Everything's Trash, But It's Okay

by Phoebe Robinson

  Not because I believed the Women’s March was destined to fail. It’s more that, whether a get-together is as big as that march or as tiny as a threesome, I’m always impressed whenever anyone can organize a group event successfully. I mean, I struggle for weeks trying to plan a dinner with four busy friends from college, but three people can all agree to have sex with LED lights on? #RealTalk, if I had to bone two other people at the same time, the room would be dark AF with just one single candle burning, like the one that burned when Benny Franks dropped his sixteen bars on the Declaraysh of Indepennie late at night.* ANYWAY!

  What I’m getting at is that seeing how smartly and efficiently the Women’s March was being run from the beginning was inspiring and made me, and I believe many others, feel as though the march was going to mean something and do something. It was in the air. This march was going to be a moment.

  It was going to prove that women cannot be silenced. It was going to show that women are not going to turn the other cheek as they have done for centuries. It would reveal the allies (i.e., some gay and straight men) who are unafraid to walk side by side with ladies to help amplify our message. It was going to take roll call and be all the evidence needed to show that if you’re not with the women and supporting them by attending the march or if you couldn’t due to extenuating circustances (e.g., not being physically able, don’t have the luxury of taking time off work, etc.), then you could show your support in other ways—donating to the ACLU and other women-friendly organizations, being more vocal in your everyday life with regards to womens’ issues, etc.—and if you didn’t do that, then you clearly weren’t for the advancement of women. Rather you were silently complicit in keeping status quo or, worse, adamantly against women progressing. Pretty cut-and-dry, right? And given the complete upending Trump’s ascendance signaled, acting partly on emotion and proverbially drawing the line in the sand like that might seem appropriate and rational . . . if you’re a white woman. But I’m not.

  I’m black. My decision to participate in the march wasn’t as easy as 1-2-3. What the march represented, no matter how diverse its organizing committee was, is a far more nuanced and complicated thing to unpack for the average woman of color. And to be honest, the Women’s March amplified a lot of what’s wrong with feminism, including its main problem: protecting the institution of white feminism, even if, and in some cases especially if, it means sacrificing the needs, wants, and safety of women who don’t fit neatly in the box of “educated, financially stable, straight, and white.” I know I’m not the only feminist who, because she doesn’t fall under the aforementioned category, has felt neglected by the movement. If you haven’t been on the receiving end of the neglect, it stings and serves as a reminder of how despite all the “Rah-rah! Go #TeamFeminism,” you can feel lonelier on the team than if you were never on it at all. I’ll give you an example.

  I still remember the first and only time I was called a “cunt” on social media. Aww! How touching. As you probably suspected, everyone reminiscences fondly about the first time they were called a “see you next Tuesday” the way they might look back on their nephew’s christening or a horsefly air-dropping their doo-doo all over the just-opened container of chicken salad during a picnic. Being called the c-word is just that special, y’all. For me, this cherry-popping moment went down on Instagram.

  If you don’t follow me on Insta, here’s a quick recap of what I do there: (1) marvel at the hotness of famous dudes like some do at double rainbows, (2) promote projects I work on, (3) post #TBT pictures of me from my high school and college years in which I somehow look like a forty-seven-year-old auntie trolling for peen at a church mixer, and (4) earnestly share content such as where to make charitable donations for various causes or express my opinions about certain social issues. One of those issues is #BlackLivesMatter, and except for black people named Kanye “Forward All My Mail to the PO Box Addressed: The Sunken Place” West, it’s more than a hashtag.

  It’s a plea for people to see us instead of seeing through us, a “I think therefore I am,” shouldn’t-this-be-kind-obvious-by-now statement, and a call to action we hope will get stuck in the minds of everyone who hears it until it makes them want to help dismantle a system intent on policing and harming brown and black bodies by any means necessary. That’s a lot for three little words to accomplish, but in an age when black men, women, and children are routinely murdered by police officers, who almost never suffer any real consequences for their crimes, and when black bodies are also routinely imprisoned for minor offenses that if perpetrated by their white brethren would, more often than not, lead to little more than a slap on the wrist, #BlackLivesMatter is, frankly, the thesis statement of a movement and also a reminder to black people that even though the world doesn’t see it, we do matter, so don’t fucking forget it or give up.

  So two years ago, shortly before turning thirty-two, I was weary. A couple of men—Terence Crutcher of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Keith Lamont Scott of Charlotte, North Carolina—were gunned down by police within the span of a few days. Like many people who were rattled by this latest in a long line of gut-wrenching deaths, I turned to friends and family, devoured as much news about these murders as possible until it was too much to stomach, and got online. I simply posted a ten-second video loop of #BlackLivesMatter in a rolling crawl. Within minutes, a white guy troll who was probably just searching the hashtag and spewing hatred on people’s Instagram pages wrote: “Dumb cunt.” A couple of internet strangers tried to silence him, and after a while, I just deleted all traces of this discord because infighting was not the purpose of the post. I was deeply sad and was using those three little words to keep myself from drowning in despair, and I was immediately made to feel as though I wasn’t even allowed that. Now, that kind of berating as a form of silencing takes place all over sosh meeds and is nothing new.

