Black women are fierce in our own right, but we're still a political, social, and economic minority. As are black men, Latinos, LGBTQI-Americans, and children. When it comes to making changes in America, the minority quest for equality has always been treacherous due to being out-numbered and out-gunned.
Cue white women.
There isn't a civil rights movement in this country that's succeeded without the blood, sweat, and tears of white women in the mix. As each oppressed minority in this country has come into their own, there have been white women walking beside them with arms linked in unity and support, often neutralizing the violence that could have been by their very presence. Women like:
Anne Hutchinson, who advocated for the Pequots;
Deborah Sampson, a real-life Mulan;
Emma Willard, who created the first college for women;
Foster, Stone, and Anthony, who used their status to abolish slavery;
Margaret Sanger, birth control pioneer;
Inez Milholland, suffragette and savior of child laborers;
Clara Bow, the "It girl" actress redefining the role of women;
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who orchestrated an open-air performance at the Lincoln Memorial for African-American opera singer Marian Anderson after the DAR discriminated against her, and many more.
It's understandable that the vast majority of the tales and stories of non-white minority movements would focus on the courage of the non-white minorities, but you can hardly flip through a Civil Rights photo album without seeing a fair face in the crowd - smiling, chanting, screaming, or singing along. For all that they've done towards everyone else's cause, however, their own continued inequality is often minimized by comparison, overlooked, or ridiculed at the altar of anti-P.C. demagoguery.
This pervasive trend has spawned words like "slut", "cunt", "bitch", "whore", "shrew", and "nag" - words created by white men to, first and foremost, hurt white women. This trend line has led us on a 180-degree path back towards the days of debating birth control, of all things. You can turn on your television in 2012 and see some red-faced, tragically porcine white man accusing an attractive young white girl of being a porn star for the crime of following the directions on the package - take one pill each day, every day. It's not only designed to demean the college student, but to pit her against other women in some feverishly fantasized purity contest where Rush Limbaugh is the sneering, partially-erect judge.
I finally grasp the heart of the contraception debate. I finally understand why certain White men create labels and policies designed to rein White women in, knock them up, and keep them homebound and codependent until they're too tired and worn to do more than close their eyes and think of England:
Because they're powerless against them.
White men can fend for themselves against virtually anyone and anything except White women. When Congreve wrote "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd/ Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd", it wasn't a Perryesque Madea figure he was envisioning, it was a prim, polite, gently-reared White woman.
White women have all of the privilege and pride you'd expect of a majority race and all of the empathy and understanding that comes with living under the rule of White men. They're minorities wrapped in the guises of aunt, sister, daughter, wife, mistress, mother, and gran. Each of them have a dagger perpetually aimed at the heart of White men, and they will strike fast and deep if provoked.
Against a million proud and angry non-White minorities, a White man might still feel superior. Against a single proud and angry White Woman, an entire legislative panel of powerful White men lock the windows, bar the doors, and hurl insults from the safety of their legislative chambers and recording studios.
So congratulations, GOP. You've managed to alienate every minority in this country without losing a night's sleep over it... but now you've revived the same heav'nly rage and hellish fury that's blinded and scorched White men over the centuries: the anger of the White women.
Not just White women, but all of the women that they've helped achieve equality over the years, and the menfolk of all colors who have no intentions of putting party before pussy. You've awoken the savage Beast*, and neither music nor football recap can soothe it.
Just ask Virginia state delegate David Albo if you don't believe me. He'll give you all the details, whether you want them or not.
*This line was originally written by Congreve as well, but referred to a savage breast instead of beast, amusingly enough.