Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is Just Doing What White Women Do Best

Damon Young
Updated

Despite mountains of evidence (theoretical, anecdotal, and empirical) suggesting otherwise, there remains a compulsion to believe that when white women prove to be as abhorrent as their male counterparts, it’s only because of some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

Not everyone is as willing to extend them the benefit of the doubt. Black women have been shouting, for centuries now, that white women have been complicit in each facet of white supremacy; enacting it, upholding it, benefiting from it, and harming those who attempt to subvert or destroy it. (Admittedly, it's taken black men a bit longer to retain that lesson. As a collective, I liken us to Chris from Get Out, who refused to believe that Rose was also evil—the most evil—until she dangled the keys.)

But when Sarah Huckabee Sanders (or someone like her) does a thing like she did Wednesday afternoon—where she said "I dispute that it was anything other than the president stating the facts" in response to President Trump mocking Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during a rally in Mississippi last night—embedded in much of the criticism of her is that she's being held captive by some mysterious force. That she's swallowing her pride and her integrity for the party. That she's made a deal with the devil. That she's sold her soul.

But none of that is true. She isn't being held captive; she's a captor. She is not swallowing her pride and her integrity for the party; the party is her pride and her integrity. You can not sell your soul if you don't possess one.

Of course, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is no anomaly. Despite Judge Kavanaugh proving last week to be some blue-blood hybrid of Happy Gilmore and "Bluto" Blutarsky, 43 percent of white women still find him believable and credible. Almost half of the white woman you know—almost half of the Megans in the carpool, the Susans in accounting, and the Amys bringing sugar cookies to soccer practice—are so committed to white supremacy that they're willing to cast out and sacrifice one of their own.

Am I suggesting that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the rest of her sympathetic sistren are evil? Nah, just white. But yeah, keep asking Rose for those keys.

Damon Young is the editor-in-chief of VerySmartBrothas (VSB) and a professional Black person. His debut memoir, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker (Ecco/HarperCollins), is available for preorder.