Part 2 of Building Community w/o white supremacy

In part 1 of this series I gave 9 steps that I believe will help us all gain the tools, confidence, and empathy to build communities. Ones that do not use white supremacy and creating ones with equitability, sustainability, and inclusiveness. In this essay I will be diving into the first 3 steps in as much details as I can give. These first three steps deal with the self. Self-love, self-respect, self-awareness, and so on. White supremacy has deluded the idea of individuality into something painfully selfish. Within the next few year white supremacy will be drilled into us even more, we must stand strong in our deconstruction. Individually we are important to the cause, each of us with a role to play. Understanding yourself is essential to building a community and being apart of one. Let’s dive into these steps and I ask that you take time to reflect, and add your own understanding and knowledge.

Step 1: Be real with yourself. Know who you are and the power you hold. To be “real” with oneself is to understand the most difficult parts of yourself, call yourself out. Be willing to relearn and forgive yourself through the changes and mistakes. To always recognize the core parts of you, the most lovely parts of you. Sometimes they are the difficult parts or parts society has told you are bad. Know when to celebrate yourself and every achievements, even the small ones.

Like an outspoken, creative, and intelligent Black woman forever seen as “rebellious,” “high maintenance,”  “Angry,” and “ghetto.” Hearing those negative terms can outweigh those positive, especially since these ideologies have been around since jim crow. Society has set stereotypes based in white supremacy, as truth, even the age-old cult ideology of the American Dream. A dream that has always been a reality for white people and a nightmare for BIPOC, yet we throw each other under buses trying to achieve it. The American Dream is meant for one group and the moment you get close to achieving it, the dream changes and you are left chasing it. Telling people who and what they are is the best tool of manipulation. America is great at manipulating its citizens and history and education is their most productive tool. Remember this paragraph for future essays.

Every election year we lose focus of being against white supremacy, to using it and being willing agents of it out of frustration. Which if we are being honest, is to be expected in a white supremacy country. The indoctrination of white supremacy has always been released through pro-American propaganda. From “Americans first” to “We need to put on our mask before we can help anyone else.” All the while Americans have been put last after the need for wealth and world power by the 1%, some of which aren’t even Americans. The government barely had enough resources for its citizens during COVID, so do you truly believe America will aid others?

This mindset comes from a place of taught self-hate but also somehow a foolish thought of being equal to our oppressors in the oppressors’ mind. As if siding with them with stop their hateful propaganda and structural implications against Black people. If we are to succeed in gaining our power back and building our communities strong, we have to realize that our trauma with white supremacy is a direct ancestor to what America does in other countries. The moment we take in white supremacy, our souls and bodies begin to slowly die. Self-love and understanding it, is the only protection from the mental and emotional damage white supremacy causes us.

Below I have listed a few questions to ask yourself. Healing and self love are lifelong needs and processes that can be achieved through a plethora of activities. I highly suggest getting a therapist or a group that you have safety and bravery in, to work through your answers and journey. As life changes, so will your answers, most likely.

1. What do I need to heal from?

2. How can I love myself more?

3. How do I hate myself?

4. In what ways am I kind to myself? And can I use them to be kind to others?

5. What parts of society tell me to hate about myself? And does it affect others?

6. What steps can I take to begin healing myself?

The main focus for step 2 is releasing what you were taught. To reiterate, we live in a white supremacy country. A country that created historical and scientific “facts” to help push the agenda of white supremacy. For further information I suggest reading Amos Wilson’s Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children, Carol Anderson’s White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide, or even Jabari Lyles’ Black Self, White World lessons on internalizing white supremacy via TedTalk. Releasing what you are taught cannot be achieved without step 1. Knowing that you will be fine if you learn everything you’ve been taught is a lie, which can be extremely disorientating. In this step, I suggest deep diving into everything you know about America then branch out. What you learned about accessibility, the economic system, individuality, and history, all of it has been poisoned with white supremacy.

Even the way STEM is used in this country, the most desirable and profitable products of STEM are weapons. America loves advanced technology and pushes AI and STEM in schools not for the benefit of the students, but what they hope they’ll do with it. This isn’t a new issue, the people in power indoctrinating social and governing systems in-turn indoctrinating its citizens into military and divisionary warriors. It’s been happening and our ancestors expressed concern, warning, and anger towards it. They were in the trenches themselves, much like we are now, some of them noticing the illnesses white supremacy was forcing onto them and their people. Literal illness; Flint Michigan, the south and west sides of any “urban” city. I suggest reading Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Ibram X Kendi, Kendra Nalubega-Booker, N.K. Jemisin, and Toni Morrison. Some of these authors write fiction, fiction can be very revolutionary.

