NO SNOW DAY

For the Old White Women in Minneapolis

Obviously not Minneapolis, but old white ladies can be found anywhere exercising their constitutional right to free speech.

The pictures out of Minneapolis show tens of thousands of protesters bundled against subzero weather. Writing on Substack, one observer mentioned to his surprise that so many protestors were what he described admiringly as “old white women.” I am surprised that he wasn’t aware that these women earned their stripes long ago. These were the women who might have led his daughter’s Girl Scout troop or tutored his grade-school son. He might have recognized them as the women who marched for equal rights and reproductive freedom.

But it’s true that we are all shocked by the news and videos that show ICE agents slamming old women to the frozen ground. Or to see beefy Border Patrol officers acting like middle school bullies use their full strength to push women until they fall backward.

These federal agents have now killed two innocent protesters—Renee Good, shot four times while in her car, and Alex Pretti shot at least ten times for trying to help a woman the feds had shoved to the ground. While the details are in dispute, we have all seen the videos and watched the Border Patrol chief lie with impunity.

Now some of us are really old white women. We are truly sick and tired, but we are still imbued with the old fury. We are outraged to see the rights we fought for lost. To see our country under the authority of thugs and bullies. What do we do when we are done with protesting in the streets, with poll watching, and going to meetings?

This. We write, donate, and vote.

And this. We tell our grandchildren the truth because that’s what old women of any color do.

Finally this. “Don’t let the bastards get you down,” from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.*

* “Don’t let the bullies get you down,” a more polite version was first used by the British Army in World War II, a people of great tenacity.