Jan 21, 2017
In the Name of the Moon…
I shall March on Washington!
A few months ago when the Women’s March was announced, I had mixed feelings about attending.
Firstly because I am a cynic.
My personal experiences with white feminists in general have shaped me into a very distrustful person. Simply calling yourself an ally to POC while at the same time holding friendships and business relationships with outed racists tell me otherwise. That pre-Trump shit don’t fly with me anymore, and to be honest, worse than dealing with fascist nationalist fucks is dealing with a color-blind crowd of privilege clowns, ready to consume me.
I myself, nor my career and activism exist for white consumption: I am not here to be academic fetish, your cool friend with a platform, venue or emotional labor that you can use for free nor your radical feminist, Brown friend when you are not really mine. That goes for everything in my life, from personal relationships to the brands I associate myself with publicly. Resolution number one for 2017 was No White Nonsense: We plan to shop Black and Brown, focus on grooming my voice and message and support those that I believe in their platform are doing the same, fine tune my business and expand, finish my tiny home and by the end of the year, only wear my designs or those of designers that I support and love. Marching with a bunch of white feminists talking about 76 cents to a white mans dollar was definitely not on my list.
As a chronically ill person whom suffers daily from IBS, marches are not in me anymore either. The idea of being in an uncomfortable bathroom predicament keep me home for the most part. Add RA pain from this cold and crowd anxiety and you’ve got the recipe for NOPE I ain’t going, not worth it.
I still don’t trust white people, I mean up until Thursday one of the top trending topics was #AddHerName, a last minute white feminist led effort to add Hillary Clinton’s name to the Women’s March on Washington honorees list. Ignoring all the crimes against POC that point to Hillary being the blue eyed white dragon of bourgeois white feminism.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, the “other white people” pushed to #RenameMillionWomenMarch completely ignoring that the Women’s March was already renamed. And the million part gone altogether: the march was renamed because it was some problematic white feminist bullshit to ignore that there was a Million Women March in Philly in the nineties, which was led by Black women and back then too tried to address white feminism with little response. Since this fact was called out on social media, the Women’s March has done wonders to be all out Intersectional and unapologetic about it.
Because of their dedication to include all women and their stories is all the motivation and inspiration I needed, read more here:
https://medium.com/@ninaangeliniarismendi/and-a-million-more-124c3e710549#.nlwl0vv2y
After the last peaceful demonstration I attended two years ago in which I was arrested, I ended up in the hospital. Which also landed my mom in the hospital a few hours later. While we were both in the ER being seen for different side effects of an arrest, she made me promise on my living children and (my late nephew) Noah that I would not put myself at risk of deportation again. Even peaceful sit ins end with an overt display of militarized police, ready to mishandle concerned students and community leaders. Worse that the police treatment, many people in town saw peaceful divestment protests as radical and disruptive to the small city. In the end the University sided with history and divested and the city dropped our charges thanks to the tenacity of amazing Norther Virginia lawyer Jonathan Oates.
Since then I became sicker and too busy to take activism out onto the streets and instead, a lot of my activism moved online to social media.
Around the same time, I began getting trolled by Fredericksburg locals at the request of a disgruntled white feminist whom “dreads” her hair and calls her mediocre, coffee shop art Native, and who plagiarized a piece of work straight out of a public arts event from one of Art Mart’s represented Native artists, David Hernandez and got rightfully called out.
White people (and white passing POC) unfamiliar with my work began pouring into my Facebook feed calling me a racist (against white people), anti-feminist, art nazi while expertly demonstrating sexism, white supremacy, gas-lighting and victim blaming with their comments aimed at my transgenderness, my chronic illness and my desire to fight for POC creative autonomy on my own page, where I post photos of my children and home. I’d slay the trolls with witty retort, sailor moon memes, screencaps and bans. None of what they have ever said to me has bothered me, I have even received rape and death threats over this, yet I am used to white nonsense. Most of the time, when they’d refer to me as “just another keyboard warrior. A SJW.” I would respond “ I prefer Cultural Marxists Social Justice Senshi” and from there, an idealized version of myself as a magical girl that fights online trolls, my online persona was born:
The Petty guardian, Agent of Love and Social Justice.
There is some seriously insidious ableism in the world, some of it is as ingrained as people still using the R word as a descriptor for ridiculous things. In the same manner, SJW was used to denigrate marginalized peoples whom care about social justice and creating safe spaces in and outside the internet. To complain about SJWs complaining about treating others with respect is a huge red flag, this is a person whom has stunted empathy. When an “SJW” says something I listen as praxis: Because most of the time keyboard warriors are marginalized people with life experiences that have taught them the value of fighting for your rights as well as others and whom are comfortable enough to share and sometimes teach from their perspective, adding another pearl which shines light through to reflect the kaleidoscope of experiences uniquely lived that Intersectional Feminism is.
When I decided to march, I did it with my sisters that cannot march in mind. When I thought about the person I want to be while chanting and soaking up this revolutionary energy I realized that I wanted to be the same person I have been, the same feminist with preteen taste in anime whom admins pages, shares memes and talks openly about her illness and fears on the internet with strangers that feel like family. Join me at the March on Washington, or online on FB Live and through #SocialJusticeSenshi tags today as I march for a million more immigrants and women to be awakened to their own power.
My mom took me out on Thursday for breakfast to celebrate my small shout out on Latina Magazine and yesterday’s front page feature on the Freelance Star. She bought me an adorable broach for the sailor costume I’ll be wearing (created just for me by my friend and cosplay maker Genevieve) we talked about the dictatorship in Uruguay, how she’s never been to a march and all of the inequalities we have had to suffer at the hands of rich, white men. In the car before dropping me off she told me to be magical and careful, and gave me her blessing: “Something needs to be done about el Trump.”
