E1: DEAR MRS. WHITE LADY

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Dear Mrs. White Lady,

I need to unburden myself.

And frankly, I should’ve taken you aside and told you this months ago, but I thought it would be impolite to mention.

I should have. But I didn’t.

I mean, it’s more likely than not I’ve bumped into you making a quick stop at Whole Foods to grab some organic escarole, Arborio rice and a hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano. I could have hung back after the last HOA meeting, but then I’m always in a rush to get home.

So, you’ll forgive me when I tell you it feels more than a bit awkward to have this conversation with you now.

So, I have to be straight with you. I need to tell you what you should have known before the last election. And please remember that no one here wants to be harsh.

I should have told you after the Supreme Court doused the Dobbs decision with gasoline.

I should have mentioned it after the warning, “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets.”

I should’ve mentioned it after fundamentalist Christian preachers started saying that we didn’t have the right to our own vote—that we were to vote in lockstep with our husbands, boyfriends, fathers or conservative families.

I should have come to you after male layabouts started chanting online, “your body, my choice.”

Had I known that grown women—out of sheer desperation—were leaving post-it notes on the walls of public restrooms, uploading anonymous TikTok videos or Tweeting under fake profiles. Had I understood they were being terrorized in their own homes by their own families. I’d like to think I would’ve done something.

I should have recognized that you had every reason to hide your political choices. I didn’t see the bullying. I didn’t see the fear. I’m so sorry.

These are weighty topics, and admittedly, and I’m getting a little off track with what I wanted to tell you.

It’s a difficult conversation to begin and I’m sure it won’t come out right. So here goes.

Your whiteness is not a failsafe. Or should I say, our whiteness is not a failsafe.

(I can hear the clutching of pearls of 1,000 mothers and their mothers’ mothers in my head as I write this.)

We are being maligned. Sidelined. Reprimanded. Some would say gaslit. We are being picked off quietly, one by one. We are being told to sit down and shut up.

I’m unsure what to do next.

I, for one, don’t want to fill the role of Acquiescent White Lady in Residence. I don’t want to be told to behave, pat on the head and told to be a good girl.

I feel like we’ve been manipulated out of our own feelings and choices…. “If you vote for me, you won’t ever have to worry about voting again. If you don’t, you’re not gonna have a country anymore. Your house won’t be worth anything. Immigrants will routinely assault you. Windmills will kill all the geese. People will be eating the dogs, the cats, the pets.”

I don’t even know how we got here. We’ve run circles around boys in grade school, college—heck, even through STEM achievements in biomedical fields, like genetics, biotech and biochemistry. Just look at Girls Who Code (how hard could it be, boys do it?)

I remember helping my mother apply for a JCPenney credit card in ‘78. She was over the moon when I told her the law had changed. (Back then, a woman couldn’t get a credit card.)

Less than a month later the card arrived in the mailbox. My dad used mom’s sewing scissors to cut it to pieces. I watched as she cried. I cried too.

So, I know just because we have the rights, doesn’t mean we actually have the rights. In fact we have reason to fear standing up for ourselves. For some of us it’s uncomfortable. For others it’s downright dangerous.

I wish I could tell you to go home, talk to your husband or boyfriend or dad or best friend. Sadly, many of us are likely to hear the retort of a spoiled teenager: “So what.”

I admit I didn’t always see through this smoke screen either. Now I’m wondering how we could have voted with such indifference to ourselves?

There’s so much more I want to say, but I’ll leave it here for now. I’ll be around if you want to talk.

Let me know you’re ok. If only by way of a post-it note in the restroom.

-m.

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