Monday morning at the Capitol of Colorado, hundreds of white women gathered to use their “privilege” to demand Governor Jared Polis ban guns and carry out a gun buyback program, according to CNN News US.
A movement called “Here4TheKids” was created after a mass shooting in Nashville last March that killed six people, including three children. It was founded by two women of color who are both mothers, a South Asian-American Saira Rao and a black woman named Tina Strawn, with a mission statement opposing gun violence and white supremacy.
“We know what happens when we show up in large numbers with demands and fight for our rights,” Strawn told CNN, adding that the Here4TheKids movement calls for more white women to be at the forefront of the sit-in.
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Strawn said that this is the actual time when black people and other at-risk communities ask for help from white women with their privileged bodies to show up and sit-in.
“If 25,000 black and brown people show up, we get murdered and arrested, called Islamic terrorists, tear-gassed or worse. So it has to be white bodies, period.” Rao also stated that white women have a kind of “privilege” that aids in keeping them safe from police violence, according to The 19th News.
Watkins, a woman who showed up early in the morning at the Colorado Capitol for the Here4TheKids movement, told CNN, “White women have measurably been the least likely to be assaulted and arrested by the police officers.”
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