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March 21 - March 28, 2023
White people who expect me to be white have not yet realized that their cultural way of being is not in fact the result of goodness, rightness, or God’s blessing. Pushing back, resisting the lie, is hella work.
White supremacy is a tradition that must be named and a religion that must be renounced. When this work has not been done, those who live in whiteness become oppressive, whether intentional or not.
Black history was the only option for me. Like many Black students in predominately white schools, if I wanted to see myself reflected in the curriculum, I had to act on my own behalf.
“I don’t know what to do with what I’ve learned,” she said. “I can’t fix your pain, and I can’t take it away, but I can see it. And I can work for the rest of my life to make sure your children don’t have to experience the pain of racism.” And then she said nine words that I’ve never forgotten: “Doing nothing is no longer an option for me.”
Dr. Simms believed in the power of Black history and Black culture. He believed it could change our lives.
Ain’t no friends here
I found that white supremacy is more like a poison. It seeps into your mind, drip by drip, until it makes you wonder if your perception of reality is true.
The role of a bridge builder sounds appealing until it becomes clear how often that bridge is your broken back.
Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trickle of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.
When white people end up being terrible at their jobs, I have seen supervisors move mountains to give them new positions more suited to their talents, while people of color are told to master their positions or be let go.
We must remind ourselves and one another that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, arming ourselves against the ultimate message of whiteness—that we are inferior. We must stare at ourselves in the mirror and repeat that we, too, are fully capable, immensely talented, and uniquely gifted.
Though our words are stolen and often misused or misapplied, we know the depth of our vocabulary when used among ourselves.
A lot of white people have never sat under the authority of a Black teacher, pastor, professor, or supervisor.
This is partly what makes the fragility of whiteness so damn dangerous. It ignores the personhood of people of color and instead makes the feelings of whiteness the most important thing.
White fragility protects whiteness and forces Black people to fend for themselves.
white
fragility is so self-obsessed, so over the top that the damage it inflicts on marginalized people becomes immediately apparent.
The message behind their questions was clear: My neighborhood was untrustworthy, and so was my Black female body.
Little did they know, my first priority was protecting the nonprofits. I refused to allow their toxic ideas and offensive assumptions anywhere near the organizations, the people, I loved.
In my experience, white people who believe they are safe often prove dangerous when that identity is challenged.
When you believe niceness disproves the presence of racism, it’s easy to start believing bigotry is rare, and that the label racist should be applied only to mean-spirited, intentional acts of discrimination. The problem with this framework—besides being a gross misunderstanding of how racism operates in systems and structures enabled by nice people—is that it obligates me to be nice in return, rather than truthful. I am expected to come closer to the racists. Be nicer to them. Coddle them.
If my feelings do not fit the narrative of white innocence and goodness, the burden of change gets placed on me.
whiteness has perfected another tool for defending its innocence. I call it the Relational Defense.
PR-challenged politicians and celebrities aren’t the only ones who use the Relational Defense, and white people are often willing to extend this defense to one another.
White people desperately want to believe that only the lonely, isolated “whites only” club members are racist. This is why the word racist offends “nice white people” so deeply. It challenges their self-identification as good people. Sadly, most white people are more worried about being called racist than about whether or not their actions are in fact racist or harmful.
But the truth is, even the monsters—the Klan members, the faces in the lynch mob, the murderers who bombed churches—they all had friends and family members.
The monster has always been well dressed and well loved.
White people don’t want to believe that we sense the discomfort, hear the ignorance, notice the ways they process race, our bodies, our presence. We know them; we know they are racist.
Black folks still have to be on the lookout for white fragility’s cousin: white guilt.
white guilt is like having tar dry all over your hands and heart. It takes so much work to peel off the layers, rub away the stickiness, get rid of the smell. Unsolicited confessions inspired by a sense of guilt are often poured over Black bodies in search of their own relief.
But I am not a priest for the white soul.
“So what are you going to do differently?” The question lifts the weight off my shoulders and forces the person to move forward, resisting the easy comfort of having spoken the confession.
We don’t want to acknowledge that for decades, whiteness fought against every civil right Black Americans sought—from sitting at lunch counters and in integrated classrooms to the right to vote and have a say in how our country was run.
We ignore that white people still avoid Black neighborhoods, still don’t want their kids going to predominantly Black schools, still don’t want to destroy segregation.
But whiteness was not prepared to sober up from the drunkenness of power over another people group. Whiteness was not ready to give up the ability to control, humiliate, or do violence to any Black body in the vicinity—all without consequence.
Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort.
When feminism is limited to the needs of whiteness, or when Blackness is used for profit without acknowledging the brilliance of the creators.
Because of Dalin, I realized that Jesus also understood the accused, the incarcerated, the criminals. Jesus was accused. Jesus was incarcerated. Jesus hung on a cross with his crime listed above his crown of thorns.
I am not impressed that slavery was abolished or that Jim Crow ended. I feel no need to pat America on its back for these “achievements.” This is how it always should have been. Many call it progress, but I do not consider it praiseworthy
More often than not, my experience has been that whiteness sees love as a prize it is owed, rather than a moral obligation it must demonstrate.
The death of hope gives way to a sadness that heals, to anger that inspires, to a wisdom that empowers me the next time I get to work, pick up my pen, join a march, tell my story.
I cannot hope in whiteness. I cannot hope in white people or white institutions or white America. I cannot
hope in lawmakers or politicians, and I cannot hope even in pastors or ministries or mission statements. I cannot hope in misquoted wisdom from MLK, superficial ethnic heritage celebrations, or love that is aloof.