White supremacy is cancerous to the nation, but rarely do white people die from it and that is why it still exists. No matter which party you break your back defending and donating to, this nation will continue to be a white supremacist one. Until white people take up the very possible task, for them. One that they forcibly put on Black and indigenous people with their blatant ignorance of ending white supremacy. Our ancestors wore themselves out trying to push themselves into white society because it was thought to be the only society available to them. But I imagine they got tired of dying because white people couldn’t bare to part with their dear uncle Sam. They began to see that wasn’t their responsibility and the damage hundreds of years enslaved and jim crow did to their psyche, even causing hereditary diseases. We began to understand the different branches of white supremacy and the roles they play in America’s functioning.

Though it seems somehow that hardwork has been replaced by the need for generational wealth and hustle mentality. As if having a million dollars in your bank account or generations of assets will bring us salvation, as if capitalism will save us. It will only entangle us in the roots, suffocating us under pounds and pounds of dirt. I suppose that is why it has become one of the biggest false comforts spewed out to people as a way to achieve the “American Dream.” Kind of difficult to end the cycle of oppression when your very existence is being used to spin it faster.

Below are another set of questions, they revolve around how you have internalized white supremacy.

1. You are driving and stop at a red light. A man knocks on your window to ask for help, what are your first thoughts?

2. Many people with disabilities believe society is what actually makes life difficult. What, in the spaces you frequent, can attest to this? And how can it be remedied, even if it seems inconvenient to you?

3. What do you think of this statement; To make life equitable for everyone, we have to put the most vulnerable at the forefront of society, law, government, education, economics, etc?

4. What do you think of this statement; Boarder control is unnecessary, open boarders help the economy and are the most humane way to live?

5. What forms of white supremacy have I partipated in throughout my life?

6. What you do to someone else, you do to yourself, how have you hurt yourself?

Step 3: Focuses on reflecting through your bloodline, it is always good to engage with your ancestors and elders to learn about your family. The start of institutional white supremacy began with our ancestors. In this country white supremacy has made us all perpetrators and victims, for to survive it, you must participate in it. There is only one group that benefits from it and the plans of the wealthy will ensure that is the case for future generations. It’s ironically funny how easily it is being done now considering how much America praises himself for being a country of freedom and progression. You can see why step 1 is so important, to love oneself. Knowing how the trauma of you and your family line is interconnected can provide clarity into the hidden history of America. You can learn about yourself through them and discover how America has and hasn’t changed. All of this ties into the longevity of White supremacy in America which explains the excuses for America’s oppressive behaviors.

This step will truly expose you to the most destructive parts of white supremacy, America. You will start to see it peeking out from all the dusty corners no one looks in. With the continuous destruction of minority communities from Black people to LGBTQ+, to people with disabilities, the American Dream was clearly not meant for us. Nor should we break our backs trying to join such a cult. The reality of it is, we would only be achieving a fake whiteness that white supremacy will only acknowledge when they need to use us. We are purposely injected with white supremacy through media, justice, education, and economics. How you think of and treat your fellow human struggling through mental health, there is some white supremacy behind it.

For centuries rich white supremacist have been showcasing their proud white supremacy behind the curtains, while their poor white supremist soldier do all the dirty work. Now that they have Woodrow Wilson reincarnated leading them, they are dusting off diaries of dead rich white supremacist. They are pulling out their white supremacy handbooks, they no longer need humans as tools to dispense their own oppression. They no longer care that we see them, they believe they have won. And they will if we do not do the work of self-healing and then community healing.

To build a thriving community that will continuously strive for equitability, we must heal ourselves from all these things. Black people, we are not saving ourselves by siding with our oppressors, we are only saving them. White people, it is your duty and responsibility to end white supremacy, it has been 200+ years. You can use the police as your personal attack pigs, you can demand and fight for investigations into our governing systems and institutions. And for the love of America, correct your ignorant friends and family as well as yourself. Corrections can and should have love in it, it is a must that we hold ourselves and those in our community accountable for our actions and words. As Americans we are in the belly of the beast. If you’re a fellow nerd, you know that in this situation, there is now only one way to kill the beast

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