Are you still reeling in shock at the presidential election results? Are you pulling at your hair wondering, “How did this country get so racist??” Are you posting statuses about how it is now time to come together to fight racism in the face of current political threats? Have you found yourself saying, “Well, at least this administration is waking people up.”

Hi! I see you there! Welcome to the anti-racism movement. I know you were kind of hoping to sneak in the back of class in the middle of this semester and then raise your hand in a few days to offer up expert opinion like you’ve always been here — but you’ve been spotted, and I have some homework for you, because you’ve missed A LOT and we don’t have the time to go over it all together. I’m glad you are here (I mean, I’d really rather you arrived sooner and I’m a little/lot resentful at how often we have to stop this class to cover all the material for people who are just now realizing that this is a class they should be taking, but better late than never I guess) and I know that once you catch up, you can contribute a lot to the work being done here.

If you are just now feeling the urgency of the need to fight systemic racism, chances are, you are white. I know, I know — I’m starting off with blanket assumptions about you and that doesn’t feel good; you literally don’t have to tell me about it, I’m quite familiar! But seriously, you are probably white or white passing (yes, I’m aware that Ben Carson and Lil Wayne exist and some people of color are capable of holding on to baffling amounts of denial, but I do not have whatever power it would take to break through that level of delusion so let’s just stick with new white folk). I’ve written down this handy list of things that you’ve missed so far that you’re going to need to catch up on, on your own time. This knowledge and preparation will not only make your fight against racism more effective, it will allow us to continue our progress as you catch up.

If you are just now feeling the urgency of the need to fight systemic racism, chances are, you are white.
Click To Tweet

This work is the worst.

Woah, I know — I’m starting off in the most negative way possible but look, I need you to know what you are signing up for. Fighting racism is one of the most difficult things you will ever do. I mean, reading this essay might be a little uncomfortable, but it is NOTHING compared to the conversations you are going to have to have, the privilege you are going to have to sacrifice, and the brutality and pain you are going to have to be able to look in the eye every day. Not only will this work get harder and harder the further you dive in, you will also get what at times seems like a very small return on your efforts.

If you want a fucked-up silver lining, you can always remember that people of color (POC) are also doing this work, never have the option of taking a break, and also have to live through the actual racism being fought in the process. So, buck up and get ready.

Your welcome parade. You missed it.

It was a beauty too — floats and streamers and everybody was clapping and cheering. But then it ended and we swept up all the confetti and everyone had to get back to work. Sorry.

Every idea you have for how we can better fight racism has already been discussed.

I know you might be saying “but how can you know that Ijeoma, you don’t know me?” I know. Trust me. I know. You are a 10-year-old explaining to a theoretical physicist how time travel might work. The theoretical physicist has already heard your theory and many others. She probably had some of those same theories when she was 10. And while your interest in time travel and your imagination and intelligence might well lead you to eventually help invent time travel, it will only do so after it has been paired with a lot of the education and experience that the physicist that you are trying to explain time travel to already has. But you are not actually 10, so your ideas are not cute. Keep them in your hat for now while you learn the basics.

Your journey to understanding that racism is a real problem and you have been contributing to it has already been covered.

Please don’t raise your hand to tell us all the tale of how you came to see that you are part of an oppressive system. We were there. When you didn’t know, when your obliviousness was contributing to our oppression, we were there being oppressed. When you were ignoring our cries for help, we saw you look away. As you stumbled along the path of recognition, we were the people you took down with you in each fall. We would rather not go over that all again.

But all is not lost, and your story does have real value — to people who are not in this room, who are afraid of acknowledging the part they play in a White Supremacist society. You can show fellow white people that they can survive the self-reflection necessary to fight racism. Please, share your story with them, it can do real good.

White People: I Want You To Understand Yourselves Better
theestablishment.co

Your ramp-up period. You missed it.

When POC were very, very small, we got a few years of comfort and protection from some of the realities of a White Supremacist society. When we were safe at home with our parents, the effects of systemic racism were muted somewhat, although never entirely. Then when we were 4 or 5 and went to preschool we discovered we were four times more likely to be suspended from preschool, and by the time we went to kindergarten another kid called us a “nigger” or another racial slur, and from then on we’ve been neck-deep in that shit.

So, if you weren’t there, you missed it. Nobody is going to hold your hand through this. If you fuck up, you will be called out. If you slow us down, you may be left on the side of the road. If we are angry at white people, we will say we are angry at white people, and nobody is going to add “not all white people” for your benefit. You will find a way to keep going — we have.

Nobody is going to hold your hand through this. If you fuck up, you will be called out.
Click To Tweet

Free, individualized education is not a thing we do anymore.

I know you would prefer a nice, safe sit-down with someone who would patiently walk you through all of this, but we have millions of people we need to get right and an entire system of White Supremacy to fight. We do not have the time or energy. Also — that “free labor from POC” thing is kind of how we got into this mess. The questions you are asking have already been answered by POC — some of whom have already been compensated for their time and effort. Google is your friend. If we have to live it, the least you can do is Google it.

We care about multiple things here — at the same time.

Yes, we are aware of how dangerous this administration is. No, we do not have “better” battles to be picking right now. We are doing multiple things at once, because we cannot be sure if it is the cops that will kill us, or the racist jokes at work fostering an environment where we are seen as unreliable and dispensable that will leave us unable to feed our families. But we know that it all can kill us in body and spirit, one way or another, so we will drag people for cultural appropriation and demand that schools provide a more diverse education to our children, while also raising alarm about the Muslim ban, ICE raids, and police brutality.

You could maybe help pick up some of the slack instead of trying to refocus our efforts in a way that makes sense to someone who doesn’t actually have to live with the consequences of what you think we should just “let go.”

Your privilege is the biggest risk to this movement.

That’s right: the biggest risk. The compromises you are willing to make with our lives, the offenses you are willing to brush off, the everyday actions you refuse to investigate, the comfort you take for granted — they all help legitimize and strengthen White Supremacy. Even worse, when you bring that into our movement and refuse to investigate and challenge it, you slow down our fight against White Supremacy and turn many of our efforts against us. When POC say, “check your privilege,” they aren’t saying it for fun — they are saying it because when you bring unexamined privilege into anti-racist spaces, you are bringing in a cancer.

Your privilege is the biggest benefit you can bring to the movement.

No, I’m not just talking nonsense now. Racial privilege is like a gun that will auto-focus on POC until you learn to aim it. When utilized properly, it can do real damage to the White Supremacist system — and it’s a weapon that POC do not have. You have access to people and places we don’t. Your actions against racism carry less risk.

You can ask your office why there are no managers of color and while you might get a dirty look and a little resentment, you probably won’t get fired. You can be the “real Americans” that politicians court. You can talk to fellow white people about why the water in Flint and Standing Rock matters, without being dismissed as someone obsessed with playing “the race card.” You can ask cops why they stopped that black man without getting shot. You can ask a school principal why they only teach black history one month a year and why they pretty much never teach the history of any other minority group in the U.S. You can explain to your white friends and neighbors why their focus on “black on black crime” is inherently racist. You can share articles and books written by people of color with your friends who normally only accept education from people who look like them. You can help ensure that the comfortable all-white enclaves that white people can retreat to when they need a break from “identity politics” are not so comfortable. You can actually persuade, guilt, and annoy your friends into caring about what happens to us. You can make a measurable impact in the fight against racism if you are willing to take on the uncomfortable truths of your privilege.

Thank God For Identity Politics
theestablishment.co

You will get better at this, but at first you will fuck up a lot, and you will always fuck up a little.

You are a human being and human beings are inherently flawed. You are also a human being who has lived with an entire life of unexamined privilege and racist social programming. You are going to fuck up hardcore. You are here because you are a decent human, and because you are a decent human you are going to feel pretty shitty when you fuck up. You will probably be called out, you may even be dismissed by some folk, and that may make you feel angry and defensive along with feeling shitty. You will need to get used to the pang of guilt from realizing you have fucked up and it has hurt people. Because it will hit you again and again.

It is okay to feel guilty about things that you are guilty of. It will not kill you, but hiding from that guilt and responsibility can kill others. So feel the guilt, realize you are still alive and intact, figure out how to do better, try to make amends if possible, and move forward. You are not alone. We are all fucking this up in various ways, every single one of us. Right now, there are whole big problematic chapters in our movement. We are all trying to do the work and wrestle with the ways in which we are causing more harm than good. But we have no choice but to keep working, even when it sucks.

