Tamika Mallory Is Right, So Get Over It

It was between dinner and dessert that my devoutly Catholic mother-in-law announced that she supported a woman’s right to get an abortion. That being uncontroversial, and the silence at the table otherwise being awkward, I asked the obvious question designed to evoke her fury: So, you’re no longer Catholic?

And, as expected, she reacted. “Of course I’m still Catholic. I just disagree about abortion.” I had her. She wanted to remain a member of her tribe while disputing a number of fundamental tenets, both about abortion as well as papal infallibility. “Sorry,” I replied, “but you don’t get to be a Catholic if you reject the beliefs of the religion.” Maybe she could be Catholic-lite, or a cultural Catholic, but what she couldn’t be was Catholic. Religions aren’t the sort of thing where you get to pick and choose which beliefs you prefer. You believe or not. If not, then you may well be right, but you’re no longer a member of the religion.

When the Women’s March®* was founded, and the white women were replaced, there was an abundance of warm feelings. Unity was the word offered to express how the issues for which the march was formed, and so it wormed its way into the mission statement that few read and fewer still cared about.

Women wanted to march. They marched for their own reasons, their own causes, their own feelings. Some marchers had specific issues. Some had amorphous ones. Few seemed to give any thought to why anyone else was marching, or why the organizers, who had yet to vote themselves paychecks, created took over the march.

Today is supposed to be the Women’s March for 2019, and there’s a problem. The problem’s name is Tamika Mallory, and her “leadership” of the national Women’s March has compelled many local chapters to dissociate themselves with her. The problem isn’t that Mallory isn’t smart or dedicated. She’s both. The problem is that Mallory is a Nation of Islam supporter, supports the Palestinians and refuses to disavow either Louis Farrakhan or the eradication of Israel.

In an excerpt released Thursday by “Firing Line,” Mallory tried to explain her position to host Margaret Hoover, saying that “the Palestinians are native to the land.”

“There are people who have a number of sort of ideologies around why the Jewish people feel this should be their land,” she said. “I’m not Jewish. So for me to speak to that is not fair.”

Hoover pointed out that Mallory also is not Palestinian.

“Because I’m speaking of the people who we know are being brutally opposed in this moment,” Mallory answered. “That’s just the reality.”

Silly people will point out that Mallory is unknowledgeable, ahistorical, in her simplistic grasp of the problem. One can take issue with specific acts by Israel against the Palestinians, but that’s not what Mallory does.

Then Hoover asked whether she thinks Israel has the right to exist.

“I have said many times that I feel everyone has a right to exist,” Mallory said. “I just don’t feel that anyone has a right to exist at the disposal of another group.”

So Mallory isn’t good with the laws of physics, either? Not at all. She gets it, but she’s trying desperately to wiggle out of being forced to say the words. She did the same when asked to disavow Farrakhan.

Mallory expressed similar exasperation in an interview earlier this week on The View where, after being pressed by Meghan McCain, she would not condemn Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has called Jews “termites” and praised Adolf Hitler.

The Women’s March isn’t exactly a religion, and certainly Mallory isn’t the Pope. But the Women’s March® has a statement that makes certain choices, wrapped up in similarly fuzzy words as Mallory’s attempt to slough off her position to avoid offense. It is the language of social justice, that there good identities and bad. In this case, Palestinians are good.

In the minds of shoddy thinkers, this doesn’t mean that Jews are bad, but that Palestinians will be denied their rightful homeland as long as Israel exists. Mallory doesn’t want to say aloud that she’s all in favor of the eradication of Israel, as that’s not the purpose but the consequence. Yet, there is no other way the Palestinians can prevail but for Israel to be gone.

What’s this got to do with women? With feminism? With social justice? That’s in the head of the marchers, each of whom comes to the march for their own reasons with their own set of beliefs. They may align with Mallory’s or not. They may have specific issues or general issues. They may include the full panoply of social justice choices, from supporting transgender women to hating them for trying to sneak into the feminist tent when they lack the experience of growing up female. Who knows?

But the Women’s March® is Mallory’s religion. It’s Palestinian Linda Sarsour’s, who has miraculously escaped scrutiny of late. You can march for whatever reasons you want to believe, and you can pretend that’s the reason for the march because they’re your reasons, and who would possibly care about anything beyond what you believe, but it’s not your March. You’re a bit player in a bigger production, a huge and highly profitable show for which you’re getting paid bupkis.

Tamika Mallory is right about the message of the Women’s March®, not because anyone else (besides Sarsour and Bill Bland) agrees, but because it’s their March and you’re enabling it by showing up, even if your message has nothing to do with theirs.

