July 4th, 2021
Image photographed on unseated Lakota land.
CW: unpacking white supremacy
Today, I’m being reminded that white supremacy operates on the premise that those of us who benefit from it, no matter who we are, will have a very difficult time truly seeing it. Rightly so—it’s one of the most painful and destructive forces we as humans have to grapple with.
I’ve noticed that my understanding of white supremacy has come not from trying to see it, but by being sucker punched by it, being forced to feel it. Today I’m feeling encouraged to reflect on my body’s fairly recent recognition of the atrocities that have happened to build this country. I think the more those who benefit from white privilege discuss these stories, the more we realize that we can live through them, come out the other side with a new lens of how it’s been hurting everyone and everything (including ourselves), and be more ready to take those waves again together and in solidarity with others who have been living under them for so long.
In 2017, I embarked on a 3 month road trip across the United States. As I drove across the Great Plains, seeing the massive sprawl of agriculture, and occasionally an untouched spit of land, sensing what that whole area used to look like, coupled with occasional signs pointing toward battle sites or reservations, it finally started to sink in. I’d always felt deep sickness and sadness at the thought of the holocaust during WWII—my body had registered that darkness. On this trip, I finally started to feel how the brutal and bloody erasure of Indigenous people on this continent had been exactly the same thing.
Last year, I was encouraged to watch Django Unchained for the first time. I made it as far as the scene with the dogs. I still can’t fully describe that scene, it’s too brutal. But the slave owner character talks to the slave character in a way that is supposed to make him feel shame for not seeing himself as property. It is some of the most dehumanizing gaslighting I’ve ever witnessed, and I finally had a glimpse of how white supremacy works by making Black and brown bodies feel guilt, shame, and fully responsible for the way they’ve been treated.
These experiences may seem small, but they were enough to shift my understanding from a vague thought to a fuller body knowing. I’ve learned that humanity includes a great capacity to face darkness, disgust, and anger that we must turn towards, not away from, them in order to move through the legacies of destructive isms we’ve inherited.
While being in touch with your inherent goodness and knowing you are not alone, I encourage you to move toward some of this history today and put yourself in the position to be moved by it. It is supposed to hurt. It is supposed to break us. We are supposed to rise again, stronger than before. This willingness to feel and reconcile is what is shaping America’s, the world’s, next chapter.