You are here because you are a decent human, and because you are a decent human you are going to feel pretty shitty when you fuck up.
Click To Tweet

I’m glad you are here. I’m angry you are so late — have I mentioned that? I’m very, very angry you are so late because so many of us have been lost fighting without you. And you are going to just have to live with that anger for a while because you deserve it. But I am also glad you are here. I am glad you are seeing more clearly now and have decided that you no longer want to be a part of the problem. Eventually, I may get over my anger and I may even trust you, but until then I’m still going to need you to do the work to help dismantle the system that you have benefited from and have helped maintain for so long.

Because I do need your help, and I do know that you can help in ways that I cannot. Your reward may not be the warm welcome and heartfelt thanks that you might have been hoping for, but a more just and equal world will have to suffice.

If there is one thing white people have taught me, it’s that you cannot stand the truth in any of its forms.

White people, you have a motherfucking problem.

You lie too goddamn much. You teach your kids to lie too goddamn much. You tell your families to lie too goddamn much. All you fucking do is lie and lie and lie about lying to the point that you are killing everyone, including yourselves.

You lie at the highest levels, so much so that we expect it from our elected officials. Our presidents have told lies that resulted in the death of more than 50,000 American soldiers. You lie about civilian massacres. You lie about terrorist attacks against Black Americans. You lie about sex education and risk the health of your children. You lie about your friends’ qualifications to run national agencies, which results in unnecessary deaths. You lie about your experiences while reporting. You lie about American history. You lie about historical heroes. You lie about slavery. You lie and lie and lie on a massive scale and cover up the lies, protect the liars, rehire the liars, and elect the liars because *shrug* everybody lies.

You lie about the littlest things, like if you ate the last cookie. You lie to your spouse about their annoying habits. You lie to your kids about how to make babies. You lie to your neighbors about your debt. You lie to your boss about sleeping in. You lie to your co-workers about your weekend. You lie to your doctor about your body. You lie to everyone and say you are fine. And you lie to yourself about how wonderful and nice a human being you are.

You lie and lie and lie on a massive scale and cover up the lies, protect the liars, rehire the liars, and elect the liars because *shrug* everybody lies.
Click To Tweet

But you aren’t nice. You wear a veneer of nice. You are a rotten tooth in the mouth of the world. Instead of taking care of yourself and preventing decay, you feed on the power of your whiteness like candy. When you start to smell, you use mouthwash and mints to hide it. When you start to visibly decay, you try to hide it with whitening gel. When you start to hurt, you take pain medication. When the pain becomes too great, you finally seek help — and that help is to numb yourself, pull out the nerve, then slap a crown on it so that no one can see your empty core. Instead they see a perfect veneer passing for a healthy tooth. But it is a tooth that feels no pain and only emulates the others.

In case you didn’t know, that ability to feel is called empathy. And as far as I can see, white America has none.

Or maybe you do. Maybe you have empathy, but it’s overshadowed by the centuries of stinky, infected rot left by your presidents, your congressmen, your police, your lawyers, your corporations, your lobbyists, your business leaders, your forefathers, and your motherland, all in the name of colonialism. Maybe you don’t know what empathy even feels like anymore.

Human rights violations are so interwoven with American history that you can no longer tell what’s right . . . if indeed you ever could.

You are a rotten tooth in the mouth of the world. Instead of taking care of yourself and preventing decay, you feed on the power of your whiteness like candy.
Click To Tweet

I know, I know, not all white people. My husband is white. Except I wrote an entire fucking essay about how I needed to put his ass in check for his lack of empathy. Except that I spent years tuning him into what the fuck is going on with the huge swath of the population that doesn’t look like him. And I still deal with the empathy-less white people he’s brought into my life. Not often, because I love myself too much to deal with that weird combination of superficiality and toxicity that permeates white society and dictates their interactions, but still. They are in my life, kind of.

And at work? The fact that these people categorize murder by cop as politics makes me want to throw a goddamn table. “I don’t talk politics at work.” People were murdered and you liken it to the ego-stroking and ass-kissing office bullshit that I put up with for my check? Get the fuck outta here!

Seriously, get the fuck outta here.

Can you really not see the difference? Does this really not resonate with you? Does the constant replaying of the murder of Black people really not matter?

You don’t have to answer that. I already know. We aren’t human to you. We never have been.

But you won’t admit that because it means telling the truth. And if there is one thing white people have taught me, it’s that you cannot stand the truth in any of its forms.

I keep asking myself — when will they see the monster in the mirror? When will they see who they really are? What they do? How they destroy the world with their endless quest for power and the tireless subjugation of others to do it? When will they admit their fucking inability to see the humanity in difference?

Honestly, I wouldn’t care if so many white people didn’t have so much fucking power. But y’all do, and your consistent abuse of that power has destroyed countless lives and continues to do so. From your rapist sons, to your murdering daughters, you continue to destroy everything you touch.

But I have hope for you.

My hope is that one day, enough of you will stop lying to yourselves and heal. That one day you will stop lying to yourself and admit that you are an empty shell, existing on the continued pain of others as you beg, borrow, and steal from EVERYONE else to feel relevant.

One day you will stop killing everyone who doesn’t fit your image.

One day you will stop attacking anyone who questions your decayed foundation.

One day you will actually love instead of trying to destroy people who live, love, and somehow thrive despite your oppression.

From your rapist sons, to your murdering daughters, you continue to destroy everything you touch.
Click To Tweet

In these times of tragedy, we talk about Black healing. It’s a necessary conversation about something we have a lot of practice doing. Hundreds of years worth, actually.

What we need is white accountability. Are you strong enough to do it?

I’ll wait.

A few days ago I caused a stir in my own tiny corner of the internet world by saying what I thought everybody already knew: If you support Trump, you are a White Supremacist.

When people talked about Hillary going too far when she said half of Trump’s supporters can be put into a “basket of deplorables,” I was left scratching my head and thinking: Only 50%?

If you support Trump, you are a White Supremacist. Full stop. Not just the passive amount of White Supremacy that we all end up participating in, in an inherently White Supremacist system — you are an active, hateful, dangerous White Supremacist.

Now some of you may be asking, as you have on Facebook and Twitter: “Ijeoma, are you really willing to call half of the U.S. population White Supremacists?” And to that my answer is hell yes. This may seem like a bold statement to some, but honestly, I can’t see why.

Human beings can quite easily fall in line with violent hatred and oppression; any quick glance through world history will show that to be true. Do you think that the Nazis came to power against the will of the German electorate, or with the support of the German people? Do you think that slavery was upheld purely by the few rich enough to own slaves, or by an entire society that even erected armies to defend it? And no, none of this can be excused away as “a product of the times” — humans are not like wine grapes; we do not have a few “bad years” that we can blame on the soil. If you recognize that these horrific systems of abuse, oppression, and even genocide were upheld by everyday people, then you have to acknowledge that everyday people are capable of some pretty heinous shit. You can be in the PTA and you can pay your taxes and you can volunteer at your local homeless shelter and at the same time you can be actively upholding the oppression of others. It has been done before and it is being done now.

Human beings can quite easily fall in line with violent hatred and oppression.
Click To Tweet

So yes, half of the U.S. population can be actively working to uphold violent White Supremacy, and yes, Trump’s campaign is violently White Supremacist. Your grandma who supports Trump is a White Supremacist. Your buddy who supports Trump is a White Supremacist. That’s what happens when you actively support White Supremacy. Here’s a sample of what is a vibrant buffet of White Supremacy that Trump supporters are backing:

Make America Great Again is a call to White Supremacy: When was America greater than it is now? The ‘60s? The ‘50s? The ‘40s? How you answer that question depends on how white you are. I’m only half-white, so if I go back to any time before 1967, my very existence would have been illegal in many states. Hell, two decades after I was born, anti-miscegenation language was finally removed from the Alabama state constitution, so for me — I have between 2000 and now to draw from. Every period of time in U.S. history prior to this one was less safe and less free for people of color, so if you plan on “Making America Great Again” and you are referencing any time in the past — you’re asking for a return of White Supremacy.

Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric is racist as fuck: I’m not saying that if you believe in tighter immigration rules you are immediately a White Supremacist (although you might just be), but if you go about it by insinuating that the Mexicans crossing the border are rapists, and if your proxies are warning of “taco trucks on every corner,” then you are trying to tap into a White Supremacist narrative of the black and brown brute and you are sure as hell dogwhistling that white culture in America is at risk.

Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric is racist as fuck: Now, before you barge in letting me know that “Islam isn’t a race,” let me please remind you to sit the fuck down. Islam isn’t a race, but Trump’s Islamophobia sure as hell is racist. If Trump and his followers didn’t think of SCARY BROWN PEOPLE when they thought of Islam, Islamophobia wouldn’t exist. If Islamophobia wasn’t racist in nature, we’d treat all problems within other religious communities not affiliated with scary brown people the same way we treat Islam. If Islamophobia wasn’t racist, we’d be trying to “liberate” Mormon women currently being punished for their own rapes at BYU. If Islamophobia wasn’t racist, we wouldn’t have conservative politicians fighting against raising the statute of limitations on child sex abuse so that Catholic priests could finally face justice for their crimes. If Islamophobia wasn’t racist, we would have declared war on “Christian Fundamentalism” after the Oklahoma City bombing and the multiple deadly Planned Parenthood bomb and gun attacks over the years. If Islamophobia wasn’t racist, Trump would be seeking immigration bans on people from ALL countries that produce terrorists (which is basically every country), not just brown ones. But because Islamophobia IS racist, Trump has been able to stir up White Supremacist hatred and fear of the brown “other” and turn it into votes.

This is just a sample of the White Supremacy that has seeped into every corner of the Trump campaign. It’s not everything, but it’s enough. It’s enough to overshadow any possible positive you could entertain in supporting his run for presidency.

There is no compromise between equality and violent White Supremacy.
Click To Tweet

So if you support Trump, you are supporting all of the above, and you are supporting White Supremacy. If you support Trump for other reasons, you are STILL supporting all of the above, and you are supporting White Supremacy. If you believe that you are actively against White Supremacy and yet you will support Trump, you are lying to yourself. People are being hurt right now by the racism that Trump is peddling, by the bravado that the legitimization of this election is giving to White Supremacists. What in the world could Trump possibly be offering you that would cause you to overlook all of the above?

And I’m not saying you have to vote for Hillary to not be a White Supremacist. I’m not saying that there aren’t some Hillary supporters who are white supremacists (see: everything I’ve ever written about this election for more). You CAN be a Hillary supporter, a Jill Stein supporter, a Gary Johnson supporter, or a die-hard anarchist and still be a White Supremacist. But if you are a Trump supporter, you ARE a White Supremacist (and yes, all 15 Trump supporters of color are perfectly capable of being White Supremacists, too). You looked at a campaign built on open, gleeful, hate-filled White Supremacy and you said, “sign me up!”

And I’m not willing to coddle you. I’m not willing to create a safe space for you to be able to elect White Supremacy into law without being called what you are: an unabashed, willful proponent of White Supremacy. There is no “middle ground” to be found here. There is no “compromise” between equality and violent White Supremacy. And there is no “gentler way” of confronting racism when my basic humanity as a woman of color is not enough to sway you against electing a regime that is built on the hatred and fear of people who look like me. And those of us directly harmed by the disgusting hate you want to elect into office will not forget that you traded away our safety and humanity for empty promises of “winning” and “greatness.” We see you for who you really are.

The New York Times recently reported that “over the past four years, at least 10 people in South Texas have been victims of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping or rape” at the hands of United States Border Patrol agents. The agents — including one man who went on a 12-day killing spree targeting sex workers — are described to have “suddenly and violently snapped.”

This stands in stark contrast to President Trump’s repeated racist attempts to paint immigrants from Mexico as “killers and rapists.” Indeed the subtext of the Times‘ writing is that it’s not those who cross the border who should be feared, but those tasked with enforcing inhumane immigration policies against them.

The Times also suggests the possibility that “the very nature of Border Patrol agents’ work—dealing with vulnerable, powerless people, often alone on the nation’s little-traveled frontiers,” contributes to their ability to get away with their crimes, as well their inclination to commit them in the first place. After all, many of these attacks occurred prior to Trump’s reign of terror — including under President Obama — which suggests that the way the United States approaches border control has long been deeply racist and dehumanizing.

We also know that law enforcement officers across the United States are trained to treat people inhumanely, especially Black and brown people, and this reality has also led to a well-documented epidemic of mass incarceration and violence, including sexual violence. In fact, the New York Times also reported this month that women working in the Federal Bureau of Prisons face a near constant threat of assault and harassment, often from their own co-workers.

This portrait of Border Agents could also be applied to the ever-expansive pool of mass shooters, who are also often described as having mysteriously “snapped,” although it’s well-documented that they are largely straight men — typically white — and almost always have a history of violence against women. Not so mysterious.

Every day, men throughout society are encouraged to dominate “vulnerable, powerless people,” including those traversing well-traveled areas, and they know that they are very likely to get away with their aggression — or even be rewarded for it. This is not coincidence. It’s due in part to patriarchy, a social system that not only values men over women, but the behaviors which we describe as “masculine” over those which we call “feminine.” It is — as race theory scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw emphasizes — inherently linked to white supremacy, capitalism, and other social systems rooted in ideals of dominance.

The very nature of Border Patrol agents’ work contributes to their ability to get away with their crimes, as well their inclination to commit them in the first place.
Click To Tweet

And yet, none of the news reports above mentioned include the word patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, or any other reference to historically entrenched gendered oppression. Despite the array of blockbuster reports over the past two years unveiling sexual violence in various American institutions, we — especially men in power —  still seem far more comfortable discussing how the specific “nature” of certain environments lend themselves to rape than we are acknowledging that the very structuring of our society is the reason that these types of environments exist in the first place.

In Vivek Shraya’s new memoir, I’m Afraid of Men, the writer and artist never shies away from that bigger picture, beginning with a painstaking account of a day in her life as a trans South Asian woman living in Canada. We follow her as she faces a near constant barrage of sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and literal threats of violence as she walks out of her apartment, logs onto the Internet, does her job, and simply survives the day. Shreya underlines the ways in which the fear of men has been reinforced and affirmed throughout her life, from childhood onward.

In the Times article “Hazing, Humiliation, Terror: Working While Female in Federal Prison,” a prison employee named Jessica recounts something similar in relation to her working conditions:

Every single day something happened, whether it was an inmate jerking off to you, whether it was an inmate pushing you, whether it was a staff member harassing you through email, on a phone, following you to your car.

Both of these accounts echo the report on Border Patrol as well, in which one of the survivors, M.G., describes the moment when she, her daughter, and another woman from the same town in Honduras were first detained by the agent who would go on to attack them all:

“When I saw him, I said, ‘Thank God,’” M.G. said.

But they slowly began to worry as they sat on metal benches in the back of the truck. M.G. thought there was something strange about the way the man was breathing. At first, she tried not to show her fear to the girls.

“I pretended,” she said. “I tried to be strong.”

The acceptance of hypermasculine brooding, anger, and intimidation in our society means people become accustomed to, adept at, suppressing their legitimate fears in order to appease those in power. Not just in prison or while risking their lives to cross into a new country, but as Shraya writes, the fear of men “governs” the choices she must make “from the beginning of my day to the end,” from the way an email is written to deciding what to wear out the door. (Particularly as a trans woman of color).

None of the news reports mentioned include the word patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, or any other reference to historically entrenched gendered oppression.
Click To Tweet

Ultimately, M.G. dragged herself out of the brush where she was left for dead and was able to alert another Border Patrol agent passing through. It seems to take such death-defying acts of heroism, or painfully-researched exposes in mainstream media, to even get us to face this violence. Yet, even then, there’s an avoidance of the deeper pattern.

The naming of patriarchy is largely discouraged by those in power because of patriarchy. As bell hooks has written:

Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation. Yet most men do not use the word ‘patriarchy’ in everyday life. Most men never think about patriarchy—what it means, how it is created and sustained.

