More in the link.
"It's important because we need to give a voice to those most oppressed in order to make everybody better," Weeks told the audience, many of whom were around her mother's age. "That's women of color, that's disabled people, that's LGBTQ people."
She was about to move on to the most relevant part of her stump speech—how NOW could help do all this—when she was interrupted by a white woman in the audience.
"White women, too!" the woman yelled.
"And then yeah, don't forget the white women," Weeks replied evenly.
"Just the women with the pussies!" another woman called out, in what seemed to be a reference to trans women. In video obtained by The Daily Beast, you can hear an audience member groan.
"It's OK," Weeks said, attempting to press on. "It is important to include all women."
"All women!" the first heckler cried.
"It is important to include all women," Weeks tried. "But if you don't realize the privilege that's been afforded to you because of a difference in color…"
"We recognize it!" the first woman yelled.
Eventually, Weeks was able to get the crowd back under control. But she says the experience made her realize, for the first time, that there were systemic issues in NOW that even she couldn't fix.
"This organization has a problem of racism and ageism and [they] don't know how to deal with it," she told The Daily Beast in an interview.
"I thought when I was coming into the feminist movement I was joining this big sisterhood," she added, "and that was the biggest disappointment in my life."
In interviews with The Daily Beast, nearly a dozen members, employees, and visitors recalled women of color being heckled, silenced, or openly disparaged at NOW meetings and offices. The behavior culminated at the 2017 conference where, witnesses say, members dismissed Fortson-Washington, a black woman, as "angry" and entitled, and accused Weeks of being a "hot-headed Latina." On the last day of the conference, more than a dozen women marched around a conference room to protest racism inside the organization.
But the problem didn't stop there. Internal emails, documents and interviews obtained by the Daily Beast reveal that allegations of racism reached the highest levels of the organization after Weeks and Fortson-Washington's loss. More than a dozen employees at the national headquarters signed onto a letter accusing President Toni Van Pelt of sidelining and disparaging women of color, and the previous vice president has filed a federal racial discrimination suit.
"I am a black woman, I have experienced racism," one former employee told The Daily Beast. "But what happened there… I have never experienced that before."
Shortly after The Daily Beast reached out for comment, Van Pelt sent an email to all NOW Board members, state presidents, staff and PAC members apologizing for any hurt she had caused and committing to five action items to improve racial justice within the organization.
"All Black Lives matter," she wrote. "As a White woman, I'll never understand the experiences of women of color. I challenge myself to address structural racism and recognize that this is a lifelong, ongoing process. I do understand it is critical to acknowledge my own privilege and strive to be a better ally. As the leader of NOW, and a leader within the intersectional feminist movement, I must hold myself and our organization accountable to do more."
‘Don’t Forget the White Women!’: Members Say Racism Ran Rampant at NOW
“They don't want to truly engage with young women of color or people of color.”
www.thedailybeast.com
