I LOVE Tiffany Midge on Facebook. Like I try not to look like too much of a stalker, and not “like” and comment on every post. But I definitely look forward to what she says every day!
Tiffany is both hilarious and thought-provoking, and in this I see some of her most thought-provoking words coming out. I’ve had difficulty with describing why I have some discomfort with the sort of pink pussy hat “movement.” She puts it very well.
Why I Don’t Like “Pussy” Hats
By Tiffany Midge
I don’t like “pussy” hats for the same reason
I don’t like the “s word,” as in “S Valley,”
or “S Bay,” “S Creek,” “S Peak,” “Big S Mountain.”
Several of these place names have been
changed—“Isqúulktpe,” Umatilla for “throat-slitting place.”
“Piestewa Peak,” named for Lori Ann Piestewa,
first known Native American woman
to die in combat, first female soldier
killed in action in the 2003 Iraq War.
I don’t have the luxury, or the class status
to use appellatives like “pussy,”
or “nasty.” They’re not re-claimative terms
for someone like me. “Pussy” hats speak liability.
“Pussy” hats speak caste system.
“Pussy” hats speak privilege.
A carefree embrace that lurks without threat.
“Pussy” hats are not transgressive.
“Pussy” hats are an emblem, a tool of privilege.
When my people march and organize
the cops and paramilitary are deployed.
In the Women’s March in Washington
the demonstrators were free from authoritarian presence.
I don’t enjoy that same carefree, flagrant luxury
my white sisters take for granted.
Because I’ve known the “S word.” I’ve heard
it spoken and used like a weapon
to belittle, to declare supremacy, to make war.
I’ve seen it tossed out of car windows,
on school playgrounds, in work spaces.
Sharpened like obsidian, used to flay open, used
to humiliate, to disgrace,
to bludgeon, used like an axe.
I’ve seen it used in a thousand different ways.
I don’t like “pussy” hats for the same reason
I don’t like the “s word.” I don’t like
the “s word” for the same reason
I reject injustice, ongoing colonialism,
racial divide, war, or apartheid.