To name patriarchy is to name the existence of historic gendered oppression, which is to name the existence of systemic bias against what we call femininity. And that is, in turn, an attack on the legitimacy of masculinity, the gender and sex binary, and how we are fundamentally taught to conceptualize power. In other words, naming patriarchy risks dismantling it.

In an essay for The Atlantic last year, Vann R. Newkirk II addressed the backlash against the increased use of “white supremacy” in the Trump era, responding to critics who argue that its usage has become overly broad. Newkirk clarified that this systemic “definition of white supremacy has long animated black activism,” including the work of Martin Luther King Jr., and efforts to reduce its scope have always been directly linked to the ever-expansive project of sweeping racism under the rug:   

The repackaging of Jim Crow into a “race neutral” set of policies didn’t just arise as a wink-and-a-nod deal in southern political backrooms a few years near the end of the civil-rights movement, but was a half-century-long project forged by thousands of lawyers and mainstream political leaders that costs millions of dollars, and was played out in every arena across the country from the Supreme Court to town hall meetings.

When we do tend to hear patriarchy these days it’s often in the form of the limiting phrase “the patriarchy” and it is similarly marginalized to “backrooms” where a certain group of powerful men apparently decide the fates of women. Indeed, some of the rebuttals to the existence of “the patriarchy” come down to the argument: but women are in those rooms too!

This diminishment and dismissal of the dominator culture in which we are swimming, happens in tandem with the avoidance of white supremacy and the fact that this society was in fact built upon white patriarchal violence. Despite the popularity of “intersectionality” as a buzzword—and the subsequent backlash to its use—we don’t often describe in detail the various systems of dominance, including capitalism and imperialism, which overlap to compound oppression.

Keeping these systems in obscurity serves a status quo in which indigenous women living in poverty, while carrying the generational trauma of genocide—on land targeted for environmental destruction—are still the most likely to be raped and assaulted (and usually by white men).

Extreme situations, like the dehumanization happening at our southern border or within our prison system, must be challenged, but isolating hypermasculine violence to particular conditions, independent of history, has also long been a tactic for avoiding cultural change. Or for dismissing unsavory problems as situational.

We’ve seen that in the way many have attempted to reduce Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement to a white Hollywood issue. Or in the way people like Trump blame terrorism on Muslims, or dismiss the epidemic of rape in the military by suggesting that it’s unavoidable in those conditions, asking incredulously, “What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?.”  

The irony is that these attempts at narrowing the conversation always end up doing the opposite: If the situation is to blame, why are there so many different situations producing similar results? Why is it a given that men will attack women when in isolation? Why do we simply accept the terror of masculinity as a fact of life?

Connecting this all to patriarchy means a commitment to describing how aggression, violence, and dominance are normalized all around us. It requires our constant effort to link the idealization of masculinity to that of things like whiteness, thinness, ability, wealth, Christianity, cisnormativity, and the destruction of our environment. It demands a more complicated story.

Despite the popularity of “intersectionality” as a buzzword, we don’t often describe the various systems of dominance, including capitalism and imperialism, which overlap to compound oppression.
Click To Tweet

At the end of I’m Afraid of Men, Shraya laments that “any ambiguity or nonconformity, especially in relation to gender, conjures terror. This is precisely why men are afraid of me. Why women are afraid of me too.”

What she yearns for is a world free of gendered expectations altogether, one in which we follow trans and gender-nonconforming people of color toward our “sublime” possibilities. Words alone do not ensure that safer, physical reality — a society without borders or prisons or hierarchies — but naming systems does force certain realities into the light. And perhaps dares us to look for a path.

Growing up a white girl in small-town Tennessee, each week I watched Bo and Luke Duke’s General Lee racing down country roads on The Dukes of Hazzard. The Confederate flag on its hood was as familiar to me as Daisy’s bare midriff.

In high school, I worked as a waitress at a trucker joint off Interstate 24 between Chattanooga and Nashville, and the restaurant owner kept a large Confederate flag standing on a six-foot pole in the corner of the dining room. One morning a group of girls, just a bit older than me, came in off the Interstate—loud, unruly, and rude—and snarled at my ignorance when they asked for “iced coffee” and I brought them iced tea instead.

Cleaning their table after they left, I realized they’d taken down that big Confederate flag, wrapped it around its pole and shoved the whole contraption way up under the heavy oak table. It was perhaps the first time I realized what the Confederate flag meant—bigotry, hatred, slavery—in the world outside Hazzard County. As I watched my manager tug that huge flag from under the table and set it upright, she assured me that the flag had nothing to do with racism. “It’s about pride in our heritage,” she said, “Southern culture”—which I understood to mean that we ate a lot of fried okra and went to church on Wednesdays.

Later, to me, Southern culture came to mean additional things, like the Klan marching in nearby Pulaski, religious discrimination against my gay friends, or societal control of women’s bodily autonomy. I decided to escape if I could, maybe to a paradise that I’d heard tell of‚ a godless place where the gays had busted out of their closets and women refused to wear panty hose and men helped with the housework! California, they called it, and I couldn’t wait to go there and live happily ever after in harmony with all humanity.

But I got here to Southern California and realized that even in my left-coast fantasyland, police killed young Black women, white boys asked if I’d ever worn shoes before leaving the South, and an Asian-American grad student told me she “couldn’t hear” my argument in a professional setting because my twang was coming out.

I heard of a place called Huntington Beach in Orange County, supposedly a hotbed of white supremacists, and soon enough, I decided the Californians might be just as screwed up as us Tennesseans.

A year or so ago, I was in a bar in Newport Beach (which is a very rare occurrence, Mama, if you’re reading this) and began talking to another woman, a stranger I had just met. I mentioned something about being from the South, and she got all excited. She pulled a Confederate flag keychain from her bag and showed it to me, assuming I would share her enthusiasm for it.

“…why do you have that?” I asked. “Are you from the South?”

No, she said, she was from California. I gave her a sideways glance. Did she believe all Southerners held a deep love of the Confederacy? In my experience, it was as hard to say something about “all Southerners” as it was to say something about “all Americans.” Even if you ask two Southern women about their favorite potato salad recipe, you’ll get five answers.

When the girl didn’t get the desired reaction from me, she muttered familiar words: “It’s not racist. I just think that if you have a culture, you should keep that culture.” What culture…? I wondered. Was she talking about my culture, or at least, my experience of the South —my hilly dirt roads and my hotwater cornbread and my endless weeknight Bible studies? No. This girl had likely never passed a piece of fried okra through her botoxed lips in the entirety of her life.

“But the South is not your culture,” I said. My heritage, contradictory and confused as it was, did not belong to her. What “culture” was she talking about that she was somehow identifying with? Was she saying that white racist people should stick together and preserve their…white racist culture?

I wondered the same thing last year as I realized that most of the Nazis and wannabe Confederates marching in Charlottesville were not, it seemed, from Charlottesville. Aside from a few, like organizer Jason Kessler, the ones who were identified in the press were from places like California, New York, Nevada, Washington state, North Dakota, and of course, Maumee, Ohio. These non-Southerners had driven all the way across the country in their quest to “preserve Southern history,” only to ride roughshod over the actual, real-life Southern people of Charlottesville, who had voted to remove a Confederate statue in their own public park.

This past Sunday, as Kessler organized his anniversary “Unite the Right Rally 2,” one of his invited speakers (who, like the rest of the alt-right, it seems, simply didn’t show up, there were only about 24 people there) was Patrick Little, a California Senate candidate originally from Maine who in his own words wants to “raise Jews as livestock.”

Aside from being a disgusting anti-Semite, Little is a member of the League of the South, which as far as I can tell is an organization of a couple dozen old white guys from Alabama who want to re-establish the Confederacy and rule it by fiat. Now, why does a Maine-bred Californian like Patrick Little join the League of the South?

What exactly, does he think “the South” is?

By culture, was she saying that white racist people should stick together and preserve their...white racist culture?
Click To Tweet

My youthful misconceptions of California as a liberal paradise have given way to a realization that too many non-Southerners, like Little and the Newport girl, have crafted a competing fantasy of my home—of the South as a white nationalist paradise, where all the white men are strong, and all the white women are good-looking, a white-celebrating world where you can tell yourself you are the master race without being laughed out of the Super Wal-Mart. A land where people of color can be shipped “back” on a boat or burned in an oven. A white supremacist culture.

