During what feels like two years, (but it’s only been two weeks), critics and cynics have “analyzed,” pontificated and put down the amazing worldwide (worldwide 673 sister marches with an estimated 5 million marchers) Women’ s March on Washington. https://www.womensmarch.com
David Brooks (NY Times 1/ 24 /17) called it “identity politics” and claimed women “focused on the wrong issues” (reproductive rights, equal pay, affordable health care, action on climate change). Brooks acts as if being a woman is just a convenient skin we put on, a longtime reflection of white men ‘s ability to dismiss those who don’t share the easy privilege of being white and male, not to mention that affordable health care, reproductive rights, equal (and fair) pay, and action on climate change are issues which will impact every single American.
To be sure, as we have been told endlessly by the press who seem to have interviewed almost every Trump supporter in America, there are white men who haven’t seen much benefit from their privilege in this time of automation and tech revolution, not to mention the long lasting impact of the financial crisis caused by many of the same people President 45 is now tapping to lead his administration. At the same time, the average income of the white male voter for Trump was $70,000. (https://newrepublic.com/article/138754/blame-trumps-victory-college-educated-whites-not-working-class) So what won the Electoral College was identity politics- white men (and sadly 43% of white women) who voted for a bigoted, sexist liar along with a small group of African Americans (8%) and 29% of Latino voters.
Moving on from the critics, in the face of #Republican chaos (we need to go back to the Pottery Barn slogan, “You break it, you own it,” and the Republicans for the most part, have stood by and assisted in the wreckage of our Constitution) women and their allies have not crawled under a blanket (Ok, maybe once a day) but organized, resisted and repudiated not only the election of Donald Trump, but his outrageous dismantling of American values and beliefs. Just using Facebook organizing as proof, the Women’s March on Chicago page has 42,000 members and topics cover everything from how to run for office, how to get more people to vote, how to advocate with elected representatives and a healthy measure of local rallies, town hall meetings, protests, and other actions.
An “ After the March” topic I’d particularly like to address comes from my profession as a folklorist. We research, document, present and help to preserve beliefs and practices based on the folk process, which is often oral in nature, but in today’s world, “oral” includes visual and the Internet. The President, his minions, Republican members of Congress and inadvertently, the press and many new activists have promoted the equivalence of urban legends in the new normal which means not daily, but hourly.
Urban legends are tales told as true and which happen to a “friend of a friend,” or FOAF, i.e., giving just enough distance from personal experience that it is easy to believe them since you didn’t see it with your own eyes.
The anti-Clinton alleged child sex ring at pizza restaurant, Comet Ping Pong in DC (aka “Pizzagate”) is the perfect example of an urban legend which almost had tragic consequences. Not only did a man go to the restaurant (and this is personal, my daughter lives not far away in DC) with a gun, but almost equally terrifying in terms of being able to trust elected and appointed officials, now National Security Adviser, Michael T. Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn Jr. (at the time, a member of the Trump transition team) tweeted “ “Until #Pizzagate is proven to be false, it’ll remain a story. “ While Junior resigned from the Trump team, I’ll buy a dozen pizzas from Comet Ping Pong for anyone who can prove he is no longer involved with the Trump presidency.
So what about the “Choking Doberman?” This urban legend, one of many collected by the father of urban legends, folklorist Jan Brunvand, typically centers around a woman coming home to find her pet Doberman choking. She rushes him to the vet, who tells her the dog will need surgery, and she should go home and wait. As she gets to her house, her cell phone rings and the vet says, “don’t go in the house, I found three fingers in your dog’s throat, someone’s there. “ It turns out a burglar got into the house, was attacked by the Doberman and is still there, bleeding. In my opinion, President 45 (aka #Pence’s Poodle) is the thief in the house of the United States. He essentially stole the election with a combination of falsehoods, misogyny, and racism and our Doberman (the electoral college process) missed the chance to bite his hand and save us. I wouldn’t suggest replacing our pink pussy hats with dog ears (although dog lovers might want to join the cats) but I do recommend that we ignore our critics, reject the chaos, check out www.snopes.com before you believe anything that is either too good or too awful to be true, and continue to organize and resist.
Sadly, the critics and the chaos show no sign of letting up but my belief is that we can eventually get the thief impeached, turn out the enablers in the 2018 election, and restore our country to one where we work together for solutions which lift every boat instead of one where innocents are turned away and identity politics is used to divide us.