You ask me why I wasn't part of the March, hanging with all my "sisters" arm in arm. You wonder why I didn't understand the charm of a pink "pussy" hat made out of yarn. With shouts of "resistance", "revolution" and "alarm", didn't I support my "allies" to fight off this harm? You ask me if I know what is going on, how sexist and racist the country had become?
My answer to your questions are easy to see that I didn't show up to March because there was nothing there for me. The truth is too many of my "sisters" have sat silent and many have tried to destroy people like me. Detestable behavior was normalized long ago, in back rooms and boardrooms where many of you may go. Forgive me when I don't cry out when we lost one election, I've been living it for years while hardly hearing an objection.
I stand up for justice every day of my life but to be clear you brought a knife to a gun fight. You came with your signs and your pretty pink hats, your chants of resistance, "Hell no, we won't go back". But this advocacy game has been going on for years, we've been marching, sitting and fighting through our fears, in classrooms and boardrooms just to be heard but too many of you never uttered a word.
When you ask where I was that day, I can honestly say, that I was working and planning and trying to find a way, to diversity, equality and a safe place. For my sisters of every nation, race and hue, my Republican sisters and all the men too. Our future is together no matter how easy to forget, with all the hurt and the pain of all the not yet's.
Now that the Marching and Shouting are through, I'm ready and willing to work and fight beside you. The question I now pose back to you: does this all matter or was it just something to do?
We must stand together arm and arm, knowing when something happens to one, it happens to us all. We must be honest and fearless and be allowed to speak our truth, and only once that happens can I be a "real sister" to you.