I’m darkly amused by the entitlement of the non-Southerner’s racist belief that he has any right to define the South (which is much too big and diverse to be defined anyway)—like somehow he’s entitled to identify with the South and claim it as his own and define what it is, simply because he’s a racist. But I am also troubled by the way these folks, in places like California, associate their own white supremacy with my home, and of course, by default, with me.

Now, some will say if the South didn’t want to be stereotyped as a racist paradise it should have behaved better historically, and I can’t argue with that. But the South has always been more than just its long history of racism. The South has always included a heritage of resistance to white supremacist violence. After all, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks were Southerners, too, weren’t they? At the same time, there are Southerners right now in places like Charlottesville and all over the South who are redefining it as a diverse, multicultural place.

Today, people of color make up about 38% of the state of Virginia, which in 2016 went for Hillary overall by a 5% margin. 80% of Charlottesville voters chose Hillary. Even in deep-South Georgia, people of color make up about 47% of the population (defining “people of color” as everybody but “non-Hispanic whites”), and although Trump won the state, Hillary garnered 45% of the vote, improving on Obama’s 2012 performance there.

A red-painted map camouflages all the purple that today is the reality of the old Confederacy, and the Californian waving a Confederate flag wants to render all these real Southerners invisible.

The only way I know to counter this is to refuse to disappear. To say, no, if you are a racist from New York or Maine or Nevada or California, the South is not your culture—you don’t get to define it, you don’t get to define me. To make sure that any time a Confederate flag flies over a racist hate rally, whether it be in Charlottesville or the deceptively liberal bastion of Portland, there are the voices of actual Southerners (like Charlottesville’s first female Black mayor). To make sure they rise up to prove that white supremacists’ fantasy of a world devoid of people of color, LGBTQ folks, Jews, white liberals, and women who expect you to do your half of the house cleaning, is as futile as it is ugly, pathetic, and dangerous.

I spent the second half of 2016 talking to you, white people, telling you how you were fucking up. I wrote about how you consume Black creations and identities for your own gain; how you lie too fucking much, how you manipulate and silence Black people even when we’re living in constant trauma. I wrote about how you protect your nasty, entitled little monsters to the detriment of literally EVERYONE else. Your years of fucking up has led us to right now…and the hard lesson I had to learn was just how many of you want the fuckshit that’s happening or don’t care enough to even speak out against it, much less try to stop it.

I was naïve. I thought there was a majority of white people who tried to make things equitable, who wanted a better world. But these past two years have taught me that what you really wanted was a world where you could be as monstrous as you desired without consequences. That you were wholly invested in the perception of civility and humanity without actually doing the work. I learned that your version of winning was continued exploitation of others under the punishment of death and that as long as you were the one physically holding the gun, you were okay with it.

I tried to understand. In the beginning, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I told myself that if I was patient and helped them understand what they were co-signing on, that you would change your ways. I foolishly thought that my humanity was understood and accepted, not a bargaining chip on the table that you were intent upon winning, even if you had to cheat.

When Protecting Yourself From Racism Is The Selfish Choice
theestablishment.co

Well, congratulations, white people. You won. You now have the country your ancestors fought for — your dream is now realized. Black people continue to be exploited and murdered by both cops and white civilians at will, with virtually no consequences. In fact, some of y’all even make money when you face any consequences for your racism.

Your sons, spouses, and friends continue to rape women and children with impunity. Black and brown people continue to be snatched off the street, from their homes, jobs, and their children’s schools.

We are forced to show identification, or detained by ICE whenever a random white person feels empowered to fuck up someone’s day, and white people continue to call the police on Black people just for being near them.

Brown veterans and non-violent brown people are forcefully deported regardless of their military service or immigration application status. The pool of youths available for sex trafficking has increased exponentially with the latest, sanctioned kidnapping of immigrant children at the border while others attempting to cross continue to be detained indefinitely or murdered at will.

Not to mention the sex workers who are being murdered thanks to shitty legislation that protects no one. Those living with disabilities are left to fend for themselves or die, as are the elderly. And the LGBTQIA community has had their rights whittled away one by one and women’s reproductive rights continue to be a target.

Black and brown people are fucking terrorized and worried about leaving their homes but we’re great because the military is working on the Space Force but with less science.

The United States voluntarily left the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, thereby cementing the plan to ensure that human rights are only intended for white people, mainly white men, and the administration has just rescinded protections for Haitian immigrants. So, all in all, white people are winning.

That last sentence is sarcasm, by the way. This is the kind of winning Charlie Sheen was talking about, where you make a series of fucked-up decisions and convince yourself it’s a good thing.

Yeah…That’s where we are, stewing in this “good” fucking thing.

The shit going on is intentional. Egregiously so. I’m constantly having to guard myself from the apathy and glee expressed by white people. It’s like you are finally realizing the dream of your ancestors, to continue being the worst fucking examples of humanity and wearing that shit like a crown. And you fucking KNOW what you’re doing. You KNOW and you do it or let it happen anyway.

No bullshit, I didn’t understand that prison was slavery until a few years back. I knew it was a place to avoid as best I could, but I didn’t understand the scope, destructiveness, and exploitative aspects of the institution until the past decade. I didn’t understand how people lived with slavery until I understood that I was one of those people. I let slavery happen around me and never did anything about it. I’ve lived alongside genocide my entire life and never bothered to understand it until recently. I am a bystander in the dehumanization and destruction of human beings, and the best I can do is be angry and send money because doing more is hard.

But you know. You know people with power. You know people in office. You know some police. You know some of them ICE terrorists. And no, “not all” of you know someone, but you know people who do and I expect you to do something with that knowledge.

When White People Need Us To Save Them From Themselves
theestablishment.co

I’m not even expecting much…just fucking stop lying about giving a fuck or actually give a fuck and do something. I want you either to wear your Melania “I don’t care” jacket with pride so I can know who the monsters really are, or to fucking exercise some of your goddamn privilege and DO SOMETHING.

The wonderful thing about these shitty times is that more white people are living their racist fantasies, so I don’t have to guess which ones are rooting for my demise anymore. All y’all ain’t shit till you own your place in this and do better. If you aren’t calling out this inhumane shit…if you aren’t fucking disowning your white supremacist relatives, if you aren’t exacting social, economic, and sometimes physical punishment on the people in your life cheering for or indifferent to this shit, then you are just like them. You are aiding and abetting this bullshit and you need to stop fucking lying to yourself about it.

Since I’ve started talking about oppression in many of its forms, I’ve had that shit weaponized against me, repeatedly. People I thought were my friends told me to shut up about it. White people I went to school with would speak up to tell me to shut up. I have watched my circle of acquaintances disintegrate and blow away as though Thanos had snapped his fingers and it’s all because I stopped letting people feel safe and comfortable in their bullshit lies about their privilege and the ways they enable white supremacy. I’ve cut off family and friends and myself been cut off by both because shit ain’t gonna change if we keep pretending it’s fucking fine.

You’re not good people. You are enabling global fucking harm and pretending that it’s fine.

White people created, protect, and enable a culture rife with self-delusion, so intent on amassing and maintaining a malevolently violent definition of power that they are gutting this planet and its people.

As a people, as a culture, you are willing to destroy anything that challenges your idea of power, often at your own expense. Your limited, short-sighted, wildly hedonistic, and venomous actions are astounding in their inhumanity. You have literally redefined “human” to only include those with a fucking skin mutation that literally makes the sun poisonous for you.

But you’re fucking winning. So, congratulations on openly promoting and encouraging others to engage in all the racist violence to their heart’s content. Should we survive your bullshit, I hope history remembers you accurately as the monsters who sought to rule the earth by destroying everything and everyone else on it.

Originally published at talynnkel.com.

If you like my writing, you can support me on Patreon. Right now, there are $1, $3, and $10 tiers but you can give whatever amount you want. Every tier gives you some behind the scenes content and the $10 tier lets you see work that will probably never be publicly released.

My racist mother-in-law is dying.

Well, we think she may be dying. She is in the hospital and they are trying to figure out what’s happening, but it’s been three days and we have no answers. My significant other (S.O.) drove down to be with his family. I chose not to go because I choose not to have a relationship with them, and it would be an additional expense during a time where we are barely keeping ourselves afloat financially. So, he went, and I stayed home.