  I once saw a woman post a humorous and so-not-serious ranking of the components in Chex Mix and a guy called her a “dumb bitch.” Makes ya wish you could nominate some dudes for vasectomies the way you can nominate a coworker for Employee of the Month, doesn’t it? But in all seriousness, the point is that it doesn’t take much for folks to needlessly and ignorantly go from zero to one hundred no matter if the subject is something as innocuous as a snack or as dire as black people being disproportionately harassed and killed by law enforcement. The aggression from trolls is all the same, but it is telling that almost any time a person of color comments on race on social media (or in real life, for that matter) they are immediately disrespected. What’s also telling is the silence from the white folk who claim to be for equality.

  Not to brag, but I know a lot of white people and specifically a lot of white women. As I often say, “To be asked the question: ‘Should I get sprinks on this fro-yo?’ is to know a white woman.” And I’ve heard that question. A lot. So I know a lot of white dames. Yet when “cunt” was thrown my way, not a single one of my white girlfriends stepped in. There may be reasons for that.

  It’s common knowledge that it’s best to not engage with trolls. Also, some of my white homies might not have seen this comment in their feed before I deleted it. While others, myself included, know that this, unfortunately, is considered light online harassment and is so commonplace that we might be a little desensitized to it. That’s all plausible. Besides, I didn’t expect a cavalcade to come to my rescue, as I can handle nonsense like that. In fact, that foolishness wasn’t even what preoccupied my mind. What I was more concerned with is that not a single white girlfriend of mine commented in support of the post either. No “I can’t understand all the way, but I empathize with your broken heart” or “YES! Black lives do matter. Your black life matters to me.” All was eerily quiet on the internet front. I mean, I’ll get a “yaaas” and/or a “slay” on a cute picture selfie I post, “lmao”s and “haha”s if I make a joke, but when I acknowledge the elephant in the room, which is that I know the world knows I’m black, meaning not only
do I know that the deadly consequences for being black in America are lurking around the corner for myself, my family, and my black friends, but I know that information has forever altered the way I live my life because I don’t live in the same America that many white people of a certain status do, that truth is too real to handle. Too uncomfortable to address. So people don’t.

  Often, I hear that many white people clam up when it comes to the topic of race because they’re “scared of saying something racist” or they simply don’t know what to say at all. Uh-uh. Nope. Not buying it. This isn’t a Sadie Hawkins dance where the gals are nervous to ask the boys to grind to Sean Paul’s “Gimme the Light.” This is real life.

  White people:* HOW. DO. YOU. HAVE. NOTHING. TO. SAY. AT. THIS. POINT? Black people are dying. Black people are being bullied. Black people are being blamed, silenced, told to get over it, told they’re not fighting hard enough, and all this other bullshit designed to make them feel like they’re not doing enough. Black people are being tasked with solely fixing a system of oppression as if it’s not a societal problem that not only affects everyone but requires the efforts of everyone to achieve equality. Black people are made to feel alone. They’re not. We’re all in this bloody, depressing, trash pile of a mess together and we’ve been in it for far too long—centuries—for the excuse “I don’t know what to say” to ring true at all anymore. So please, WP, find the damn words.

  Not to get all Dr. Seuss on ya, but look for the words in a house. Look for the words under a mouse. Find the words and help a sista out. Have her and her brothas’ backs to their speaking the truth and have their backs when some negative shit is going down. Have queer people’s backs when they’re routinely the target of abuse. Have Muslims’ backs when they’re being harassed on the street in broad daylight. Have the backs of the children of color who are being ripped away from their parents by a heartless government, those who risk their lives and leave behind unimaginable circumstances to try to get into this country in hopes of a better life. Silence and putting your head down is flat-out unacceptable and only makes more visible the fact that you’re trying to remain invisible in the face of atrocities. The middle-school fear of not wanting to be called on should be thrown in the dumpster along with beat-up Lisa Frank folders, dingy LA Gear sneakers, and watching Saved by the Bell with the same intense dedication that you might have for American Horror Story. But, can I be brutally honest for second (ha, like I haven’t been already)?

  Can we all agree that the whole “being at a loss for words” when it comes to topics like police brutality or having feminism benefit anyone other than well-to-do, educated, straight white women of a certain class, is a tired and weak lie? Maybe not a malicious lie in all cases, but a lie nonetheless. The truth is, white feminists have no problem finding the words. They speak up loudly and often whether it’s at a march, in everyday life, or any time there’s a microphone available, like when Patricia Arquette demanded equal pay during her 2015 Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech.

