One word puts Cincinnati Women's March, Black Lives Matter at odds

Two groups that otherwise would appear to be allies will hold separate events on the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration.

Organizers of the 2018 Cincinnati Women's March and a group of prominent local African-American activists are fighting over a word.

At issue is the use of the word "vote" in the subtitle of women's march scheduled for noon Jan. 20 at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati, a group that considers women's liberation essential to black liberation, will not participate. It will hold an educational forum at 3 p.m. that day.

It objects to the slogan "Hear our vote!" and asked leaders of march organizer United We Stand – Cincinnati to change it to "Hear our voice!"

The skirmish has played out over the past week on social media.

Black Lives Matter says the "vote" theme excludes marginalized people of all ethnicities and narrows the focus of fighting back to one method. It also says the women's marches that were held nationwide in 2017 have been co-opted by supporters of the Democratic Party.

"That's the conspiracy, and it's poorly veiled," Black Lives Matter wrote Wednesday on its Facebook page in what it termed a "clarification" of its original post about the march on Sunday.

"Voice is a broader call. Voice can include voting for those inclined to do so. That's not true the other way around."

Thousands of women, men and children crammed into Washington Park on Jan. 21, 2017, before a roughly mile-long march and protest around Downtown. It was Cincinnati's Sister March, a complement to the Women’s March on Washington to mark Trump’s first full day in office following his inauguration.

Black Lives Matter posted at 1:58 p.m. Sunday that it would not participate in the 2018 Cincinnati march. It said, "Our concerns were pushed aside." The 1,000-word piece also said the women's marches across the country "pushed aside the concerns of women of color."

March organizer Billie Mays of United We Stand – Cincinnati responded on her Facebook page less than an hour later.

"We are feminism. We are the working class. We are the women working hard and being single mothers and trying to make a change," Mays wrote in a post at 2:58 p.m. Sunday. "This division makes me sad. ... We can’t work together on this."

Wednesday, she again criticized Black Lives Matter, which she said she is a member of.

"Most of their op-ed was lies, an attempt to discredit our work and do a smear campaign," Mays told The Enquirer.

Brian Taylor of Black Lives Matter told The Enquirer a location has not been set for its educational forum Jan. 20. Yet, by scheduling the forum on its "Hear Our Vote!" decision and women's liberation at 3 p.m., he said, Black Lives Matter purposely is not interfering with the women's march.

"We could have done something to that effect, or something directly confrontational, but our goal was never to undermine the action," Taylor said. "It was to help them give us a way to join. So we scheduled a forum on the matter for after much of the scheduled (United We Stand) happenings are done."

In its Sunday post, Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati wrote that its organization operates on 11 political principles. "The ninth principle explicitly states that we support mass action and do not believe that deep-going changes will be made through the ballot box. We do not respond to calls to action that filter the power of our community down to casting votes.

"The Women’s March is a gathering and a display of power, but it is also a poorly veiled campaign to elect more Democrats to 'resist Trump.'"

The conflict between Black Lives Matter and United We Stand has generated a large amount of back-and-forth on social media.

Rashida A. Manuel, who describes herself as a Cincinnati-based writer and activist, posted an essay on why – as an African-American – she will participate as a featured speaker in the women's march.

"While I respect their opinion, I disagree with their reasoning. We cannot afford to not participate in electoral politics. Trump has made that clear," wrote Manuel, who is a board member of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio.

"While we wait for revolution, black women’s rights to affordable healthcare, abortion, and birth control are threatened. While we wait for revolution, black women are being paid less than both black men, white women, and of course white men. Additionally, while we wait for revolution, black women workers are impacted by the loss of protections for overtime compensation. … It is not feminist to ignore these issues."

Margy Waller, a white political activist and arts promoter living in Over-the-Rhine, wrote on social media that she does not plan to participate in the march unless Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati is brought back into the fold.

"I don’t want to be part of a Women’s March that does not include an important civil rights group in our city," Waller wrote. "If we can’t fix this, the headline will be: In Cincinnati, separate events for black and white people on the anniversary of the historic Women’s March."