Teresa Shook, founder of the Women’s March, has called for four of the movement's co-chairs to step down from their positions.
In a Monday Facebook post, Shook blasted board members Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez. This comes shortly after actress Alyssa Milano announced her refusal to speak at next year's march if Mallory and Sarsour didn't denounce Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitism.
Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, has continued to relay anti-Semitic, homophobic and transphobic messages, even proclaiming he's "not anti-Semitic," but "anti-termite.”
"[They're] allowing anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQ sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform by their refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist, hateful beliefs," Shook said of the four co-chairs.
Perez and Mallory have both posted photos praising the leader, and Mallory attended an event where Farrakhan stated, “the powerful Jews are my enemy.”
Despite heavy critique, Mallory did not condemn Farrakhan's remarks. However, the Women’s March did release a statement soon after, stressing that his comments "were not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles” and “our external silence has been because we are holding these conversations and are trying to intentionally break the cycles that pit our communities against each other."
Sarsour, who is Palestinian-American, has also been criticized for speaking on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, gaslighting and accusing liberals of choosing their “allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech” in a recent Facebook post.
In response to Shook’s lambasting, Bland, Mallory, Sarsour and Perez came to their defense on the Women’s March official Facebook page.
“We want to thank Teresa Shook for her contribution to our movement,” they begin. "Today, Teresa Shook weighed in, irresponsibly, as have other organizations attempting in this moment to take advantage of our growing pains to try and fracture our network…They have not done the work to mobilize women from diverse backgrounds across the nation."
“We are imperfect. We don’t know everything, and we have caused harm…But we are committed to learning," the post continued. "We will continue to work through the good and the bad, the impact and the harm — of building an intersectional movement that our daughters and our daughters’ daughters can be proud of.”
The future of the Women's March remains unclear, but we'll keep you posted as updates arise.
Now, check these out:
Louis Farrakhan Loses Twitter Verification After Referring To Jewish People As 'Satanic' In Tweet
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