Saturday’s women march in New York City marked the second coming of last January’s universal demonstrations initiated by the Women’s March on Washington which protested the misogyny embodied by President Donald Trump. Last year’s marches were best represented by a mere accessory: a pink hat.
P**sy hats were the purportedly empowering reference to the pink hats sported by the flocks of women who descended on the streets of Washington D.C. last year. The hats also became a metaphor for the problematic White feminism which inspired the march. So one can only imagine the extent of the aloofness of one of this year’s protestors when they decided to place a p**sy hat on a statue of Harriet Tubman in New York City’ Black Mecca.
On Saturday, social media users noticed the Tubman statue, which is located on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 123rd Street in Central Harlem, was adorned with the pink hat.
Twitter wasn’t about to not read the brazen act for the unabashedly boundless White feminism of which it wreaked.
https://twitter.com/eveewing/status/954757922323648513
thinking that putting a pussy hat on a Harriet Tubman statue is solidarity with Black women is THE WHITEST THING I'VE SEEN IN A WHILE https://t.co/PHX15h8f0A
— The Du Boisian Biologist (@Hood_Biologist) January 20, 2018
https://twitter.com/booksandjoe/status/954762739343294465
There is a picture of a Harriet Tubman statue with a pink pussy hat on it rolling down the TL.
I’m just wishing pink yarn no longer existed. May your fingers bleed profusely. pic.twitter.com/oIhFgJSCMY
— well, sorta kinda (@Steph_I_Will) January 20, 2018
Nothing more neocolonial than cister settlers putting a pussy hat on a Harriet Tubman statue.
That's the problem w/ identity politics, its based on symbolic actions that tap into sensory displays while changing nothing at all.
The grand empty gesture that is the moderate.
— The Du Boisian Biologist (@Hood_Biologist) January 20, 2018
Dear white ladies,
Keep your pink hat off of #HarrietTubman head. You aren't even worthy to touch her statue.#WomensMarch2018 "Women's March in NYC" pic.twitter.com/cvxZ2IVymH— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) January 21, 2018
Dear White feminism and your neon hats: you’ve proven you don’t want our lanes to intersect so stay in yours.