He’s angry at me now.

I knew he would be. Here he is, in crisis about his mother, and I am choosing not to physically be there for him. I’m not working a 9–5 so I wouldn’t be missing work. I am available to go, but because I won’t stay in the home of people who are casually, unapologetically “racist-lite,” I’m not being supportive.

The last time someone in his immediate family was sick, I went to his family’s place, worked out of a hotel, spent evenings with them at the hospital, and had his mom ask me silly shit like, “How do Black people remove facial hair?” and “Your children would be beautiful, cuz of the skin” — ridiculous, offensive questions that intentionally identified me as “other” in their presence and implied that an infusion of whiteness into my gene pool would benefit any potential offspring. His mom would tell me how she wanted a Black woman angel for her holiday mantle, but all the Black ones were unattractive, so she couldn’t find one. His father constantly referred to my friends as a gang, despite repeated correction.

It was always about me being different and how I was different and how my difference was some kind of problem in some way. And each time, my S.O. would look ashamed and embarrassed while never addressing the transgressions. And when I tried to address this with his family, I was met with false apologies and protestations of innocent ignorance because they just didn’t know. The expectation was always that I needed to be patient. That I needed to excuse them. That these grown ass people, 30+ years my senior, were ignorant children stumbling through conversations about race, and I was meant to be the mature person educating them.

---

I won’t stay in the home of people who are casually, unapologetically ‘racist-lite.’
Click To Tweet

---

My S.O. knew this was fucked up, but it was his sister’s wedding, or Xmas, or the health of his family member was the priority, and I needed to remember that. And while he never explicitly said this, he hinted that his parents were not particularly bright or socially adept. He actively limits his contact with them because, sadly, while he loves them, he doesn’t like them. I know he didn’t understand how offensive their comments were; I know the particulars were lost on him and all he knew was that I was upset. And in the interest of getting in and out of whatever social obligation pulled me into their orbit, I needed to understand they were limited and let this ignorant shit go because the situation at hand was always more important, and I shouldn’t make things about me. Except this was about me — about how his family talks to me — and only I seemed to care about it.

It was after that visit, and some other choice comments his mother made about Black people murdered by police, that I decided not to fuck with his family anymore. Specifically, I decided that I wouldn’t interact with them in any way. I didn’t want any gifts from them, wouldn’t let them in my home, and sure as hell wouldn’t visit them for any reason. I told my S.O. that he was welcome to have a relationship with them but that I wouldn’t and he could navigate that however he wanted.

Before cutting his family off, I also told my S.O. that he needed to confront his parents about their bullshit, which he did. He received the same response I did from his mom — the lie of “I didn’t think it was racist? I didn’t know. I’m sorry” that white women love to say. His father sided with my S.O. but never admitted to his role in it. In the end, my S.O. didn’t see the point in trying to get them to change because they don’t see anything wrong with their beliefs.

A few months later, his family happily voted for the orange menace, and they have since supported his agenda wholeheartedly. My S.O. attempted talking about politics with them only to find himself overwhelmed by their nonsense rhetoric. At one point, his mother said something along the lines of “I have to vote white. It’s the only thing I know how to do.” I remember my S.O. hanging up on her at that point, because what is there to say to that? Over time, I watched him become more depressed and defeated as he saw the damage white people were willing to inflict upon everyone to uphold white supremacy.

In some ways I felt bad for my S.O., because the blinders had slid back even more, and he was faced with the reality of white people — people with whom he identified for the majority of his life. And because he was one of them, he hated what it said about him.

My S.O. has shown me that he’s still figuring out how to manage this oppression enacted by those he cares about. While he figures that out, I’ll be somewhere else, managing my self-care. I’ve offered my emotional support from a distance — by offering him any time he needs, managing the household responsibilities, dipping further into savings to supplement the income we’re losing by him taking this time off, and letting him feel his pain without trying to cheer him up. I share stories about health crises that weren’t as dire as they initially seemed, without minimizing the seriousness of his mother’s current situation. I am here for him in a way that isn’t damaging to me.

And if that isn’t enough for him, he needs to figure that out. I am not sacrificing my well-being in this.

My choice to not visit his mother in the hospital has not been easy. I am sitting here now, sorting through my thoughts as I try to figure out what’s best. What’s best for him. What’s best for me. He called me when he got to the hospital to tell me that he was upset I wasn’t there with him. I told him that I feel bad about it but that I was not going to put myself in a vulnerable situation with people who I do not have a relationship with.

This might break us. I realize that. I don’t want it to, but it could.

Our culture is inundated with images of Black women sacrificing themselves in every way imaginable for whatever greater good is in vogue. And when we collapse from the strain and die from the stress, people look around for the next martyr for the cause. But I’m not a martyr. I’m a Black woman trying to live her life under ridiculous circumstances, in a society that tells me I’m not enough. I deserve better than sacrificing my physical and emotional safety to support anyone.

And this isn’t just about my S.O. As I began talking about the oppressive transgressions I’ve experienced at the hands of my S.O.’s family, people I called friends and family basically told me to be silent. They would ask me how my S.O. felt about the things I said. They told me I was being too militant and insensitive. That I was risking my relationship by confronting the misogynoir in my life. I was advised on multiple occasions to let it go and be considerate of his feelings. To make this easy for him. My self-worth was secondary to maintaining this relationship.

I found myself angry at all those people in my life, and as a result, some of them aren’t in my life anymore.

I understand that we need to have other people in our lives who challenge us and our beliefs, but that’s different from having to confront the negation of your very humanity. People like to pick me apart for daring to emote, express, and resist, to protect myself from the harm of those who see me as less than. They like to reduce my pain to something hormonal or irrational.

I’ve lost count of the myriad ways people will tell me to put my well-being and emotional and personal safety behind the needs of others, be they the men in my life, the white people in my life, the good of the family, the good of the company…the reasons are limitless. In this case, I am expected to swallow the abuse of my S.O.’s family and pretend everything is fine…for their comfort. For their peace.

No.

My well-being demands that I not do that. Call it selfish if you want; I am always called selfish when I prioritize my emotional and physical needs.

Multiple people have asked me if I will go to my mother-in-law’s funeral, and when I started writing this, I had no answer. I love my husband. I try to be there for him in any number of ways. And in the beginning of our relationship, I suppressed parts of myself for his comfort.

But being with him has pushed me to grow in ways I never anticipated. His friends and family have forced me to engage with racist people on a level I’d never experienced before, and I’ve learned how egregious white people are when it comes to engaging in oppression. There is a level of denial I had to purge because I was seeing in real time how much of a fuck these people didn’t give. As a result, I am stronger, more confident, and better able to identify, address, and care for my needs.

---

I’ve learned how egregious white people are when it comes to engaging in oppression.
Click To Tweet

---

Already, my S.O. is fielding emotional attacks from his family — accusations of selfishness and attention-seeking for dropping everything to be with them and being chastised for not communicating enough or sharing too much with people other than family. His family is emotionally immature and manipulative on a good day — characteristics that are only exacerbated in times of crisis. He is terrible about asking for support and this situation with his mother’s failing health exacerbates every part of him that he needs to continue developing. His pain and fear are palatable, and I don’t believe his family will help him through this crisis.

My presence, or lack thereof, will be weaponized, as this is what they do. These are people who sat with my family at Xmas years ago, holed up in a corner, looking afraid to speak but when I was alone, would express their bigotry through seemingly innocent and inoffensive questions like, “Why are there so many Indian people in your neighborhood?” and “Did you have a gay person at the wedding? They seemed kinda flamboyant.”

To them, I’m already this big, Black threat that they feel the need to manage and can’t. And while my presence would soothe my S.O., it would cause so many other problems, where only my willingness to accept their abuse would keep shit from blowing up.

No.

I know society tells you that Black women are expendable, but I am not. This is the hill I choose to die on and while I hope we can find a workable solution for both of us, there are limits I will not compromise on.

I know that he needs me. I need him, too. And attending the funeral is an option. Not the viewing. Not the aftermath, but maybe the actual funeral. But anything where I need to socialize with his family?

No.

These people are dangerous to me and that is my line.

