often willing allies. But if using our voices causes discomfort in some way or hurts the feelings of some white people, then every effort is made to let us know that we are “out of line.” This is something that requires deep introspection on the part of white progressives. This behavior is not progressive nor does it demonstrate real racial solidarity. If your support only comes when you agree or when it doesn’t require much of you, chances are you aren’t really an ally to begin with.
Lastly, it didn’t escape my attention that these very same white people who shouted down a room full of black women protesters at Netroots then went out later that evening and participated in a solidarity rally/march for Charlottesville. What’s striking is that they could identify the white supremacy present at the neo-Nazi/KKK rally that killed Heather Hayer, but couldn’t see the white supremacy present in their own behaviors and actions earlier in the day.
There is a lot being assumed about this protest and what is was about, almost none of which has incorporated the voices of the black women who were actually there. If white progressives are really about racial solidarity and creating a more inclusive Democratic party, this is an excellent opportunity to pause, suspend judgment, and do some deep listening to black women and other people of color. Otherwise, there is really no difference between them and those angry mobs who confronted Ruby Bridges and Elizabeth Eckford all those years ago.
Telling yourself you are more enlightened and on the “right side” doesn’t mean much when your actions demonstrate the opposite. White supremacy seeks to police and control black and brown bodies. It is about telling us what we can and can’t do and when we can do it. Shouting us down when we exercise our voices in protest, making us physically afraid, defending white women’s platforms to speak instead of ours—these are all tactics of intimidation.
And before anyone asks the question that folks invariably do: yes, it absolutely would have been different if the situation were reversed and white women had protested a black female candidate. Context matters. History matters. Social location matters. Black women are not positioned in society in the same ways that white women are. We are not equals insofar as status. That’s just a fact and there is work that needs to be done to change it. However, there is a huge difference between equality and equity. This is why we protest in the first place.
What happened at Netroots was a perfect example of this: a white woman’s right to speak was forcefully defended by a room full of white people, even though she had politics they likely disagreed with. But black women were shamed, shouted at, and threatened for speaking up about it. White people occupy a specific place of power and privilege in society and when they use it in the ways they did at this protest, it is white supremacy in action. It looks and feels a lot like Charlottesville, minus the flags and Nazis. It is emotional, cultural, and physical violence. That is a painful truth, but one that needs telling nonetheless.
It is my hope that in telling this truth, white progressives can use this as a chance to do better, and do the work necessary to be accomplices in the fight for racial justice.