E7: Dear Mrs. White Lady, Why We Can’t Get to Equal (Spoiler—It’s Race)

Featuring the Awesome Smackdown of White-Nazi Grams & Gramps!

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Dear Mrs. White Lady,

I was sorry to miss you at the pier on Sunday. Did you get the sourdough bread I dropped off last week? You didn’t say.

How are you? I’ve been feeling a bit off because somebody said my letters were sounding alarmist. I think with the gutting of the Treasury, Dept. of Education, the V.A. and now that #47 wants to build the Bros-before-Hoes Space Mountain & Golf Resort in Gaza—I probably can start to let that go.

I have to tell you though, this 20-second YouTube video has me with eyebrows-raised level of dumbfounded-ness. Two old White Texans walk in to a bar. (I know, kinda sounds like a set up to a bad joke, right?)

The Blade Bar is a custom knife shop in rural, West Texas. It kinda seems redundant to say rural and West Texas. It’s mostly ranchers out there. But you take my point.

I’ll set the scene. Her Royal Whiteness enters stage right. She is overdressed. She carries not one, but TWO Hitler Youth Knives.

She needs the one Nazi emblem on the first Nazi knife to be engraved (or something or other) on the handle of the second Nazi knife.

Matter-of-fact, like she’d just ordered a black coffee, no sugar.

The shop owner—Jonathan—NOT a Nazi—counters with some sweet-ass dialogue—

I’m not doing no Nazi Shit. I could de-Nazi-fy-it, but I’m not going to re-Nazi-ify-it.

BOOM. Mic drop. (I love this guy.)

Her Royal Whiteness realizes it’s a no-go and utters with momentary surprise, “Oh.”

(And for the usage/language police out there, momentary means for the duration of a moment. So, no, Charlotte, aeroplanes don’t touch down momentarily, or else they would immediately take off once more.)

Speaking of touch downs, I boycotted the Superbowl in protest. The overlords decided to remove the STOP RACISM banners from the end zones. But rest assured, kind folks, this in no way affects the NFL’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. Quick, someone get Colin Kaepernick on the line!

I learned Monday morning the Nazis were out in fine form on Sunday—online and IRL—taking their cues from the NFL—to smear and insult Grammy-award Winning Black musicians and entertainers at halftime. That’s how they do it. Might as well hang a sign, Nazi Spoken Here.

Now we return to The Nazi-Genarian Show already in progress…

Nazi-Hubs and Her Royal Whiteness unceremoniously depart the knife shop, stage left.

There are no wayward salutes. No goose-stepping mischief. But the camera does catch a shot of her Louis Vuitton satchel as the scene ends. (Wardrobe nailed it.)

I’m thinking to myself, wha? did I just…? So I playback the 20 seconds again and take in your standard retail-store video-cam footage. And I’m forced to reckon with—who are these people? And my imagination gets the better of me.

Just two 70-something Nazi kids, kicking it on a lazy Saturday afternoon. (To be fair, it could’ve just as easily been a weekday.)

I expect they had a restful morning at home. Eggs. Bacon. Stopped in for lunch at the local diner. Maybe ordered up the carnivore special for two. Ambled about in an antique store, before stopping in to make their Nazi knives even Nazi-er.

Stay with me on this.

I’m figuring, they would’ve been born early ‘50’s after WWII, right? So, these are not newly radicalized Grams and Gramps. (But that would be an interesting case study.)

They would’ve had civics in school. Known about the U.S.’ role in the formation of NATO and the U.N. Most assuredly would’ve known about the concentration camps in Germany and Poland.

They would’ve been in grade school at the start of the desegregation of schools in 1954.

They would’ve seen on TV the lunch counter sit-ins at the Woolworth’s in Greensboro in 1960. And the footage of police beating, whipping, and stomping peaceful Civil Rights protesters marching over the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery in ‘65.

They would not have been taught about the 10,000 White men from Tulsa who assembled, attacked and murdered hundreds of Black people in Greenwood, which was then known as Black Wall Street. Burning their homes. Grocery stores. Restaurants. Theaters. Hotels. Offices. Churches. Looting their property. Putting survivors in internment camps. Rolling hundreds of bodies into mass graves.

