The word interlaced shifts meaning depending on who’s asking. If a white man—someone blissfully uncritical of the systems that benefit him—were to ask, I’d keep it simple: everything is connected. But if a person of colour asked me, it would open a much deeper conversation. To me, interlaced is about how people of colour are bound together by shared struggles, like abandoned cords in a forgotten drawer.
People of colour are like a bundle of tangled wires, each capable of powering entire systems, but left to gather dust until their energy is needed and exploited. Each cord hums with its own charge, carrying the potential to spark something powerful. Yet, in a world built by, and for, whiteness, those cords are yanked out one at a time, exploited for their power, and tossed back, still left tangled. Our creativity, resistance, and strength are extracted when convenient, leaving us to navigate the chaos left behind.
But even knotted and abandoned, those cords still hum with power. When we untangle ourselves and reconnect, we don’t just light a room; we can burn the entire system down.
In Arabic, there’s a colloquial phrase that perfectly captures this exhaustion, in my opinion: حلو عنا (hilu 'anna). It’s sharp, simple, and stings with truth. It means, “Leave us alone,” or “Get lost.” It’s what every Palestinian mother in Gaza must silently scream every day, even as the world refuses to listen. Under Kamala Harris’ vice-presidency, these women have no rights, no safety, and no humanity. For all her “firsts,” Harris is complicit in maintaining a system that funds Israel’s apartheid state. She greenlights billions in military aid that reduces Gaza to rubble, forcing women to use tent scraps for sanitary pads. She sells a bland version of feminism that uplifts corporate women in boardrooms but leaves Palestinian women powerless under drones.
This is the cruel irony of Harris’ leadership. One of Harris’ biggest selling points was the right for women to choose, yet where do Palestinian women lie? Where do Indigenous people, suffering under the heel of the United States’ imperialism, lie? Choiceless, with their futures stolen and their power crushed beneath systems of violence. And Trump? He’s probably furious he didn’t get there first. His cruelty is loud and unapologetic; hers is polished, cloaked in press releases and pantsuits.
But let’s be clear: this isn’t just a U.S. problem—it’s global. Look at Māori sovereignty movements in New Zealand. Indigenous communities everywhere are fighting for stolen land, denied rights, and silenced voices. At the root of it all—colonisation, a system built on greed, sustained by racism, and made worse by misogyny. Women in colonised spaces bear the doubled weight of both systems. They’re the first to feel the impacts of war, poverty, and displacement, and they’re the first to rise, fight, and lead. They’re also the first to be erased.
Intersectionality shows us that none of this happens in isolation. Misogyny and colonisation are deeply intertwined. Women in Gaza, in Māori communities, on stolen land here in Australia, and across Black and Brown spaces fight battles that are interlaced with one another. But when we stand together, our resistance becomes global, too.
My feminism can’t just be about women; it has to include liberation for Palestinians, for Muslims, for BIPOC communities. Because if I’m only free as a woman while my people suffer, then I’m not free at all—not even in the slightest.
This is why feminism that only uplifts white women is useless. A feminism that celebrates shattered glass ceilings but ignores who’s sweeping up the shards isn’t feminism at all. True feminism asks why the house was built this way in the first place. It doesn’t stop at boardrooms; it fights for land stolen from Indigenous women, homes bombed in Gaza, and sovereignty denied to entire peoples.
The tangled cords? They are interlaced with electricity. Women in Gaza, Māori leaders, Black and Brown activists—they’re sparking revolutions. They refuse to be erased, and their light exposes what lies in the darkest corners of oppression. When we reconnect and channel our energy, we become an unstoppable force for change.
Interlaced is messy, frustrating, and tangled. But it’s also powerful. Even in the most neglected corners we are overflowing with power that will not and can not be ignored forever.