Just weeks ago I wrote about how women of culture should and will find strength in numbers. And now it comes as no surprise to me that proof of this is now playing out on a national stage in politics. And to be quite frank when a freshmen cohort of woman politicians of culture won their races I did wonder when people would start taking offense.

And it was right away. There was no real pause in people's need to discredit, disavow, fabricate, police, mansplain, racesplain and etc these women in some way shape or form. As the months have passed the policing of these women of culture is becoming more rigorous as they have not broken rank or bowed to the normative that women of culture should not lead and most definitely should not be heard.  A narrative that they all had to ignore if they were to one, win their races in the first place and two, shake up the world of politics as they have.

I had the chance to meet and photograph Rep. Ilhan Omar for her first Iftar Feast for her congressional district back in May. She mentioned how her shoulders were small, but her supporters help lift her and those who want to achieve what she has achieved and more. As a woman of culture and of African American heritage that resonated way more than:

"Go back to where you come from"

"You're disruptive and aggressive"

"You couldn't possibly know…"

I can't imagine what other words these women have faced, since becoming elected to their respective political positions. Scratch that, I can imagine. Any woman of culture can. We've heard it in our jobs in so many different ways. We've been told these phrases by white women, white men, others of our own individual cultures and other cultures who attach to tradition to keep the "status quo". While it is sad that this seems to be a right of passage that women of culture have to endure, it won’t stop us from the paths we are on.

What Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts have had to endure not just in the last week since the president's predictably racist tweets, but their whole lives again come as no surprise. Frankly, it’s laughable that people still think such phrases are enough to derail us.

It shouldn't. It hasn't. It NEVER will.

Racism comes with every terrain women of culture are passionate about navigating. But it is our belief of creating spaces that are not only for us, but as part of our heritage of spaces that were prepared for us by our ancestors, and now we are preparing more spaces for the future of our people. What these women and so many women of culture understand is that without our touch, guidance and intelligence in whichever industry that captures our passions, this world will not move forward.

So we tread through these moments that we know are entirely unfair, unjust and unpatriotic. Because we are too paving the way. For those who come from America, for those who came to America and become citizens, to those who make up all of the things that make America a place we have always wanted to be.

We are home. That's why we are making sure that we are becoming the voices of our people(s). Through the mudslinging, though not always agreeing, but bound by a unified goal of being represented and heard.  We are the leaders who listen and learn, who stand against the destructive narratives of hate. Who will sit at the table and unflinchingly ask the hard questions and push accountability while looking straight into the eyes of those who would love to forget that this country was built on the backs of men and women of culture? Whether through slavery, through the stealing of lands of our nation's indigenous people, through the use of immigrants (undocumented and documented) of culture to do the work of a vast agricultural industry as farm laborers.

They are the roots that we as people of culture have to prove we belong here and this is home. As women of culture, our roots are the women who we saw trailblazing and looked like us. And when we don't see a vision of OUR GREATNESS represented we plant our seeds so we are the ancestors who others look upon to keep trailblazing.

Rep. Ilhan Omar. DFL-MN Iftar Feast CD5 May 13, 2019

Photo credit: Brittany Nash, Ebon Business Services & Photography. Please send any media or photo requests to ebonbusinessmarket@gmail.com