The Justice Department has only recently acknowledged the 1921 massacre was a coordinated, military-style attack, as brutal as any war. (If you’re wondering what spurred this massacre—it was fueled by Whites’ resentment of Black prosperity and wealth on every block and in every home on Black Wall Street.

Nazi Gram and Gramps would’ve been around for the assassination of JFK in ‘63 in their home state of Texas. And MLK and RFK in ‘68. And then there’s Vietnam. They would have been 20 or so by then. I doubt they attended any War Protests.

They would have been part of the rise of the Christian Right in the ‘60s. Touting family values to keep women out of the workplace. Preaching anti-feminist rhetoric and a woman’s duty to God, church, and husband, especially in the bedroom.

White fathers, husbands, pastors and politicians had the moral duty to set the White Lady in her place. In fact every White man had such God-given dominion over all women. And she should be humbled and glad for any correction that may come—as though it was a gift from God himself.

Do you know why we couldn’t get to Equal in the ‘70s?

It was because of Nice White Ladies—and not just any White Ladies—we’re talking well-dressed, White Ladies of Means from Well-appointed Homes.

Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly (I thought it rhymed with ukulele but I sand corrected)—regardless—she so hated equal rights, she spent years on the Hill undercutting the grassroots movement with White male politicians. In 1972, the Capitol would’ve been a virtual sausage fest!

She was also of the mind that White Ladies should not be in the workforce nor compete with men. “A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.” Mrs. Schlaly had another reason in mind. She did not want men to have access to women’s bathrooms!

(Hey, who had that on their bingo card?) Shoutout to Nancy Mace, Representative of South Carolina! See, Nancy, you are relevant!

These Nice White Ladies condemned other White Ladies who pursued careers or higher education. And the rare breed of White Ladies who sought to be treated as equally as White men—were branded Femi-Nazis. The ever genteel, Rush Limbaugh made this phrase great again on talk radio in the ‘90s. (RIFP.)

I imagine Her Royal Whiteness and her White Nazi Hubby would’ve put on a fabulous Christmas spread for the Mexican farm hands on their ranch. Maybe a wild turkey at Thanksgiving, OG-Ebenezer style. (Oh wait, that was at Christmas and, it was a goose.)

They would’ve hosted private dinner parties where they’d talk water and mineral rights among kindred spirits. Chewed on contraband Cubanos. Single malt Bourbon. I imagine bourbon would be involved.

Despite living through some of the momentous times of the century, nothing so much has cracked the glazing of their soulless, hellscape of White Identity. Life has not altered them. I know these people walk amongst us—but these folks—they’re like Walking Nazi Zombies.

I need a dose of fresh air. I’m gonna take the pups out. Be right back.

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Ok. I’m here. Miss Emma and Mr. Eamon 🐾 🐾 send their wiggle-wiggles. Who’s a good boy?! Who’s a good girl?!

I’m sorting through handwritten notes with a minimal amount of regret; I conclude they’re of no value whatsoever. I take a breath, gently balance the slips of paper atop my jenga-inspired pile of stuff to recycle. Which reminds me. I have to take out all those plastic blueberry and lettuce containers. Starting to pile up.

Pandora is playing Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.

Talk to me

So you can see

What’s going on

What going on

Having spent the morning listening to a respectable playlist of black artists, I opt for a red pino in a clear goblet. I assess what’s left in the Bota box and make a note to self.

(Oh, and don’t judge. It furrows your brow.)

Hey, did I tell you I’m currently on a strict, no-red-meat, no-MSNBC diet? I do allow for a YouTube video here and there—as a sort of cheat day.

I settle into my chair. YouTube is on mute. The affable Tim Miller of The Bulwark is on. Tim’s a good listen. I’m particularly enamored with his larger than life, framed vintage advertising poster for Triple Cleaned Pinto Beans.

Being a fan of both vintage ads and pinto beans myself—you can see the appeal.

COMING UP. SECOND BLOCK: DEI and Identity Politics. (I unmute.)

GUESTS: (Two relatable, late-middle-aged Black Guys)—Roland Martin and Michael Steele. Up Next. (Excellent.)

Steele’s a favorite of mine. He throws out a “YEAH, BABY! in nearly every segment—with absolutely no regard for the context. This delights me.

They’re knee-deep, opining on the-problem-with-White-women. And it’s delicious.