Bang the drum. Hold a sign. Yell a slogan. You’re entitled to march for whatever reason moves you, but it all inures to Mallory’s benefit because this is her March. As long as it’s her March, she’s absolutely right about why it’s happening, what the message is, and these efforts to get her to say aloud the obvious miss the point. Disagree her faith all you want, but as long as you march, she calls the tune.

*As the New York Times reports, a trademark for the Women’s March was filed to prevent others from using the name. This is huge business, and one has to protect one’s revenue stream.

36 thoughts on “Tamika Mallory Is Right, So Get Over It

  1. wilbur

    “(blank) doesn’t want to say aloud that she’s all in favor of (blank), as that’s not the purpose but the consequence.”

    Brother Man, that applies to a whole lot of stuff. Just fill in the blanks.

    1. SHG Post author

      As lawyers, we know that intent can rarely be affirmatively proven, and so juries are instructed that people intend the natural consequences of their acts. Unfortunately, most TV interviewers aren’t trial lawyers and they rarely have a judge in the TV studio to order the witness to answer the question.

  2. Lee

    “As the New York Times reports, a trademark for the Women’s March was filed to prevent others from using the name. This is huge business, and one has to protect one’s revenue stream.”

    Well, they certainly don’t want competing “Women’s March” events (like Houston, which has TWO Martin Luther King Day parades). It would confuse the donors, damage the brand and reduce the revenue stream.

    1. SHG Post author

      How would Mallory pay herself and the other “leaders” a salary, five-star hotel rooms, first-class airfare and Nation of Islam security if the revenue stream is polluted?

  3. Richard Kopf

    SHG,

    I can easily get over the Tamika lady. What I can’t get over is the extraordinary courage you exhibited when poking the bear after dinner and prior to dessert. And it wasn’t even Thanksgiving!

    All the best.

    RGK

    1. David Meyer-Lindenberg

      Judge,

      I vaguely remember someone – Mark Twain? – saying you must always agree with her father on politics and her mother on religion. Clearly, SHG is not a learned man.

      All the best,
      David

  4. Jake

    “You believe or not. If not, then you may well be right, but you’re no longer a member of the religion.”

    -Cite?

    1. SHG Post author

      I wondered to myself when I wrote this post, what could Jake possibly write to bring a smile to my otherwise sad face today. Thank you, my friend.

    2. Andrew Cook

      Can. 750 §2 (belief in all official pronouncements regarding faith and morals required), Can. 1371 §1 (refusal to discontinue transgression punishable by a “just penalty”). Since, presumably, the MIL is not a member of the clergy, the only penalty available is interdiction: temporary removal from the faith.

      1. SHG Post author

        It wasn’t a serious question, even if Jake meant it to be. It’s just a definitional point, that if one wants to be an adherent of a faith, one needs to adhere to the faith. No one makes one adhere to the faith, but if they prefer not to, then they may still be wonderful human beings but they aren’t adherents of the faith.

        1. David

          Your mother-in-law was not necessarily not being a good Catholic, depending upon why she has that stance.

          It’s quite possible for someone to, as a matter of faith and morals, agree that abortion is morally wrong, but also believe that Roe v. Wade etc. were correctly decided as a matter of U.S. Constitutional law. Hence one could be a good observant Catholic and think that people should be discouraged from having abortions through moral argument etc. but that legally prohibiting access to them would be unconstitutional. Similarly, if the person believes abortion rights cases were correctly decided, then it would be morally wrong to engage in court-packing to deliberately violate the constitution. The only legitimate path would be constitutional amendment, which ain’t happening anytime soon.

          An imperfect analogy I sometimes use, blasphemy is sinful; but free speech is constitutionally protected (though free speech is also a positive moral value, unlike the Catholic view re abortion, part of why this is an imperfect analogy). Therefore I support the right of people to say and do things which I consider wrong, without agreeing that what they are saying nor their choice to say it is moral.

          As for political candidates, one voter might think that pro-abortion candidate X who also supports more funding for pre-natal care and paid maternity leave etc. will, on the whole, if elected result in fewer abortions (or at least no more than would otherwise be the case) considering their platform as a whole, despite their support for increased access to it.

          Discussing the primacy of the individual conscience (an informed conscience, not just disagreeing because one doesn’t like the official teaching) and that Catholicism only teaches that there is infallibility in regards to certain teachings on certain matters of faith, not morals, is a more complicated topic. Maybe you can assign your MIL some homework, to research the topic and report back to you next dinner…

            1. David

              What, you mean discuss religion, politics, morality, abortion, and worst of all, take the side of someone’s MIL? Mea culpa…

  5. Nigel Declan

    Speaking of whether one can faithdully practice a religion minus some of its central tenets, I did not realize that PBS had re-booted Firing Line absent (for technical reasons, presumably) William F. Buckley.

