wocinsolidarity:

solomonorsalamander:

In 1968, during the administration of US President Lyndon B. Johnson, Eartha Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. Kitt was invited to the White House luncheon and was asked by Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. She replied: “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.” During a question and answer session, Kitt stated: The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons — and I know what it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson — we raise children and send them to war. Her remarks reportedly caused Mrs. Johnson to burst into tears and led to a derailment in Kitt’s career

I know one of the other mods reblogged this already, but can we just take a moment to think about what had happened. And I know this is really obvious, but like

Eartha Kitt, a Black woman spits truth, something that is real and deep and meaningful, and a white woman begins to cry, presumably because she found it as a personal attack. This doesn’t cause people who think critically about the white women’s reaction, or about the truth behind this Black woman’s words, it causes sympathy for the white women and literally harms the Black woman.

Because in the United States white women’s tears and feelings are literally the pinnacle of what we should find sympathetic. Not kids being sent off to war, to kill people. But the tears of a white woman. Now I know that part of this is the patriarchal assumption that women need to be protected and nurtured, but it’s also part of the racist-ass structure of the United States in which “women” means “white women.” Would President Johnson and his wife’s careers and lives have been put on hold if Eartha Kitt had burst into tears over her children being sent to war to kill people? Hellllllllll to the no. But show a white woman crying, and suddenly everyone involved is a villain.