INTRODUCTION: THE QUEENS OF THE RESISTANCE SERIES

Dear Sis,

The Queens of the Resistance is a series that celebrates the life and times as well as the lessons and rise of our favorite sheroes and Queen Bees of politics. It’s a celebration of the boss, the loud in their demands, and a rebellion against the long and tired patriarchy. They are the shining light and new face of the US government. The idea for the series began to germinate in 2016. Hillary Clinton was in the presidential race. She was top dog, Grade A. She was supposed to go all the way as the first female president. She had done everything right. In the 1960s, she switched parties when the Civil Rights movement was demonstrating that changing allegiance wasn’t about betting on the winner but believing in a different vision for America’s future. She married one of the most capable politicians of the twentieth century, Bill Clinton, who would eventually appoint the first Black secretaries of commerce and labor and put women and minorities in many positions of power. She was considered most likely to be president when she gave a commencement speech during her graduation from Wellesley, then went on to graduate Yale Law at the head of her class. She was the first female partner of two law firms in Arkansas; First Lady of Arkansas; First Lady of the United States—but she didn’t stop there. She became the first female US senator from New York, a seat that had positioned Robert Kennedy to run for president, and one of the first female secretaries of state. She was the first woman ever to be nominated by a major political party to run for president. Even the political machine was oiled and greased to work in her favor. She had been generally considered one of the most qualified people ever to run for president, even by her opponents, but with all that going for her, somehow, some way, she didn’t make it. *sigh* You can’t get more presidential than Hillary Clinton in 2016. She had it all, even the majority of popular votes in the 2016 election.

So what happened? Ha! Every woman knows what happened! Everybody laughed at her in 1995, when she appeared on the Today show and attributed the chop-down of her husband to a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” but she was right. Who knew that while we were enjoying the moment, the wind beneath our wings after two terms with the first Black president, a time that had left us proximal to a variety of enjoyable mini multi-cultures—sushi, guacamole, break dancing—there was a group of malcontents intent on making America great again . . . “great” like the 1940s. And that meant forcing women back into the kitchen, padlocking the door, and throwing away the key. There’d be no need to vilify female candidates with memes, negative ads, and sucker punches like the opposition had to do to Hillary Clinton; the social stigma would do all the policing and policy work needed to keep women out of the ring and out of the way, so the boyz could rule, unchecked, unaccountable, and unrestrained. “Less for you, more for me” has been a natural law in a capitalist society. It means getting rid of competition by every means necessary—deportation, mass incarceration, legislation, deprivation, deconstruction, and divestment, to name a few. Our sister Hillary was a woman who fell in the crosshairs of a right-wing machine dead set against any diversion from its outrageous plan—to stop collective action and make sure politics bends only to its will, not the people’s. It didn’t matter that Hillary was the smartest, the most prepared, or the first in this or that. Merit’s not the point; it’s compliance that matters, and Hillary was just too damn smart, too capable, too talented, for her own good. She had a vast right-wing conspiracy working against her, and they won . . . temporarily. And that’s where this series begins. Queens of the Resistance is as much an ode to the women themselves as it is a celebration of a transcending political identity in America, unlike anything our history has ever shown us before.

With Love,

Brenda & Krishan