Pretty In Pink
Inside the community of nail artists telling ICE to get fucked.
Located somewhere in the Midwest, Misha had been a "lurker" of the r/RedditLacqueristas community for a few years. She used her lurking sessions to find unique shades of nail polish that aren't sold in the usual places. In May of last year, when Misha finally got a Reddit account, she started posting her own nail art, which she does on her own nails, with regular nail polish.
"I really love finding new nail polishes," Misha said. "The community is for finding other like-minded people that like nail polish and doing their own nails versus people who go to a salon."
A lover of indie nail polish brands, Misha found her people on r/RedditLacqueristas. Other members of the community understand the meditative process of taking time to do your own nails, she said, and usually share knowledge about nail polish brands she might not know about. In January, just after Renée Nicole Good was killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Misha started noticing something else she had in common with the people posting in the subreddit: like her, the posters wanted ICE to get fucked.
Contributing to our community is very important to us at The Flytrap.
All profits this month from this fantastic bandana designed by our Art Director, rommy torrico, will be going to Comunidades Organizando El Poder Y La Acción Latina, a grassroots, immigrant-led organization supporting Latine families in Minnesota.
It started with one post, then another, then another. Lacqueristas across the U.S. were writing FUCK ICE on their nails and posting photos of their message on the sub, making clear what their position was, with some feminine flair. Inspired by each other, the nail art varied from silver polish that imitates melting ice on pink to simple lettering written in a black Sharpie pen. Encouraged by other posters, Misha took a tiny brush and some white nail polish, wrote the letters on her blue mani and posted on the sub.
"The visibility of the message lets people know that they're not alone," Misha told The Flytrap over a video call. "If you're seeing people just going about their day, posting normal manicures, and you're not seeing anyone say anything about it, you feel a lot more intimidated to speak up about things happening. But if you see other people that have said the same thing you want to say, you're more likely to to be like, 'Yeah, fuck ICE. I don't agree with that, that shit needs to stop.'"
The feedback Misha received in the community was "overwhelmingly positive," she said. Two weeks later, inspired by the photo of a woman with sharp pink nails grabbing white supremacist Jake Lang by the face in Minneapolis, Misha wrote FUCK ICE on her nails again; this time it was black Sharpie on light pink. The owner of the pink claws that grabbed Lang has become an icon on the sub, with members of the community seeking similar shades since the photo dropped on social media. On the sub and beyond, the shade is being called "resistance pink."
"She had these giant pink claws and everybody was going wild on the subreddit," Misha said. "A bunch of people did pink manicures and called it 'protest pink' or 'resistance pink.'"
All of the people interviewed by The Flytrap recount feeling less alone after posting, particularly when following the news of inhumane ICE raids and detentions taking place across the country.
There's a long history of feminine performances of resistance against oppression, according to sociologist and lecturer at the University of Melbourne Hannah McCann. "From women’s liberationists throwing bras into a 'freedom trash can' at the Miss America Pageant in 1968, to the 'blood brides' protests against domestic violence in China in the 2010s, feminists have been theatrically and aesthetically staging acts of resistance," McCann told The Flytrap over email. Feminine performances like wearing nail polish or makeup are inextricably tied to gender norms that have trapped all of us in the expectations of the genders we were assigned at birth. Girls and women are expected to use these tools to look pretty and stay quiet.
But nails with swear words that push back on a fascist state that incarcerates anyone who isn't white, or pink claws used to scratch a hateful extreme-right influencer who planned to “burn a Quran” on the steps of Minneapolis City Hall show a different, rebellious way to use these tools of patriarchy. Heterosexual gender norms create the expectation that women and girls be neutral domestic goddesses, perfect in their silence and creating a tranquil home. The standards for perfectly feminine nails that are approved by society are discrete, short, not too bright, just demure enough to signify a feminine level of self-care that is appropriate for subservient women.
Dissident femininity, particularly when donned by racialized bodies, has historically been stigmatized as unsanitary, disrespectful, and low-class. This has been particularly true of gels and acrylics.
"There is still a baseless and classist belief that Black women with acrylics are poor," wrote cultural critic and editor at Wirecutter Brooklyn White-Grier for Bitch Media in 2017. "For example, this forum asks if acrylic nails are 'trashy' and if they are exclusively affiliated with the lower class, which assumes that artificial nails are less beautiful than filed-down ones." While nail polish is a part of the performance of femininity, performances that stray from the white cis heteronormative standards are not well-viewed—in short, women and girls have to be feminine in ways that don't challenge gender norms. How dare Black women use acrylic nails for self-expression rather than assimilating into boring manicures?!
