Porter Challenges The Women’s March

New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter didn’t play to the crowd at Saturday’s Women’s March in Hartford. She instead challenged the crowd — to examine its own actions toward black women along with Donald Trump’s actions.

Porter delivered her passionate remarks before 10,000 people outside the state Capitol, at one of the marches nationwide a year after the first Women’s March brought millions to the streets to seek to launch a feminist counter-movement to the policies of Trump and the Republican Party. (Click here for a full report on the rally by Doug Hardy.)

Porter told the crowd that many black women like herself have felt excluded by those largely white events. She folded that into a broader critique of how liberal white women have built a movement on the groundwork laid by black women and then proceeded to downplay the most important issues facing black women in America, from voting rights to deadly police brutality and gang violence.

The crowd responded to Porter’s remarks with cheers and applause and, when Porter finished, chants of ​“Black lives matter!”

You can watch her deliver the remarks beginning just before the 45-minute mark point in Facebook Live video shot by blogger Al Robinson and posted below.

The text of Porter’s remarks follows.

“Pushed Aside, Counted Out”

Well, hello Hartford! Woooo! My God! My God! This is more than a full house.

They said they weren’t expecting a crowd but I was. And I have to tell you when I was asked to speak at the march today, I must admit I was conflicted.

It was a thorny subject for me. And when I look out into the crowd – this massive crowd, I am reminded of one of the things I thought about. And that was what I had heard many of my black and brown sisters express about the Women’s March, and how they felt that it was a Women’s March that had left them out and that they wanted nothing to do with it.

I felt like I could relate but I needed to listen a little more. And then they went on and they asked me things like: Why haven’t we been asked to participate in something? Why haven’t we been able to come to the table and help in planning the menu? Why don’t we have any input? Why aren’t our voices being summoned? Especially since this movement and so many others were birthed out of the bowels of black women.

And then it dawned on me and I thought to myself and I had to say, We have been at the table planning the menu. Heck, the table was set by us for us, and when we led, white women didn’t show up for us.

This is part of the reason why they told me they wouldn’t be here today. Because frankly, they were sick and tired – sick and tired of what they felt were white women hijacking their history and work and discounting their worth.

See, for far too long black women have been held back, pushed aside, and counted out – hidden figures kept in the dark and only to be brought out for validation and clout.

Nevertheless, I had a decision to make, and it wasn’t done in a split second. I had to pray on it. In a nutshell, this is what I got back was this: Nobody can speak for your experience, so it is crucial that people that look like you and have experiences like you not only have access to power but that they also have access to the mic.

So, here I am – to speak to you all today on behalf of the black women who feel left out and left behind –- black women whose voices have not been heard and whose issues have not garnered white women’s staunch support. Issues that mainstream women’s rights movements often dismiss – the issues affecting black women, like, maternal mortality, infant mortality, police brutality, mass incarceration, the War on Drugs aka the War on Black People, gang violence, unemployment, education, voting rights. The AIDS epidemic because it is still an epidemic in communities of color. And the heroin epidemic: Yes, the epidemic has seeped into communities of color and heroin overdose rates have more than doubled — said doubled — among Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans, and the media isn’t talking about that.

“Time For A Reckoning”

See, for us, the denial of our people and our plights is déjà vu, it’s nothing new. And it’s time for a reckoning and a change.

Leslie Mac said it best when she said, ​“This movement needs a wake-up call. When organizing is measured in actions and attendance and success is tallied in crowd size, how can black women ever be free? How long can we continue to be the backbone of this movement and its whipping post? How long can we endure our own pain being ignored? This situation is untenable. It is time to clear the air and start over.”

And I have to say, I wholeheartedly agree with her. It is time.

It is time for white women to start showing up and showing out on the issues that impact black and brown women’s lives – like the death of Jayson Negron. When’s the last time you said his name? Why? Because Black Lives Matter. And believe it or not that is the one movement we would love for you all to hijack, especially since we have stood in solidarity with you all on every issue under the sun – bar none.

Yes, it is time. White women must use their privilege in this movement to demand justice for the causes of the women whose very shoulders they have consistently stood on over the centuries.

Some names were called today: Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth. I mean this has been a movement in our communities for a very long time. Since the 1800s, until now, black women have been at the forefront of many movements to make their lives and the lives of others more equitable and less marginalized – with or without the recognition. Today, I say we recognize and make room for black women and their issues in this movement. And that we make sure that black and brown women do not feel left out, that they do not feel like they have been left behind and discounted and that they are expendable and that the issues in their communities are second fiddle.

Because we must be included.

So, I want to know: Are you with us? I want to know, Can we start over and clear the air?

I sure hope so, because it’s the only way we’re going to win.

We are going to have to work together – in spirit and in truth. Together. In unity and in love. Agape love.

Because that’s what it’s going to take to make America great for once, and for all! Submitted in love.

Thank you and God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.