Photo courtesy of Raw Story
Earlier this week, Minnesota legislator and Democrat Melissa Hortman was reprimanded for comments that she made towards her male colleagues. The issue? Hortman called out her male colleagues, who are white, for leaving during speeches addressed by women of color. Hortman is the Minority House Leader, and it did not sit well with her when the men would step out to another room dismissing what their female colleagues had to say. The women of color lawmakers were debating a bill that would raise penalties for protesters who block or disrupt traffic as well as airport travel, an issue that has been of concern to the public for the past couple of years. According to Hortman, the men were in the retiring room, where they were socializing with one another. She moved them back to the floor and addressed the issue.
“I hate to break up the 100 percent white male card game in the retiring room, but I think this is an important debate”, stated Hortman. Representative Bob Dettmer, a Republic from Forest Lake, took offense to this statement and said, “I’m a white male. I respect everybody. But I really believe the comments that were made by the minority leader were really not appropriate. Minority leader, would you apologize to the body?” Hortman took a stand against his statement, declaring, “I have no intention of apologizing. I am so tired of watching…and looking around to see where are my colleagues. And I went to the retiring room and I saw where a bunch of my colleagues were and I’m really tired of watching women of color, in particular, being ignored. So I’m not sorry”, stated Hortman. Dettmer follows up how if he had made such a statement, this would have made major headlines but expresses that he forgives Hortman.
This goes to show the lack of equality and respect shown towards women, not just in the workplace, but also in their day-to-day lives and how much harder they have to fight in order to be heard and recognized. It is wonderful that Hortman took a stand not just for women, but for women of color, and showed her solidarity by standing up for them.