My S.O. and I chose a complicated relationship that doesn’t operate under the standards society dictates. We are not a social norm, and that means that these situations will require complicated decisions. Untraditional choices. Non-linear pathways that he and I will have to create for ourselves. This is a situation where our needs are at cross-purposes, and we need to figure out how to be there for one another without putting the other in harm’s way. We need to not punish ourselves for not looking like what’s “normal.”

We have to accept each other’s needs and understand that sometimes, we cannot be there for each other in the way we envision. As he works on addressing his anti-Blackness and racism, he also needs to learn what it means for me to prioritize my self-love.

Interracial relationships, specifically interracial relationships composed of Black and white partners, are complicated. They are intense work. Anti-Blackness is so commonplace as to be invisible without conscious effort to see and address it. I talk about it, I work through it, and I share my story because there is a lack of support for people in these relationships. People on the outside are cruel about this. I have been told repeatedly that I fucked up and should end the relationship; that this can never work; that I should have known what I was getting into…

Well, I didn’t. I didn’t understand the complexity of what this would be and how it would play out. I still don’t know if we will last, but that’s our decision to make. And in the meantime, I am learning. I’m learning what I need, what works for me, and what works for us.

Society has told me time and again that I am meant to be an emotional mule and a willing sacrifice. I’m telling society and anyone pushing that narrative to fuck off. I am more than everything you’ve said, and fuck you if you have a problem with it.

By Leigh Ann Carey

“I don’t know if I want to hold a weapon,” said Lindsay Caesar, a social worker and new member of Redneck Revolt (RR), at the “Charlottesville and Community Defense” event held in Durham, North Carolina over Labor Day weekend. “I’m not sure where I fit in yet, but my ethical imperative is that we have to be doing more than we have been. Personal politics isn’t enough.”

But when the personal is political and the political becomes real weapons wielded by Nazis and white supremacists actively seeking to harm, what is the appropriate response? Just what is enough? And given the staggering number of innocent people who die from guns every year in the U.S. — and the country’s prevalence of mass shootings — what defense can be made for carrying guns as a means of social justice?

Redneck Revolt is an anti-racist, pro-gun community defense network providing answers to these questions, while raising a host of others. The organization purposefully counters white supremacist messaging and organizing in traditionally white-held spaces — where the hard right is known to recruit — like NASCAR races, flea markets, and gun shows. Members do so with an inclusive economic message, an authentic affinity for “low-brow” culture (including railings against elites), and smart historical analysis.

‘My ethical imperative is that we have to be doing more than we have been.’

Redneck Revolt started as an online off-shoot of the John Brown Gun Club in Lawrence, Kansas, in 2009. Cofounder Dave Strano was involved in the gun club, a community of gun enthusiasts focused on self-protection, and radical organizing work taking place in the Lawrence community in response to the rising Tea Party movement.

Within the local culture of social movements, he saw a need to create space for firearms education and training, while demystifying gun culture and gun use to activists on the left. He began blogging and experimenting with different ways to communicate about guns, the struggles of the white working class and poor, and understanding the historical role the white working class played in promoting and upholding systemic racism. The initial blog was a short lived venture going offline for a few years. Yet, it planted the seed for Strano to re-launch Redneck Revolt in June 2016, now expanded as a national network with a substantial online following and on-the-ground presence.

The term “Redneck” brings with it significant cultural baggage. It is both a trope rolled out to demean working, blue-collar people by elites, and a badge of honor for some on the right who believe in a certain portrayal of the hyper-masculinized, politically incorrect, gun-toting white guy wearing a MAGA hat.

In reality however the term is decidedly neither. “Redneck” is squarely rooted in a progressive piece of working class history. In the 1900s, a multi-racial coalition of coal miners fought for their right to organize in West Virginia, one of the largest labor uprisings in U.S. history. Coal company owners paid workers in scrip, not dollars, and required coal miners to shop only at approved company stores.

To make matters worse for workers, the company stores routinely inflated the prices of necessary goods. The miners — many of whom were immigrants and people of color — were fed up and began to formally strike against their working conditions. To identify each other as allies, they all tied red bandanas around their neck, and the term took root. Redneck Revolt is continuing this tradition, with participants identified at protests and community events by their red bandanas.

The broader history of the white working class is also one of oppression and terror of others through enslavement and genocide, working in collaboration with and on behalf of white economic elites. Redneck Revolt sees in this collective history significant challenge and opportunity. White supremacy is both a system that the white working class has protected and benefited from, and a tool used against all working people. Helping the white working class better understand this history and connect the dots to their current economic struggles is a big part of the counter-recruitment efforts the group engages in.

Brett M., a Southeast Michigan Redneck Revolt chapter representative, grew up working class. His family and community were hit particularly hard by NAFTA and the loss of manufacturing jobs.

“There is a lot of misplaced blame and anger out there,” says Brett. “So much of the left lives in this very sterile environment, where there is no connection to the working class.” When he discovered RR and their mission, he knew it was the kind of work he wanted to be doing.

He is not alone. In January of this year, the group had 13 chapters nationwide, and now boasts 34 branches, with 26 of those branches in states that went for Trump.

Poverty and economic hardship is a lived reality for most folks Brett and others are in dialogue with. In recent years, studies have shown huge spikes in suicide and drug abuse among working class whites without college degrees. Redneck Revolt members largely hail from the working class communities they organize within. Many members are white, but the organization reflects the diversity of the working class itself, cutting across race, class, gender, regional, religious, and political affiliations.

“You are not going to get very far at a gun show, for example, talking about dialectical materialism,” says Brett. “You say, ‘hey, the government has left you behind. We are in the same boat. We are all in this fight together. It isn’t brown or black keeping you down or immigrants. We are all being used as an apparatus of the state, and the only people looking out for working people are other working people. Isn’t it wild that so many working people supported some Yankee billionaire?”

This approach, according to Nadine Hubbs, Professor of Women’s Studies and Music at the University of Michigan and author of Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, is spot on. She adds, “If we are to dismantle white supremacy, we need to get the working class on board.”

I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump

The organization’s counter-recruitment praxis is not without criticism, namely that they are romanticizing the white working class and enabling the very complicity in white supremacy they are supposedly dismantling. Jamil, a first generation Palestinian-American, Muslim cis male who joined the organization in 2016, offered this response to these concerns:

“Real, material anti-racist work requires not only acknowledging the blatancy of privilege in our analysis, but putting our own bodies on the line. As folks working directly on the ground, we are accountable to the oppressed people in our communities. We build coalitions with them, cross-train with them on community defense, and build trust via our conduct and follow-through….Although our principles explicitly state zero desire to deny the irrefutable complicity of white folks in white supremacy, we also acknowledge the existence of nuance within that complicity. This all falls under our strategy of meeting people where they are at — one which has netted us real results.

While Redneck Revolt is not the only path…..it is one of very few which takes reactionary elements directly to task…facing down the most brazen threads of white supremacy that threaten and target folks in our community — because we see it as a shared one. The other part of the work requires us to hold our own in white-held spaces, which serve as breeding grounds for white supremacy — spaces which liberals and radicals have, in most recent history, steered clear of.”

Alongside counter-recruitment, RR aides in communal self-care amid dire circumstances. “You can’t shoot poverty. You can’t shoot homelessness,” says Dwayne Dixon, a Silver Valley Redneck Revolt member, who grew up in a military family in North Carolina. “We are about liberation. We focus on alleviating poverty, not just [on] guns.”

Poverty is seen as a systemic problem, though the organization steers clear of political advocacy efforts and electoral politics, choosing to solve specific needs as they arise. In Southeast Michigan, the group has held “Rent Parties,” wherein they’ve raised money to help families struggling to avoid eviction. The Silver Valley Branch in North Carolina grows a community garden to aid in feeding the hungry healthy food. In Kansas, transgender health clinics are run to help people receive primary care, surgical referrals, and gender affirming hormones.

‘You can’t shoot poverty. You can’t shoot homelessness.’

For brown, black, LGBTQ, and ethnic communities, RR offers firearms and self-defense training — and armed protection when requested. RR distinguishes between responsibly owning a gun for self-defense and lauding support for the arms industry and the military. To them, the gun lobby industry and the NRA are economic elites manipulating poor folks for profit.

