As Trump continued his whitewashing of America on Tuesday night’s State of the Union, many of the Democratic women of the House of Representatives (including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) once again donned white in protest.
While many of our most famous congressional faces—including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Frederica Wilson (Fla.), and “Auntie Maxine” Waters (D-Calif.) sat out this year’s SOTU in protest, the women who did attend were primarily dressed in white, a nod to the white garb (and unfortunately lily-white politics) of the suffrage movement at the turn of the last century.
Of course, this generation of feminists put their own spin on the look, accenting their all-white ensembles with culturally specific touches, such as the Kente-printed scarves worn by several, like Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee. “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib took the theme a step further, wearing a white Palestinian thobe, a nod to her own heritage as well as a jab at Trump’s increasingly restrictive—and racist—anti-immigration policies.
“Being #unapologeticallyMe is my way of protesting this #ImpeachedPresident,” Tlaib wrote on Instagram.
And then, there was Rep. Ilhan Omar, who eschewed white this year in favor of clothing inherited from her grandmother; again, a nod to her Somalian heritage and a stylish clapback to Trump’s anti-African, anti-refugee rhetoric.
“I am wearing my Ayeeyo’s Cambuur garbeed and bringing the Arawelo spirit to the people’s house,” Omar captioned her Instagram post, using the hashtags “#firsts #RepresentationMatters #SOTU.”
As Omar noted, representation does matter, and while the silent protest of the House’s Democratic women may have no effect on the ramblings of a mad king, they—along with the blue wave that ushered many of them into Congress—are a cogent reminder that our votes do matter in determining the course of our future as a nation...and ironically, it doesn’t have to remain a white-centric one.