Defending Rep. Maxine Waters: Coalition of White Women Issues Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi

Do Better, Nancy! 

Dear Representative Pelosi,

We are writing to you today to ask you to do better.

We, like you, are white women who care deeply about the direction in which our country is headed, and who believe that inaction in the face of oppression is unacceptable. Because we share those goals, we hope and expect that you will do the work to understand why we are so deeply disappointed and angry about your recent statements regarding your colleague, Representative Maxine Waters. We urge you to consider how you can better use your power to support Representative Waters and the struggle for liberation for all Americans.

When you attack a Black woman for speaking out about injustice, and when you call for “civility” in the face of blatant racism, you invoke a long history of white supremacist power. Writing Black women’s words off as divisive, and chastising them for raising the alarm on unjust behavior, is not merely condescending — it echoes racist tropes that have been used for centuries to dehumanize Black people and support the structures that maintain discrimination.

White women have been culpable throughout history for acting — or, just as shamefully, not acting — in ways that support white supremacy. Suffragist and first woman Senator Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton exemplified this ugly history when she used race as a tool to rally reluctant white women to the cause of women’s suffrage, saying: “I do not want to see a negro man walk to the polls and vote on who should handle my tax money, while I myself cannot vote at all.”

To our great discredit, white women continue to act far too often in ways that support white supremacy, even when it is to our detriment. Time and time again, we have seen women of color show up to the polls to support progressive politics, while white women cling to the regressive, and often racist, politics and politicians who long for yesteryear.

But of course, racism and sexism are inextricably intertwined even in the America of 2018, a place where the perceived fragility of white women is still weaponized and deployed in order to initiate and justify racialized violence. This must stop, and you can help lead that charge. But when you chide Representative Waters for bravely and passionately speaking up for the most marginalized, you’re on the wrong side of history.

Why should Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kirstjen Nielsen get to walk through a ceaselessly accommodating world, unchallenged by the public, never being forced to grapple with their daily complicity in what will be — what is already being — judged as a particularly dark moment in the history of our country? They are white women backing racist, xenophobic policies, and to ask that your colleague act “appropriately” at a time like this only serves to sustain white supremacy.

Click here for the full article and list of women that signed the letter.