A testament to Tim’s good judgment, he doesn’t try to White-Man-Splain the key points: White Identity is identity politics. White women were the primary beneficiaries of DEI and the Civil Rights Movement. Right. Checks out.

I rustle for the remote. Save to Watch Later.

Their views of the White Lady Problem not withstanding, I break it down a little differently, being a White Lady myself.

In my refined thinking, the White Lady Problem exists along two continuums: a.) we don’t know our #@&! history; and b.) we over-identify with the White-Male, World-Domination line of bull crap.

I’ll try to break it down in a way that a Mrs. White Lady could hear.

So in terms of our history. The bravest Black and White Ladies to ever wear white dresses advanced the voting rights of White women. Because of Black Ladies during suffrage, White Ladies got the vote in 1920.

You know who helped Black Ladies, Indigenous and Asian get the vote in 1965, some 45 years later? Not us. Not us White Ladies. Nope. That’s right. Forty-five years.

Is it any wonder Black Ladies don’t trust us? We’ve given Black Ladies the shaft for generations. And they’re tired of carrying our sorry asses.

We can merely grasp at the deep intergenerational injury this betrayal has wrought on Black Ladies and their families.

I carry this thought with me, I carry it in my heart.

We were hiding a dirty secret. We weren’t ever on board with the idea of giving Black Ladies the right to vote.

In March 1913, for President Woodrow Wilson’s Inauguration, Black and White Suffragettes planned to March from the Capitol to the White House. In a last minute switcharoo—the Nice White Ladies conferred—that it’d be best for the Black Ladies to march in a segregated line at the back of the parade. So much for equality of the vote.

Uniformed police stood idly by or joined in, as a mob of drunken White marauders assaulted the Ladies as they made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue blocking their path. The First Lady of these United States, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson herself, saw the assaults from the White House balcony and thought it best to step inside. Yup, that’s some serious Mrs. White Lady energy right there.

The attacks became so violent the Calvary was called in. I’m assuming the White Ladies bore the brunt of the violence being toward the front of the procession. But it could just as easily been an ambush from the rear flank.

So, we sold out Black Ladies. True. But—we nearly sold out Black Men as well. Get this.

One year later, in 1914, Southern Senators proposed some machinations of their own. Would the Nice White Ladies be interested in trading the 15th amendment to The Constitution, which gave Black men the right to vote—for passage of the 19th amendment, giving White Ladies that right?

Mind you. The 15th Amendment was passed in 1870 during Reconstruction.

So, let’s do the math on that for a hot minute. Reading glasses. Pencil.

Ok. Right, so 1870 to 1914 = that’s 44 years. So you’re telling me, 44 years after Black men had the right to vote—these Nice White Ladies actually considered this deal. It’s unconscionable. And it underscores the lengths we White Ladies would go to serve our own interests.

Yesterday, I came across an article published in a local Georgia newspaper in 1918. HER TALK ENRAGED THEM. Alright. My interest is piqued.

It’s a story about the horrific death of Mrs. Mary Turner, who had spoken out against the lynching of her husband only the day before. I keep coming back to this headline.

Her talk enraged them.

This was the sole provocation for a mob of White men from Brooks County, Georgia to round up the 8-month pregnant Mrs. Turner. Bring her to Folsom’s Bridge where a crowd was waiting. There they tortured and mutilated her. They bound her feet, hanged her from a tree upside down, threw gasoline on her, and burned the clothes and skin off her body.

Mrs. Mary Turner was still alive when the mob took a large butcher’s knife, cutting the unborn baby from her body. When the crying baby fell from her abdomen, a man crushed the baby’s skull with his foot. The mob then riddled Mrs. Turner’s body with hundreds and hundreds of bullets. (I could find no reference as to whether the baby was a girl or boy.)

This is literally the ugly underbelly of racism. This is the “I didn’t know, no one told me” piece that we need to own and confront.

Are you starting to see this now?

There were no good parts of Jim Crow or slavery. No, Tim Scott, Senator from South Carolina. Life wasn’t better for Black people under slavery. Scott likes to blame LBJ’s safety net programs for removing Black men from the family home to get a check.”

Scott also says reparations for slavery are a “non-starter,” because—who would we know to give the money to? A ridiculous question. But let me help the good Senator out here.

