The Blue Bracelet Was Meant to Be a ‘Safe Space.’ It Became a Battleground.
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Date: November 13th, 2024 1:48 PM Author: Non sequitur
The Blue Bracelet Was Meant to Be a ‘Safe Space.’ It Became a Battleground.
After Donald Trump’s election victory, Democratic women sought a symbol of unity in friendship bracelets, but the response has been divided
Victoria Rosselli/WSJ; Getty Images; Shutterstock
Rory Satran
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Rory Satran
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Nov. 12, 2024 6:24 pm ET
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From feminist pink pussy hats to the red “Make America Great Again” caps that have endured since Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, this country’s divisive political climate has spawned more controversial accessories than “Project Runway.” So when Trump defeated Kamala Harris in last week’s election, some women who voted for Harris were quick to create a new symbol of solidarity: a blue bracelet.
The trend first bubbled up on TikTok. “Fellow white women, how are we signaling to each other now which side we are on?” said Libby Louwagie, a creator who goes by Libby Rae Lou, in a video the day after the election. More than half of white women voters had picked Trump at the polls, while Black women voted overwhelmingly for Harris. Louwagie suggested that blue friendship bracelets—like the ones fans made and wore for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour—could be a way to communicate like-minded Democratic values. To date, her video has more than four million views. Louwagie did not respond to requests for comment.
Now, women around the country are making and buying blue bracelets and sending their kids to school wearing them. Beaded or braided but always blue, the bracelets are meant to be a symbol of unity, proponents say. Vendors on Etsy, TikTok and other platforms sprung up to meet the demand, with thousands of bracelets selling in just a few days.
As the movement grew, so did calls for women to buy their bracelets from Black entrepreneurs. Shewa Bembuh, a writer in Washington, D.C., was inspired to launch a website called the Blue Friendship Bracelet, selling blue, beaded bracelets for $19.99 with names like “Solidarity” and “Safety.” She said the bracelets, which she plans to wear herself, were “an instigator for conversation.”
“It’s so much bigger than just the blue bracelet,” said Brenda Hampton, a St. Louis writer who sees the accessories as a jumping off point for activism. Hampton joined forces with Louwagie after seeing her TikTok post; now they are planning a Zoom call to encourage collective action as well as a potential podcast. Hampton, who runs the Black Girl Powerhouse publishing house and e-commerce site, said that customers had been thrilled by the bracelets she was selling, while “the overall response on TikTok has been mixed.” Both she and Bembuh are dismayed by the combative online discourse.
The bracelet has become a cultural lightning rod as voters grapple with post-election politics and emotions.
Bracelet wearers such as Atlas Walkins, 22, defend it as a way to express their views to like-minded people. Photo: Atlas Walkins
Critics on both the left and the right deem it performative and hollow—or flat-out ridiculous. “This is not an Eras tour!” said one TikToker. A satirical article on the National Review’s website called the bracelet “a new fashionable accessory to indicate your moral superiority.” The fashion Instagram account Diet Prada put it another way: “White women try to craft away their guilt.”
Tamara A. Marbury, a New York attorney who posted a video to TikTok questioning the bracelets, said, “For Black women, it takes us back to that post-George Floyd era where there was the black square on Instagram, and not a lot came from that.” She said she saw the bracelets as “trivializing” the impact of the election.
“I’m not looking for a safe space among strangers,” Marbury said.
Bracelet wearers defend it as a way to express their views to like-minded people. “It is something just as simple as telling you, ‘I’m with you, I understand you, we’re gonna be OK,’” said Atlas Walkins, 22, a nanny and waitress in the Boston area, who decided to make blue beaded bracelets with her 8-year-old cousin after seeing TikToks about the movement. On Facebook, they offered to send them for free to people they knew.
Walkins, who is white, said the bracelets reminded her of the wave of wearing safety pins in 2016 to connote ally-ship among women, minorities and the LGBTQ community. She felt gratified when her favorite vintage store, Salvage Angel in Norwood, Mass., announced last week it would be handing out free blue bracelets.
Vivian Jennings-Miller, a social worker and therapist in the suburbs of Houston who is Black, wears one hanging from her purse. “In Texas in general, as a woman of color, you never know who has dislike for you,” she said. She continued, “If you haven’t lived in a deep-red state, you don’t get it.”
She encouraged her teen daughters to wear the bracelet, saying, “as a social worker, signifying that we’re unified sounds awesome to me.”
Meanwhile, some white women are wondering whether the bracelet is a sufficient show of solidarity. That’s why some of them are filming themselves taking the movement to the next level. They’re getting blue-heart tattoos on their wrists.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5633423&forum_id=2#48331864) |
Date: November 13th, 2024 1:53 PM Author: 718-662-5970
>>takes us back to that post-George Floyd era where there was the black square on Instagram, and not a lot came from that
NOT A LOT CAME FROM THAT? SHOCKING
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5633423&forum_id=2#48331908) |
Date: November 13th, 2024 1:56 PM
Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
https://coveteur.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Rory_Satran-40.jpg
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5633423&forum_id=2#48331932) |
Date: November 14th, 2024 1:31 PM Author: butt cheeks (🍑 Pronouns: Ausländer/Raus döp dödö döp)
Meanwhile, some white women are wondering whether the bracelet is a sufficient show of solidarity. That’s why some of them are filming themselves taking the movement to the next level. They’re getting blue-heart tattoos on their wrists.
They’re getting blue-heart tattoos on their wrists.
They’re getting blue-heart tattoos on their wrists.
They’re getting blue-heart tattoos on their wrists.
They’re getting blue-heart tattoos on their wrists.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5633423&forum_id=2#48337268)
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