If you didn’t march, you know someone who did. On Saturday, January 21st, millions of people donned pink and set out for Washington, D.C. to march for civil and human rights at the Women’s March on Washington. Hats resembling vaginas and fervent poster board displays of anger filled the nation’s capital, as well as sister march locations in hundreds of other cities across the world. There was a march in Antarctica, for Pete’s sake. No word yet on the penguin population in attendance.
All of this seems well and good, right? A strong emotional reaction to the inauguration of Donald Trump brings millions to speak out for what they believe in. But, arguably, there was something missing. With all of the pretty hats and happy selfies amongst the marchers, there was a sense of frivolity. Are we here to walk through the city on a lovely day and laugh with friends, or are we here to fight, to challenge the standards and establishment set forth?
There’s nothing wrong with smiling and taking pictures at a major event like this, but if we focus more on how this will look on our Instagram accounts than the countless human rights and lives at stake, then we have to reexamine our priorities. The main perpetrators in watering down the movement were white women. Full disclosure: I am a white woman myself, so I’m including myself in this, whether or not I contributed to the dilution of the day’s activism.
Post-march social media updates told all. From white women, a chorus of praise and happiness about the day’s events flooded timelines. We thanked city planners, police departments and fellow marchers for an excellent march. We posted pictures of our favorite signs and recalled touching moments from our busy day. Women of color, though thankful and polite, seemed to hum a different tune. They noted loose activism from white women in attendance and wondered if we were there because we cared or just wanted people to think we cared. They also reminded us of a frustratingly accurate statistic: 53% of white women voted for Trump. Considering the staggering number of white women at the march, there were definitely those of us there who voted him into office. So, women of color were left to wonder what kind of  allies we really were if we showed up full force to protest a person we were partially responsible for electing. This is not to say that we just got in the way and shouldn’t have come to the march; we definitely made a difference and we shouldn’t regret marching. What we need to do is see what else we can do to intersectionalize and increase our activism.
As white women, we frequently turn a blind eye to racism we perpetuate in our feminist fight. Susan B. Anthony famously declared, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” While I saw nothing to this extent at the march, the day did have its share of well-meaning ignorance. For example, boatloads of people waxed poetic about the peacefulness and lack of arrests at all of the marches worldwide. While that’s certainly a good thing, we should examine why this situation came to be.
Most protests we see that end in arrest or police brutality are less populated by smiling white women, and more by young people of color who are fed up with systems in place that oppress and silence them. Noting shocking statistics about the relationship between racism and police brutality, like the fact that black men are seven times more likely to die unarmed at the hands of police than white men while only making up 6% of America’s population, the amount of police involvement does not necessarily equate to the merit of a protest. Other protests that ended in arrest aren’t inherently worse or less worthy of praise than this one. No one was arrested at the Women’s March because police don’t treat white people the same way they treat people of color.
Knowing that the key to a police force working with a protest instead of against it is partially the number of white people present, why don’t we use our privilege for good, white women? Let’s show up. Let’s bring numbers to future marches and protests and show disenfranchised groups that we have their back, not just in spirit but in physical presence. This is true allyship; this is walking the talk. Now, this doesn’t mean occupying space and volume that people of color deserve to have, but it does mean assisting and supporting them in protests they organize, while doing the best we can to ward off unnecessary police or civilian violence.
Most planned protests have Facebook pages, and if you check your state’s American Civil Liberties Union page, they may advertise upcoming events in that realm. You can also donate to human rights groups and organizations such as ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Southern Poverty Law Center, Human Rights Campaign and more. Let’s show solidarity with people of color against violations of human rights and fight for our fellow Americans in need. Complacency is the enemy of justice. Let’s do more.