Parading Activism: Why I Don’t Have Time for the Charlotte Women’s March

It’s Saturday morning and I’m being woken up to the rustling of papers and the dull beat of bare feet on wood. Stepping out into the hallway I find a scurry of girls shuffling through the halls and enthusiastically filling the hallway. “Let’s go!” one yells. I sigh deeply, slightly rolling my eyes before I make my way to the bathroom. They’re heading to the Women’s March in Charlotte. To myself I think, It’s too early for this shit.

Now before girls start flinging their pussy hats at me, let me explain.

With all respect to my hallmates, I appreciate you in all your amazing, smart and precious personalities, but you most definitely did catch me and other women of color in this nation giving you that critical side-eye.

On behalf of all women of color (emphasis on black women) who were not in attendance with you that day; we do not involve ourselves nor participate in celebratory marches.

A march, a real march is a form of protest meant to cause some disruption to society in order to draw attention to an injustice or cause. Therefore, the millions of men and women that marched on Washington and several other major cities throughout America in protesting Donald Trump’s inauguration, would be categorized as a march. But fast-forward to 2018, Trump is still in office, trans-women rates of assault have skyrocketed, and institutions of higher education and athleticism are not taking ownership for the sexual assault of over a dozen female athletes. Yet and still, at the exact same moment, crowds of young ladies are neatly lining the streets as they pose for Snapchat, Instagram, and the rest of social media.

Some Questions I Have For You

1. Exactly what are you celebrating? The anniversary of any march shouldn’t solely just be a celebration. Instead, it should also be a time to critique and reunify. If women are to be marching in the streets, it should be in solidarity with the women, those who cannot march as they are also victims of these atrocities, those who are unable to attend due to death or physical/psychological impairment, and those who can’t march due to lack of financial resources, transportation, and time due to the financial circumstances they live in, or those women like me, whose everyday existence are resistance. Somehow I don’t think that smiling young girls with geo-filters who are posting their pictures on social media are doing much for the morale or mental health of ladies who are actually impacted and real victims of these struggles. Even if you thought you were showing solidarity, let me explain how that’s not necessarily the case.
2. Why are you posting it on social media? ​I’m not sure why I or anyone else on your social media really need to see a picture of your smiling faces at a march. Sure, you all look cute, but a real march has some strong social consequences whether that be jail time, counter-protests, or attack from police. Such things would not permit much time for smiling faces in photos as you’re typically on guard for any threat around you. Therefore the fact that you’re posting this leads me to believe you’re trying to prove something. If you’re posting photos of this, you’re a). engaging in the appropriation of a march and b). attempting to display an image of your engagement with that social justice for your own social benefit. That’s just wrong. A march with no social consequences and permission from the government is not a march, it is a parade. Anything less than this can be categorized as the appropriation or commodity/political fetishism, but that’s for another article. Additionally, these days, it’s cool to be socially aware but the type of “awareness” you’re partaking in is more for ​a show since it hardly does anything to address or change the women’s current socio-political experience, especially for other women of color who have been excluded from all movements in this country. Overall, this is just another movement of respectability politics.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

What Activism Does Look Like

Justine Frerichs is a senior Environmental Studies major at Davidson College. She’s spent the last year working on her senior capstone which, among other things, discusses Tillery Community Activism. Last summer, Frerichs, Evans Schmedtje ’18, and Emma Tayloe ’19 participated in the protests against the creation of a natural gas pipeline that would cut through many low-income communities. As described by the Daily Herald:

The North Carolina Alliance to Protect Our People And The Places We Live, or APPPL, organized a walk along the proposed 205-mile route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in North Carolina. Walkers began on U.S. 301 by the state line and marched eight miles south to Garysburg, and some will continue to march until March 18 when, about 217 miles later, the protest-walk ends.[1]

Although the students didn’t complete the entire walk, their presence alone speaks for itself. Members of the Tillery community have been fighting the creation of a pipeline for a number of years. This summer, the courts proceeded in legalizing the pipeline’s creation. In another attempt to resist, the members of Tillery and other environmental justice groups lined the highways, walking for miles. Although the pipeline may very well be created, Frerichs will continue her work with Tillery. This summer she will be working to digitize and thus preserve the Tillery archive with the support of a Davidson Justice, Equality, and Community (JEC) Grant, and she has also already written a creative non-fiction piece on the matter. This is social justice.

Lesson: Activism isn’t just a one-time event you wake for on a Saturday morning; it is a continued resistance, persistent and echoed through your everyday life. 

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