It is rightly said that white women are the cradle of white supremacy and misogyny. Even when we are not actively teaching our children to hate, we perpetuate hate through our silence and inaction. To “keep the peace” we pretend we don’t know. We excuse the inexcusable. We ignore what’s right in front of us. We are okay with our family members’ cruelty as long as we personally are not the victim.

Because when we acknowledge, when we bear witness, we can’t escape the reality that we are complicit.

A week ago today in a zoom call with my two siblings, I asked my brother who he voted for. I needed to know (see my last post), and I hoped he would say Harris, but if not, I figured he would say something like “I don’t want to talk about politics.” Then my sister and I would awkwardly pretend we didn’t know he voted for Trump.

My brother proudly declared he “voted with his wallet for Trump” and when I conveyed how horrifying it was to me that he that he would vote to take away my human rights and the human rights of my children, my own brother – who has on numerous previous occasions claimed to love me – he laughed. He took delight in my despair.

He gloated.

Then he proceeded to spew misogynist and racist Faux News crap.

After I told him to fuck off and I left the call (yeah, when I’m really angry I lose all ability to articulate), my sister told me later that before she ended the call, he doubled down on the misogyny and racism and complained that he and our mother (who passed away in 2021) had an ‘understanding’ to never discuss politics.

Thing is, Mom followed politics closely, and she was passionately progressive about social issues. For example, she and I went to a rally together to protest the first Trump regime’s obscene treatment of immigrants.

So what does that say about the relationship between my brother and our mother? I think Mom never discussed politics with her son because she wanted to believe he was a good person. A moral person. A kind and compassionate person. That’s what I wanted to believe about him too, even with ample evidence to the contrary. But now I have no such illusions, and I’m done pretending.