  Ya know, I’d like to pretend that if I was ever in the position to give an acceptance speech at the Oscars where millions upon millions are potentially watching and could potentially share clips of me talking online for even more people to see, I’d be noble AF like Arquette and discuss a deeper issue. Use my platform for good, but honestly, I’d probably be ignorant. Just whipping out one of the chicken cutlets that are filling out my dress and waving it around in the air like I’m signaling the beginning of a street race, then I’d start calling out all the directors who didn’t hire me (“I made it in spite of you, Wes Anderson”), and I’d then delay the ceremony because I’m doing the Tootsie Roll to the orchestral “wrap it up” music for about twenty-seven minutes. Pure, unadulturated ignorance. Luckily, Arquette’s speech was not. In fact, it was the opposite and it went viral.

  You might remember it. Meryl Streep was in the audience and taken to church—#Hozier—by Arquette’s call to action. Plenty of actors and actresses joined her in cheering Arquette on. So did folks on social media. Arquette would later tell Entertainment Tonight that the speech cost her some roles though she still works, which is an unfortunate consequence that she had to endure, but seeing as we’re now three years removed from her speech and equal pay is currently an issue that is front and center in Hollywood, which has resulted in many actresses earning salaries on par with their male counterparts, Arquette using her platform to address this issue was worth it as it was one moment in many that forced Hollywood to get to this point. What she did there was great. It’s what she did afterwards that had me making that Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor confused-grunt sound.*

  Following her acceptance speech, Arquette elaborated on her call to action backstage in the press room and said the following: “It’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.” No, no, no, Patricia, what are you doing?! You delivered a spot-on speech and then ruined much of the goodwill coming your way by calling out the very people who have been in the weeds with white women this whole time despite the historical attempts by white women to leave them behind?* Ay-yi-yi! The saying is “Quit while you’re ahead,” not “Keep going until you see Larry David chilling in the cut while the Curb Your Enthusiam theme song plays because you made shit so awkward.” But that’s exactly what Arquette did, cuing up the pomp pomp pomps of the tuba.

  Immediately, on social media, people took her to task for the tone-deaf implication that (1) the struggle for queer women and women of color is basically over now in part because white people have done a sufficient job fighting for them (LOL forever), and (2) WOCs and queer women haven’t been out here fighting for feminism since day one and now need to step up. Look, I’m all for tough love, when it’s truthful. But what Arquette was saying? It wasn’t adding up to me and many others, and a backlash as well as a defense of her statement commenced.

  Some chalked it up to her misspeaking (not buying it) or to people such as myself being hypersensitive and overreacting. While others wondered why anyone cared that a rich woman was asking for parity when the average non-wealthy woman is still fighting for the scraps she can get. That’s absolutely true. The average woman is also underpaid. There are more important things than the salaries of the Hollywood elite, but that doesn’t mean what Arquette said isn’t worth discussing or analyzing or rightfully calling bullshit on when her statements are being used to galvanize the masses when, in actuality, they were tone-deaf.

  Firstly, WOC and queer people have been standing alongside white women on the equal pay issue since the beginning, except those groups’ contributions aren’t typically acknowledged or appreciated by WW. Secondly, women of color and LGBTQIA+ folks make significantly less than white women and have let that information be known for years,* so it’s not as though this isn’t also an urgent matter for them. In fact, it’s probably more pressing considering the median income is lower for WOC and queer people than it is for white women. So Arquette’s demand that people who have always been in the fight need to step it up is not only ridiculous but it also shines a bright light on what happens when feminism isn’t intersectional: the voices of the non-white, non-straight are ignored and the decades of work by the non-white, non-straight women is erased from history. That’s why I believe Arquette’s comment burned the toast of many people. The notion that POCs and LGBTQIA+ folk aren’t doing enough to change the system isn’t just a belief held by an actress you can dismiss as “out of touch” if you want; it’s held by the average, everyday white feminist who isn’t standing in front of a microphone in front of the whole world on Oscar night but one who would most likely be participating in the Women’s March and asking me to stand beside her.

  Again, I understood that the march was being organized and run by a diverse committee, but no matter how hard I tried to focus on that fact, my hesitation remained as strong as ever. All I had to
do was look around to see that my doubts were justified. Giant swaths of white women only mobilized after Trump was elected, yet they were eerily absent for #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations. Many white women were not speaking out in favor of trans women’s rights or demanding that Muslim women in this country as well as non-white immigrants be treated humanely. Now, I can’t know for certain why that was happening, but what I did know was that WW’s inaction in movements that don’t directly affect them proved to me that all those people are not a priority or viewed as fellow feminists who should be protected. But, still, I went to the march.