Photo By Gene Reed
Alyson Palmer is a New York City-based artist, activist and mother of two. Her progressive girl band, BETTY, has been touring for over 34 years and has also been part of TV shows like the LGBTQ+ format The L-Word. Through the band's non-profit project, The BETTY Effect, Palmer has been working to help women, girls and members of the LGBTQ+ community strengthen their voice and sense of agency. As a producer, she has created a number of successful online events, including Women Take The Stage, dedicated to increasing voting by and for women in the United States while educating them on the country’s history and introducing them to leading female and activist voices and artists of the nation.
Do you think your daughter realized what was going on during the last election?
Absolutely. I had been preparing her, as many other people had, too, for her radiant future with a woman in charge in the White House. In 2016, my daughter was twelve, which is when a young person’s view of the world begins to expand and they figure out where they fit in. I automatically assumed that she and the other young Amazons were going to be ruling the world. When Hillary Clinton lost the election, my daughter didn't believe it when I told her the next morning. We had to process it together.
How do you remember the election period and night of 2016?
It was really exciting. The whole lead up to the election was incredibly thrilling. But I do remember a few things that gave me pause. One was when I was taking my son far out into Brooklyn for a Parkour class and we stepped out of the train. There was a big green painted wall, and someone had written “lock her up” on it. It was not pro-Trump, but it was clearly and specifically against her. That's when I started realizing that there are limits to how far people would allow someone to go. There are limits to what they'll give when it comes to actually ceding power. That was the first indication I had that some people felt this way in New York City. And I started thinking, “If this is happening in New York, how many more people feel this way in other places?” But I just erased it from my head. Soon after, I was chatting with a friend at my daughter’s school and she said, “You know, it's really going to be a drag when Hillary Clinton loses. I think there really is a strong possibility that Donald Trump will win.” I just bent over laughing because there was not even a shred of possibility in my mind that he would win. I never thought that America would elect someone that clearly corrupt and debased to be President. The morning we woke up to find out Trump had won, everyone I knew was devastated. This was one of the things I found most intense: when I dropped my son off at school that morning, the moms were quietly keeping it together. As soon as the kids got into their classrooms and the doors closed, all of us in the hall just broke down crying. We were hugging each other, weeping in utter disbelief. Some of us were angry already, but a lot of us were just feeling this wave of devastation that went down the hallway. As I was walking home, I saw a woman standing with her hand against a wall, trying to hold herself up while crying. I went over and told her that we will get through this. When she looked at me, she just looked so broken. It was such a horrible, horrible feeling for all of us. By the time my daughter came home from school, she still was devastated. She couldn't believe it. She wasn't as upset as I was, she just didn't understand the logic of it. It didn't make any sense. We always told my daughter and her friends that they could do anything. This was their world: “Girls rule,” “you can’t be a bully and win,” “the future is female,” we said all of those things to her. But all of those things seemed like transparent lies to my daughter and girls like her that morning. I think that was the most devastating thing for me to see. It was watching innocence being wiped away.
Have the last four years made you worry for your daughter?
I worry for my daughter for other reasons than Donald Trump's administration. I worry for her in the same ways I have always worried for her: male aggression, drugs and alcohol, racist bias. America’s laws upheld by the Supreme Court have often stood against my ancestors’ rights. I happen to be in a relationship with someone whom I couldn’t have married before 1955. I’ve benefitted from a really good education which I couldn’t have at a certain time. I couldn't have voted because of the Supreme Court. So if my daughter has to deal with a country in which she doesn’t have certain choices anymore, our family history has helped prepare her to take on those fights. God forbid she would have to do it. We always want to make our children's lives easier than our own lives. That's the whole goal in having kids. I want to give my children a world that is softer and sweeter than the one I landed in. I hope I have prepared her to do what she needs to do to make the world better.
Do you watch the president’s actions and footage of him? Do you share it with her or does she have access to it?
I find Donald Trump’s voice and mannerisms odious and infuriating. I never share footage of him intentionally, but if I witness him through the mirrored reflection of a late night tv show like Samantha Bee, Rachel Maddow or any of the Late Show guys, the kids might overhear things. Both my kids have far more access to footage than any children in human history. We watched the Presidential debate in horror at both his pathetic behavior and in stunned disbelief that over a third of this nation reveres him.
Does your family have conversations at home regarding politics and if so, will you have these in front of or with your children?
At the dinner table we discuss everything. Whatever questions the kids have we try to answer or figure out together. We most definitely talk about politics. I just saw an incredible film that I want the children to see called All In: The Fight for Democracy with Stacey Abrams. It deals with voter suppression. It's magnificently done. I want to not only talk about things, I try and share things with them that I think are compelling.
Have you stepped into concrete action as a family or parent?
For one, I try and make the children go to church with me. Not because of any real religious compulsion, but because I do believe that it's a good place for community action and community care. Our church is very pro-gay and pro-Black Lives Matter. It supports a lot of political action. Other than that, my children both go to progressive schools. They attend marches and they do art or letter writing. So our activism is not only at home, but socially and in community ways. I think they are politically engaged. Ruby has gone to a lot of Black Lives Matter protests. As a matter of fact, she marched before she walked. I carried her with me to all of them and I've been marching forever.