What he meant to say is we don’t want to give up our acquired White wealth to pay for it. What the Senator fails to acknowledge is their White wealth was predicated on the enslavement of black peoples.

How about we try leveling the playing field just a bit? You know, so Black Ladies and Black Gentlemen might have some way to regain a footing in the economy?

Oh wait, that’s what Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are meant to do. So, by all means. Let’s do away with that. We liked it better when we were gaming the whole table.

Here’s a thought. How’s about we just look at reparations around redlining? You know the gov’t sanctioned practice that barred Black people from living in certain zip codes and controlled the very streets they could live on?

You ever wonder why White Nationalists get all tied-up in their shorts when a Black teenager walks down their street, Mrs. White Lady? It’s all of a piece. And this is where it stems from.

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In 1918, it was deadly for a Black Lady to speak out against the lynching of her own Black husband. Consider the threat Black Ladies faced by dressing in all white. Giving speeches in the Market Square and private homes. Handing out flyers to rally public support.

These Black Ladies were heroic. And we don’t even speak up at the grocery store when somebody makes a racist remark to an immigrant?

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Now let me take you to the way-back machine.

Before 1970, a woman couldn’t have a credit card in her own name. Most banks allowed women to only open a passbook savings account. That’s where you walk in with a little book the size of passport. You’d fill out a deposit slip. The teller manually types the deposits or withdrawal amounts in your book. For many, including my mom, it was a closely-guarded secret, and I was often dispatched to carry her passbook in with $1 here or 50 cents there.

After the Civil Rights Movement we White Ladies could buy a car without needing a male relative or husband to cosign. We could own property. We could get contraception. We could get a divorce. We could have access to higher education and career paths.

If you’re a doctor, attorney, accountant, scientist, business leader or the daughter of one, you can thank Black Ladies for that too. Because before then, women were not admitted to schools of higher education. The Seven Sisters women’s colleges were considered religious seminaries. But after the Civil Rights Act, they became full-fledged colleges. The historically black colleges and universities, HBCUs, grew out of the same era.

Our second problem, in the time-space continuum is that we over-identify with this White-Male, World-Domination line of bull crap. And each time we appease this creepy-ass obsession with the bodies of women and little girls, we take another step back.

We know appeasement doesn’t work. Not for dictators. And not for authoritarians in the church or in the home. The need for control is never satiated. It necessitates an endless supply of bowing down to, of fealty, subordination, submission. It is a compulsion—nursed by small gets. Intimidation, threats, tension, acquiescence or surrender.

It’s easy to see how the White-Male-Dominion over Women became a thing. The fear of stepping out of our lane or staying in it, provided some hope on which we might rely. Protection perhaps, financial support, a sense of belonging, children, social standing, status.

The Unabashedly Proud, Black-Nazi, Kanye “Ye” West said of slavery, “After 400 years? Bro, that sounds like a choice.”

After the Grammy red carpet walk this past weekend he posted, “I have dominion over my wife.” His meaning could not more clear. His wife, Mrs. Bianca West, was literally dressed down on the red carpet. Not for nothing, but there’s a reason why being naked in the public square is considered a form of humiliation.

Hey, fun fact. Ask our gurl Siri about the origins of “the rule-of-thumb.” (If you’re not up for it, no worries. I got you.)

The rule-of-thumb gave a husband the legal authority to beat his wife—so long as he used a rod or a switch no thicker than his thumb.

The epidemic of domestic violence in this country is not an accident. It’s a deeply embedded piece of dominance-based power. It’s figuratively hardwired into the system.

I often think “domestic terrorism” is a more apt term than domestic violence. More on point. But damnit if those-sons-of-a-guns at the FBI didn’t go ahead and give that moniker to White Nationalist terrorists. Who would thunk they’d be the same demographic?

If you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. (Excerpt from Andy’s letter to Red, in the movie, Shawshank Redemption.)

Some mornings, I navigate to Today in History, the landing page for the Library of Congress. A historical essay about Frederick Douglass led me to click on a story from 1904, which appeared on the front pages of The Evening Post (Vicksburg, Mississippi).

