White interjection

“I feel that I have the right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and colored women not theirs, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before.”

-Sojourner Truth

“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.”

-Susan B Anthony

"The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way.”

-Elizabeth Stanton

White interjection is bigger than interrupting me or my people when we speak. White interjection is violent, barbaric, primitive, savage, and with obscene light. Far too often, I am in a space being vulnerable sharing accounts on my life and someone white finds the need to interject and align themselves as to “empathize”. I can confirm for you right now: as a Black woman, there is no possible way to empathize because, simply put- you are not Black.

At this point in my life, I need to make it clear in my environments that unless I have verbally invited your experience as a white being, I have no interest in considering the potential parallels of our lives because it will always be quite, unparalleled.

On Wednesday, August 28, 2020, in New York’s Central Park, a bronze statue was unveiled. The statue featured Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. My face cringed at the unveil because I am not a fan of how the figures are juxtaposed to one another.

After reading “Women, Race, and Class,” by Angela Davis, I learned of Anthony and Stanton. Essentially, as Black women worked to fight for the rights of all women, white women interjected themselves to create and highlight problems that excluded others on the basis of race and class. Their plight differed in that they remained defenseless and never moved beyond classism and racism- consistently obscuring oppression which has bled into the 21st century “feminist” movement. White interjection is often disguised as alliance in an effort to highlight problems that are self-interested. I, for one, am not a fan of the latest statue unveiling as it is also a practice of erasure and the isolation of context.