While the nail art in the Lacqueristas community is created with regular polish, it's part of this legacy. Any kind of femininity that is expressed outside of the confines of subservience to patriarchy and expresses women's bodily autonomy tends to be negatively stereotyped. The cliché of the blue-haired liberal girl that circulates in right-wing communities is a recent (and silly) example of this, as is the fantasy of the right-wing goth girl that has actually materialized in AI generated form in extremist social media circles both in the United Kingdom and in Brazil. Dissident femininities disturb the sensibilities of people who want to maintain the status quo.
Additionally, when dissident femininities are performed, a space opens up for community building, McCann explained: "Nail art is an important part of self-expression and a space for community building for many." I've seen this in my own life: Complimenting women's intricate nail art has been the beginning of at least two of my current friendships, and the members of Lacqueristas express a similar dynamic.
Don't miss the latest Cancel Me, Daddy, a Flytrap Media production...
"If you scroll through the comments, you'll see someone posting links on what you can do besides this, who you can contact, where you can donate, all that kind of stuff," Jeremy, a frequent Lacquerista poster located in Pennsylvania, told The Flytrap over a video call. "There were conversations happening in the comments, not just 'Oh, look at those nails, upvote and move on.' It really became a conversation on every single post that I saw had more comments than normal because everyone felt that the sub is safe." Jeremy emphasized there is a lot of camaraderie in the community, which made people feel less alone. "I feel like you'd have the same reactions to a really cool sign at a protest and everyone gathers around and chats about it."
In this case, the mixture of femininity with politics—which many might dismiss due to their own misogyny—is what's making these posts (and their anti-ICE messaging) stand out. And it's not just regular nail polish, nor just nail art, either. Girlies and enbies are depicting ICE agents slipping on actual ice in Minneapolis in a gel polish rendition, cross-stitching anti-ICE messaging and selling the pattern on Etsy, organizing knitting resistance events, and—as worker-owner of The Flytrap s.e. smith has done—quilting anti-fascist messages. While many deride craftivism as being performative—who can forget the backlash (some rightful when it came to biological essentialist ideas of womanhood, some not when it focused on how useless knitting is) against the pink pussyhats of the 2017 Women's March?—McCann points out this dismissal is common when an activity is understood as "feminine" by society.
"Femininity is often culturally associated with the frivolous, unserious, and vain, while the realm of 'politics' is coded as a serious pursuit," McCann said. "So, combining traditional feminine aesthetics (such as painted nails) with political engagement might feel like a contradiction to some. However it is precisely because this combination is 'surprising' that this phenomenon is getting attention right now. If anti-ICE nails are going viral, it is because it is an unexpected site for political activism."
There is desperation and urgency when Lacquerista posters talk about their motivations for infusing their hobby with activism. All of the people interviewed by The Flytrap recount feeling less alone after posting, particularly when following the news of inhumane ICE raids and detentions taking place across the country. But they also express that the political message is also meant to push pro-ICE people to rethink their position. It's about communication and inspiring people who are unsure about whether to speak out, too.
"I think this is an outlet, some people saw a chance and they took it because they want to do anything they can to use their voice to speak out," Lacquerista poster Kara from Minneapolis told The Flytrap. "Unfortunately, a lot of people have been too uncomfortable to speak out, and it's a wake up call to those fence-sitters because they're going to start to see like how unpopular their opinion is."
The canvas of a fingernail is tiny, but it can be used to express big feelings. It isn't a coincidence that in Bad Bunny's halftime show at this year's Superbowl, there was a quick depiction of a nail tech and her client, grooving to reggaeton. A nail salon, like a subreddit about nail polish, is a place where people build relationships through day-to-day art and expression. On Reddit, some Lacqueristas painted their nails with the cover art of Bad Bunny's Grammy-winning album and Puerto Rican flags, with one user in particular using the post as an opportunity to educate other community members about the island's status as a colonized territory of the U.S.
In an increasingly techno-fascist world where connection is openly discouraged, craftivism can provide a vehicle for community-building and comradery. To borrow a phrase from comrade and The Flytrap worker-owner Andrea Grimes' piece on techno-fascism and connection last week, craftivism can be a way of running towards each other, or perhaps to invite other people to run with you.
Even if anti-ICE sentiment makes some people uncomfortable, it can be a conversation starter, a communication strategy that begins a connection (or several) based on resisting the fascist forces of the state. It's a reminder of a better society while we are stuck in a dystopia, a reminder that most people don't want a five-year-old to be used as bait so his dad can be deported, a reminder that Renée Nicole Good should not have been killed for observing ICE officers terrorize immigrant families, that Keith Porter should be alive right now. It may be small, and it may not start a revolution, but I want to echo the Lacqueristas community and say: Fuck ICE, today, tomorrow, and forever.
This piece was edited by Andrea Grimes and copyedited by s.e. smith.