CHASE ENDS AT THE STAKE. Mr. Luther Holbert and Unknown Woman were lynched and burned. The backstory is Mr. Holbert had the bad habit of helping indebted Black laborers leave their slave-like conditions. Suffice to say, a fight ensued; a wealthy plantation owner was dead. And where there’s no hindrance of due process, mob justice is ready to fill the void.

Mr. Holbert and the Unknown Black woman were tied to trees. They were made to hold their hands out so each finger could be chopped off one by one and bandied about the crowd as souvenirs. Next, so were their ears.

With a barbarism that sadists and sociopaths would appreciate—the mob then used a large corkscrew to bore into their arms, legs, and bodies, pulling out large pieces of raw flesh. Mr. Holbert and the Unknown Black Woman were finally thrown on a pyre of flames and they were allowed to burn to death.

From news accounts:

The event was described as a festive atmosphere, in which the audience of 600 spectators enjoyed deviled eggs, lemonade, and whiskey.

Consider for a moment the preparations necessary to pull off a happening for 600 people in a small Mississippi town? This was not some vigilante crowd. They had made a day of it. Lemonade for the children. Deviled eggs and likely sandwiches for a snack. I expect whiskey, for the men.

(So, hey. Whatcha doing Saturday afternoon? Wanna go to the lynching? There’ll be people from all over! I’m gonna wear my best dress. We could bring a picnic.)

Of the 600 spectators taking in the festive atmosphere, several hundred likely travelled a day or more to witness these gruesome, dehumanizing, episodic, racial murders.

Moral outrage. Disgust. Disdain. Nope. Deviled eggs.

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Dear Mrs. White Lady, our job now is see this barbarism and vile hatred for what it is.

Recognize it when it rears its ugly head. In an aside, a subtle comment, a dismissive remark cast off as a joke. In coded language that says what they’re saying without saying it.

So, the next time someone pops off about School Boards banning books, whitewashing our skewed history even further. Tell ‘em kids aren’t afraid of learning about dimensions of historical events, even tragic stories about race. It’s their history too. And they have a right to it.

They are afraid of being massacred by military-grade weapons at school. They’re afraid of being bullied by peers and the parents of peers because they’re queer. And as they say, don’t get it twisted. (I think I used that idiom correctly.)

Sorry. I had to step away. I thought I saw the postal carrier. I had penned a note to mom. I didn’t want to miss him.

Getting back to the mess we’re in. Remember when I said your Whiteness is not a failsafe? Well, we’re there now.

The White Male-Dominated, Octogenarian Congress has refused since 2019–that’s six years—to vote on the Violence Against Women Act. They won’t even bring it to a vote. Think about that. Can they not garner enough support for a bill that would restrict violence against women?

J.D. Vance our elected Vice President wants to do away with no-fault divorce altogether. Bad marriage? Too bad. Violence in the home? Stay put and stick it out. (Heck his mom did.)

Oft-repeated biblical references are particularly insidious. Pastor Joel Webbon of the White-Evangelical-Name-Your-Own-Denomination-I-Swear-On-the-Bible-Ministry in Georgetown, Texas believes women should be publicly executed for making false rape allegations.

He gloated from the pulpit in 2024: The #MeToo would end real fast. False (sic) accusing; playing the victim when you’re actually not. All you have to do is publicly execute a few women who’ve lied. Oh, he also believes husbands should control what their wives read; God wants women to be quiet—and my personal favorite—the 19th Amendment stole half my vote.

You have to ask yourself, whose interests do these beliefs serve? Don’t you wonder about the White men around you—with their litany of grievances?

And, in what low regard they must hold us.

I’m going to fuss a bit with my Mora clock. It seems her tik and her tok are out of beat. This is delicate work. I may miss dinner.

Talk soon.

-m.

P.S. Somebody should really do a TED Talk on this stuff!

P.S.S. I meant a TED talk on the equality stuff, not the clockmaking. (I don’t really know what kind of draw the clockmaking would have—then there’s the problem of needing to see the clock up close.)

Marvin Gaye wrote the lyrics to “What’s Going On” to give voice to his brother Frankie’s experience after returning home from Vietnam. (Motown Records, 1971.)

Image used with permission. Sources are hyperlinked throughout.

Ms. Lachapelle is neither a historian, social scientist, cultural anthropologist, economist, theologian, nor empathic Reki healer. The views expressed and stylistic choices are her own.

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