mnkhss:

mehreenkasana:

I noticed something very different today, as someone who’s regularly attended rallies and marches since the age 13.

White femininity’s perceived peacefulness is intrinsically linked to how the State views and treats nonwhite femininities and masculinities. It’s very interesting how a predominately white women march today received the least intervention and suspicion from state apparatuses like the police.

Identical political marches with identical demands for autonomy, dignity, mobility and reproductive justice (a political term coined by black women scholars) have been led by black women but the State response to such assemblages is starkly different. Much harsher. The level of scrutiny and penalty goes above and beyond that which predominantly white assemblages face.

So while, yes, there is strength in numbers and other pleasant axioms, there is also strength in rigorously questioning why you are not viewed as a threat, why your default status is not seen as a deviance from the norm, why you receive such kindness and others don’t.

Well this whacked me right in the face, in a way I needed to be whacked.