Women are joining the fight - support them!
The word “woman” is not in the Constitution. You’ve read that right – women were NOT on the forefather’s minds when they wrote the Constitution. Women weren’t considered people. Women could be raped by their husbands. Women could be kidnapped and held against their will. In some instances, women could be killed and men could be exonerated solely on the base that they were married. It has only recently become a consideration in case law that spousal abuse can be considered in criminal prosecution….and there are STILL abused women in jail for protecting themselves from abusive partners. It’s a rough world – every right that a woman has, she’s gone through a fight to obtain…and every right that a woman of color has was fought TWO OR THREE TIMES and, in most cases, is still being fought. Civil rights are not absolute. Voting rights are not absolute. The expectation is that women – white women and women of color – are to be the saviors of our country, but we can’t even reasonably expect to have equal rights to men. What makes it okay that I have to make a life-altering decision that will make a guaranteed change in my future, possibly force me into a lifetime of abject poverty, or possibly cause me to lose my life? How can I be expected to save the world, populate the earth, and operate as a footstool because I ovulate rather than ejaculate? The oxymoron of this is palpable. Make it make sense.
I am not the Virgin Mary. I probably had more sex than I should of in my teens and my twenties. By the time I was 24, I’d been raped twice. Between being passed out drunk and in various states of non-consent, I can’t count how many other times I’ve been sexually assaulted. At the age of 20, I was in a dead-end relationship, pregnant by someone who would not have been a good co-parent, much less a long-term partner. I made a hard choice; I had an abortion. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. It was a hard choice, but it was MY choice. Even as a wife and as a mother of three now, it’s a decision that I do not regret. It was the right choice FOR ME. Each one of my children are rainbow babies, and I had to have D&Cs with two of those miscarriages. There are so many things that people seem to lose in the recent repeal of Roe and Casey – even when a procedure is NOT TECHNICALLY an abortion, it can be BILLED as an abortion. A pregnancy may be non-viable. A pregnancy may be a result of sexual violence. Whatever the reason, a woman’s ability to make choices that affect her ability to have the future of HER choice should NEVER be infringed upon.
As women begin to move forward in finding their paths to impact their communities, we wear many hats. This didn’t just start on Friday; women are tasked with not only protecting other women but protecting girls. Case and point: I am a mother of three. I have a sixteen-year-old daughter, a nine-year-old daughter, and a six-year-old son. My rising junior had an English class last school year where she had to outline a persuasive essay to a male teaching assistant. When she communicated that her essay would be on “Roe V. Wade,” the teaching assistant found it necessary to go into a religious tirade on how “Abortion is Murder,” even shutting down a white female student who jumped to my daughter’s defense by saying “White people shouldn’t have opinions on racial issues.” I was pissed. I sent an email to the principal letting her know how much I didn’t appreciate the teaching assistant pressing his religious beliefs on my daughter. The executive principal responded by stating that the comments from the teaching assistant were “part of the assignment.” How could a FEMALE executive principal think that “abortion is murder” is okay to say to a group of fifteen-year-olds? Her response was an enemy to women and an enemy to the girls she was entrusted to protect.
This is not the only failure that I have experienced from my city’s school system. My now nine-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by another student at her previous elementary school. What’s worse, the numerous assaults occurred for close to TWO SCHOOL YEARS – they started when she was five, my husband and I found out when she was seven, and she is now my nine-year-old rape survivor. After I lost my shit, I came to the school system with basic requests that they shot down. The first level of communication was with two WOMEN – the attorney for the school board and the then chair of the school board. The school system let the student who raped my daughter back into school without even notifying the teacher whose classroom she was placed in what had taken place so that the teacher could put risk management in place to protect the rest of their class. They were going to leave my daughter at the school with her rapist. Due to the school system’s neglect, my husband and I made the decision to move my daughter to a private school that would protect her safety. We are currently fighting to make her whole – we are blessed that we had options but it should not be ours to bear. Our baby deserved better. She deserved to be protected. But because she was a GIRL, even from the beginning, her value was diminished. She was always handed a short deck and expected to come out with a royal flush.
Now, what does this have to do with elections? This election cycle, Virginia local elections have shifted to a November date. Municipal elections previously were slated for May to ensure low voter turnout. One of those elections in particular is for my local school board. The three incumbents were able to secure a position on the ballot. Men. With daughters. Who turned their backs on MY daughter. Who chose to weaponize the school board against me. What they weren’t counting on, however, was that there is another name on the ballot. MINE. I hit the pavement in my flat and a walking CAM boot and handled business. I collected almost three times the number of signatures I needed to get on the ballot, and am now in the fight of my life to make my local school system better than it is.
Women across the country are stepping out from behind their fear and taking charge, one school board, city or town council, delegate race, or senate race at a time. Political parties want you to believe that one is the enemy of the other. The truth of the matter is that the two major parties are BOTH shackled to their own influence. There are plenty of local politicians in my area that made the decision to remain silent to protect their political power… and some of those have “D’s” next to their names. Women across the country are making decisions of conscience to not be people of politics, but people of community. They see what’s wrong and have an innate desire to fix it. They see our girls and know that they have the capacity to make changes for the common good. They see the actions of the last few days and know that our country has the capacity to be better…to DO better. Each day I am eternally thankful that they are stepping from behind the scenes and being the warrior women that they are. They give me hope to press forward. They give me the power to press through and press on.
So I charge each of you to investigate before you donate. Know WHO they are before you know WHAT (Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, etc.) they are. Be willing to send an email and ask the questions that are important to YOU. As I collected signatures for my own race (and I collected them ALL on my own), I opened the door for those who weren’t familiar with me to “Ask me anything.” Those conversations led to impactful dialogue and resulted in signatures that were not only diverse, but full of good wishes and an understanding that I genuinely want to make my community, my city, and my world a better place. Join me in this fight by supporting another woman like me as she pushes forward in your community….and if you’d like to jump on the train WITH ME, I’d be glad to have you! #NikiaforHCS #8forCeleste
To donate to my school board campaign, please click here. To find out more about my daughter’s plight and assist as we fundraise for her education, please click here.
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