  6. Konrad

    Your first paragraph put into words something I’ve struggled to say for a while. Once you accept the premise, the rest inevitably follows. It’s like trying to join a club that won’t exclude anybody, if only you could convince the bouncer that he’s using circular reasoning.

    I am reminded of a teacher who said that any church which believes in forgiveness must allow divorce. You see, her friend had made a single mistake by leaving her husband for a new love, but they could not remain together and be forgiven. Especially if her friends at church found out… which was unacceptable. And she could never leave the church. That was also unacceptable, and therefore impossible.

    I had to say something. I could not do otherwise! If I was clever I would have asked if her friend was forced to teach at a Catholic school. Wouldn’t that show both forgiveness and tolerance? But I didn’t, or couldn’t, because I was saved by a higher power. A power so strong it left me with no choice… Not if I wanted to to stay out of trouble. So, one way or another someone had passed on a bit of wisdom to me.

    And that’s how I learned where bad feminists go when they die. A higher power compels them to teach, even if only by serving as a bad example for others.

  7. Thrown_out_of_the_Kremlin_for_Singing

    Tamika Mallory called Farrakhan the “Greatest Of All Time” (“GOAT”). More appropriate might be “Greedy Overbearing Ruffianly Idiotic Low Life Antisemite” (you can figure out the acronym).

    1. SHG Post author

      Farrakhan has done some very good things for his community, while simultaneously being a virulent anti-semite. Both are part of his NOI teachings. If you accept the religion, you accept both.

      Even so, none of this had to be incorporated into the Women’s March. Mallory and Sarsour saw that it was.

      1. Thrown_out_of_the_Kremlin_for_Singing

        Most recently, Farrakhan seems to be recruiting for Scientology, urging his followers (including his followers in prison) to join.

  8. B. McLeod

    Just another scam now, there’s big money in “controlling” these marches. The lame-ass sheep who show up for them are just the marks for the con artists who are pulling the strings and reaping the financial benefits.

      1. Konrad

        Is this the reason? I’m asking only to help myself understand.

        People avoid learning because it hurts their brains, so a good teacher needs to fool his students just a little to ensure sure they learn the lesson. Once they learn it, they will (hopefully) consider the pain worth worth it.

        The Spice Girls couldn’t simply tell people, “We have a song you’ll like”; They had to *sing* the song so people could hear it for themselves. There is so much competition in the word of pop music that adding a Grumpy Spice would defeat the purpose. Whoever wrote their songs put some grumpy bits in them, but there was no need to advertise that fact. As long as people enjoyed the song as a whole, they would accept that the grumpy bits were worth the price of admission.

        I don’t understand why I keep coming back to this blog. I know that the guy who writes it is a jerk and hurts my feelings. How do I unsubscribe from the internet? Please advise.

      2. Guitardave

        “Why was there no Grumpy Spice?”
        I got a feeling each one them of got that handle …at certain times….ya know?

  9. Sacho

    This isn’t just a case of rogue leadership twisting the event for their own agenda; BDS already crept into feminism a few years ago. You can easily find scholarly articles dating back to 2014-2015, discussing how BDS is a “feminist issue”. The (allegedly) largest USA feminist academic organization, NWSA, indicated its support for BDS towards the end of 2015:

    “We’re basically redefining feminism and putting solidarity with Palestine into that definition of what it means to be a feminist,” said Sharoni, a professor of gender and women’s studies at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. “Or, to put it differently, the vote of almost 90 percent of the members of the National Women’s Studies Association in support of this resolution underscores the fact that boycott, divestment and sanctions can be or is seen by members of our association as an example of expressing feminist solidarity.”

    Tamika isn’t just right because the Women’s March is hers; she’s a diligent prophet for the feminist religion that the freshly-minted Marchers might just not be aware of.

    1. SHG Post author

      A religion is defined by its tenets. It’s tenets are defined by its “Pope.” They care less that their followers know or actually believe of the tenets as long as they remain followers to give the appearance of support for the religion.

  10. Casual Lurker

    “Maybe she could be Catholic-lite, or a cultural Catholic, but what she couldn’t be was Catholic.”

    You mean there’s no “reformed” — or “ultra-reformed” — Catholic sect? (Catholic-ish?)

    So, no à la carte, eh? Damn! There goes my dream of getting in on just that confessional/forgiveness racket tenet.

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