How are you preparing for this election and a possible negative outcome?
For being a pretty optimistic person, I’m also a fatalist. I think it comes from having a very ill mother. She was always sick and that was all I knew, which is why I think I'm always kind of prepared for the worst thing to happen. And when it does, you just pick up the pieces and keep on going. Life is a pulsating wave. It's never a smooth straight line. It circles around. So, am I prepared for a negative outcome? Yeah, I kind of am. Win or lose, the struggle continues because there is so much to fix in this nation for it to live up to it’s promise. I'm trying to increase votes by and for progressive women as much as possible. For this goal, I created, "Women Take The Stage.” It was a fantastic concert and rally on the centennial of the 19th Amendment. It was a really inspiring project to be working on through the pandemic, because no matter what was going on out there, I was speaking to women like Gloria Steinem, Lily Tomlin, Carol Jenkins and Megan Smith, who was the chief technology officer under Obama. They are all inspirational women who have been working so long and so hard for equality and for civil rights. It was really a healthy thing to be doing through the daily horror of the unfolding pandemic. I got my daughter involved doing some promotional work for it as well. It turned out to be a really resonant project, very well seen and we’re taking it as a workshop into some schools as a resource. I'm very excited about making sure that women's history doesn't disappear because unfortunately, that's how we stop learning and progressing. That happens when we forget where we come from and what we learned along the way, which is what happened with democracy in America to create a leader like Trump. Democracy is not fixed or finished. It's something that has to be cared for like your absent neighbor's house plant. It needs to be watered. It needs light. It needs to be talked to. We neglected it and it almost died. So I’m using as much history, information and inspiration as I can to try and get more people engaged and involved. If we can get enough people invested, we can rise against the women who have decided that they do not want equal rights, who have decided that they don't want choice, who have decided that they don't want anything other than the man to be in charge of making the decisions. That's not the world I want to live in. That’s never been the America I have dreamed of for myself and for my children. Therefore, I'm going to fight as hard as I can. And hopefully my children are going to do it with me.
How are you witnessing other parents deal with everything that has happened?
I live in the East Village of New York City, so we have a bunch of people who are as active as any group I have ever known. It’s thrilling to be in the groups and communities that I’m in, especially the ones made up of fired-up moms, coast to coast. There is a group called The PerSisters for example. There's the Downtown Nasty Women, there’s First They Came. There are groups everywhere working as hard as they can to make effective change. We saw that in the 2018 midterms. Mobilizing our mom energy was so powerful. Today we're seeing record numbers of women and moms running. It’s really, really exciting to witness. Organizations like SuperMajority and Black Voters Matter have realized the superpower energy of mothers.
What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
I would like to see all of the dreams that the planners of this nation put forth actually become something that all of us strive for and support. I didn't grow up in this country, I grew up moving to a different place every two years, so I was only in America for some of those times. But every time I thought of America, I thought of it as a certain idealized reality. No matter what happened to me while I was growing up or in college, I believed in that radiant dream of America. Even through the devastation of living in the Reagan ’80s, where money became the most important ideal, where AIDS wasn’t even discussed, where communities began to be dismantled, I still kept the dream in my heart. It wasn't until 2016 that I realized fully that America wasn't what I thought it was all along. Even as a Black woman with all the experienced racism and daily aggressions, it took me until 2016 to really look with clear eyes, see what my ancestors saw and realize the full heartlessness of this nation, not blinding myself with what I wished or hoped it would be instead. That’s when I truly got it. Everything the Trump administration did after November 9th, 2016 has just been confirmation. What I want for this nation is for us to do the excruciating work it will take to reach beyond liberty and justice for heterosexist white male landowners only. We are ready. It is time to make America live up to its dream and its promise. The one thing that we can't forget is that in the world, America is a teenager compared to countries like Italy, Germany or the nations of the Asian or African continents. These other nations have been around for a very, very long time. We are still young and because of that we are going to make some stupid teenage mistakes. Now is the time for us to actually move into young adulthood. And in doing so, we must realize that we have to do the work. We have responsibilities not just to ourselves, but to each other. We cannot be America First and bury our head in the ground. It doesn't work. It will never work. It is a paternalistic chauvinist, unhealthy way to live. It’s mom time. We need to know that mothers operate in the world quite well when they are progressive and community-minded. That’s exactly what this nation needs. And that is the exact dream of America. Liberty and justice for all, equal rights and enough for everyone. All of that is what a healthy, progress-minded mother wants for her children in a safe, mutually beneficial community. That's what we all need to do for our nation by November 3rd, 2020 and beyond. That's my dream. Look at Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Michelle Obama, Dolores Huerta, Ai-jen Poo. Even those of us without kids, and who aren’t female, we all have access to our nurturing, sharing, allowing, loving, sacrificing, badass side. It's time to Mom Up, America!
