Crabs in a bucket...LADIES!!!

As my pastor Elder Oscar Bradshaw used to say this a meat sermon, not one made of milk and honey. It's harder to chew and swallow, but more nourishing to the soul. (I miss his presence every day.)

In defense and deference to the words spoken by my African sister, Ms. Adichie, please calm down and have a seat. In reality all she said was that the experience of a cis-woman and a non cis woman are both hard but different. No one is saying you're not a real woman.

I REPEAT NO ONE IS SAYING YOU'RE NOT A REAL WOMAN.

All she said is our experiences are different and they are. There is no logical way for you to dispute our experiences differ. I'll wait for you to find a way to make them exactly the same.

….

Ok. They're different but they share similarities and both are subject to hardships that include beatings, rapes, mutilation and death just because we are who we are.

The nearest bigot, given the chance, would kill us both. There's no need to get defensive, we’re both in the shit house. The odor is the same.

Again this reminds me of my pastor Elder Bradshaw’s popular sermon that used crabs in a bucket as a parallel. I'm no fisher person, but he used to tell the congregation that a man with a bucket full of crabs. The fisherman could set that bucket down and walk away and not lose a single crab.

Elder Oscar Bradshaw said that those live crabs individually would try to crawl out of the bucket.

But just as one would crest the lid a crab lower down would grab on to the leaders leg and drag him back down. So that sneaky crab would now be in the lead and nearly to the rim of the bucket. Some other crabs behind her would grab onto the new lead crab’s leg and drag her down as well.

This pattern would repeat over and over again so that no crabs would find freedom because the one not in the lead would drag the leader down.

For those who don't understand literary devices this is what we keep doing to each other.

Selma Hayek recently did it to we young women of color. Trans-folks are hitting us again. Black women did it to white newly awakened feminists after the Women's March.

Crabs in a bucket….We're all doomed to substandard pay, non equal rights, and the manipulation and objectification that may result in our death.

Yet we keep pulling each other down with petty slights. You didn't join us before. We didn't feel invited before. You said our experiences were different. That doesn't mean our experiences aren't valid because you said they're different.

Can we come together as a group and save our lives, our rights, and our equality?

Or should I  just get back in the bucket and ready myself to be eaten?