In proudly showing off her life, Ayla demanded to know one thing: If all she wanted was safety, prosperity, and health for her family and nation, how could she be considered hateful? It was a disingenuous defensive trick, and she was far from the first woman to use it. Historian Elizabeth Gillespie McRae, whose research focuses on resistance to the civil rights movement, has described the profound impact of “politics that emphasized performing whiteness as synonymous with ‘good’ womanhood.”