When it comes to gun control, as evidenced by their statement on the mass shooting in Las Vegas, they assert that pundits, economic elites, and elected officials leverage and coopt these moments for their own purposes, but care little about actual public safety. These forces are invested in maintaining gun manufacturing monopolies and policing populations, determining which people get to protect themselves and which ones don’t. This never works to the benefit of the marginalized.

In June of this year, the Somali community in Lansing, Michigan requested RR show up armed in a neighborhood thought to be under threat by ACT for America, a group that bills itself as the NRA of national security and which organized more than two dozen anti-Sharia-law rallies around the country. ACT believes Somali refugees are a terror threat. RR was not able to stop ACT’s larger protest in Lansing, but was able to repel the ACT march of terror through a major Somali neighborhood.

The Brown, Queer, And Poor Are Not The Ones Holding The Left Back

“Current threats are deadly serious. Our defense strategies should be too,” says Brett M. “The left has a very long history of being non-aggressive and there’s been a hesitation to use firearms (or other show of force). The overall reaction by alt-right organizations has been one of shock — when they see a bunch of folks in red bandannas, armed. They’ve been more hesitant to do the proactive things they would have done.”

Following President Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, the trans administrator for the Northeast Kansas RR branch posted this to their 1,600+ Facebook followers:

“We exist to put our bodies in the way, to get you out of dangerous situations, to guard your home if you feel threatened, to escort you where you need to go in daily life, to help equip and train you if you feel it necessary to acquire body armor for use in the home or in the street, to begin carrying a weapon for self defense, or both. Get in contact with us so that we can be ready to back you up.

We know well that the temptation of self-harm is magnified by owning a firearm, too, so do not be ashamed if you feel unsafe about the idea. You don’t need to be made any more uncomfortable than existing in this world already is for people like you and me.

We carry the gun for you. We will carry you. We’ll get through this time of increased persecution together. They can try whatever they want, but we won’t go quietly.”

The pro-gun tactics, even when requested and willfully chosen by members, is not without critique. “The fixation on firearms on their homepage struck me,” says Hubbs. “A lot of people might not get past that, people who would otherwise be interested in their political analysis.”

Since the Orlando night club shooting in early June 2016, there have been 556 mass shootings in the United States. Each year, the CDC estimates nearly 12,000 gun related homicides take place, and for every person shot, there are at least two more estimated to be injured by a gun. The individuals and communities experiencing post-traumatic stress and injury either directly or indirectly from gun violence is vast. The presence of armed protesters at community events, regardless of purpose, may trigger fear in many.

The organization’s gun stance is rooted in the belief that there are individuals and communities all across the country which feel unsafe and abandoned. The violence and potential violence against them is so real and so visceral, at a physical and systemic level, that arming themselves or leveraging armed protection from neighbors — many of whom they’ve likely never met before — is seen as the only option. If you are on your own, with the expectation that those in power will not aid you, radical self-determination becomes not so much a philosophical statement on the role of government in society, but an act of survival.

That the Somalis in Michigan or trans people in Kansas or organizations like Muslims for Social Justice or Black Lives Matter cannot reasonably and completely count on the police to protect them at protests or in their day to day life — that is a root failure that should be roundly condemned and fixed. Local governments, and political and relief organizations, are falling short.

Radical self-determination becomes not so much a philosophical statement, but an act of survival.

RR members at the Charlottesville debrief were clear that they’d rather have spent their weekend doing almost anything else than holding the line against Nazis, who were armed. Dixon spoke about the gripping, traumatizing fear he felt that comes with possibly stopping a bullet with his own body. He is a parent — many of the people in the audience who had also gone to Charlottesville were moms and dads. To them, they aren’t choosing violence, so much as violence is here, it is now, and it is on the attack.

Whether or not arming oneself or joining armed protests is the only response, an escalating response, or one of many reasonable responses to a newly ascendant and unafraid white supremacy is a question, unfortunately, we are all being asked to answer.

In October 2017, white supremacists coordinated a “flash mob” tiki torch rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In addition to chanting that they (white people) will not be “replaced” and that “the South will rise again,” and singing the de facto Confederate anthem “Dixie,” the intimate white dudebro gathering featured white supremacist leader Richard Spencer exclaiming that whites are being oppressed and erased. After sneakily assembling and “taking a stand” under the cover of night for approximately 15 minutes, the whites-only pie enthusiasts quickly dispersed like timorous cockroaches exposed to light.

Despite the clandestine nature of this klavern-like demonstration, there has been a marked increase in unapologetic public displays of white supremacist sentiment recently, directly corresponding with the advent of Donald J. Trump and the invidious views he espouses (more on that later).

Many acknowledge this, particularly those with left-leaning political sensibilities. What’s more infrequent, however, is recognition that conspicuousness shouldn’t be mistaken for newness; Trump’s campaign and presidency have merely emboldened these longstanding cultural values.

Racial minorities have always called out, critiqued, and confronted the presence of dehumanizing attitudes, codified into the U.S. social order, that systematically disenfranchise communities of color in ways that restrict access to resources, rights, or opportunities more readily available to whites.

The widespread bewilderment that racism is very much alive and well in 2017 reveals what I and numerous writers have repeatedly highlighted: far too few understand what racism even entails. Far too few comprehend the overarching impact of navigating a white-oriented nation that cultivates white entitlement. Far too few fully appreciate how Trump’s popularity (despite his profound incompetence) is a direct response to recent political challenges to socialized ideas of white superiority.

To better explain this ravenous thirst to maintain the inheritance of colonized glory — what Ta-Nehisi Coates refers to as the bloody heirloom — I sought insight from award-winning sociology professor, writer, and author, Anton L. Allahar. When it comes to what culture is and the influence of dominant culture, Allahar says,

“Culture is the way of life of a people. Culture comprises both material and ideational dimensions.

The dominant ideas in any culture will reflect the ideas of the most powerful, those who control the means of disseminating those ideas for if there is to be social order the less powerful must come to accept the ideas of the most powerful as the correct and right ideas. This is effected via a process of ideological indoctrination. The principal institutions responsible for the spread of the dominant ideology are the media, the educational system, the religious institutions and ordinary popular cultural fare such as movies, music, jokes and seemingly innocent play.

The dominant culture of the US was formed to give preference to and propagate the white supremacist cis-heteropatriarchy, a sociopolitical system in which cisgender, heterosexual white men hold social dominance at the expense of subordinating racial minorities, transgender individuals, non-heterosexual sexual orientations, and women.”

Part and parcel to these interconnected systems of oppression are racist cultural messages that present whites as whole human beings while pathologizing blackness and regarding non-whites as inferior. These ideas become entrenched in our subconscious and infiltrate our social attitudes developed through the socialization process.

A common retort I encounter is, “But this country has changed so much. Quit complaining. Racism isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be!”

Yes, this country once openly accepted and even celebrated racism. With the social and political victories of the Civil Rights era, the cultural imagination of what it means to be a racist began to transform. The U.S. underwent a cultural shift that reimagined racism to be the social equivalent to what a devout evangelical considers the most depraved idea of “sin.” Public acceptability and any association with racism developed into a social taboo.

Sadly, this social realignment was only superficial.

While it’s awesome that folks generally recognize that racism is “bad,” there was and remains a monumental failure to educate the public about the intricate nature of white supremacy intertwined with racism, the significant role it plays in this nation’s socio-historical hierarchical arrangement, and how it functions as a system that thrives even in a more subdued manner.

Racial avoidance and racial ignorance isn’t equivalent to racial consciousness and anti-racist practices. The latter acts to diminish racism, the former ensures it will persist.

---

There was and remains a monumental failure to educate the public about the intricate nature of white supremacy intertwined with racism.
Click To Tweet

---

To be sure, America’s “racial problem” extends beyond the right-wing political spectrum, as it’s been revealed again and again and again that left-leaning whites and racial ignorance (and thus, complicity with racism) are familiar bedfellows.

Even so, Trump’s vision for this country — encapsulated in the slogan “Make America Great Again” — offers a return to the “good ol’ days” of flagrant racism. It isn’t at all surprising that Trump successfully courts the fear, resentment, and self-interests of a white reactionary constituency that wants to upend further recession of white-centeredness.

White-centeredness is a deeply-rooted aspect of U.S. culture. White-centeredness denotes the centrality of white representation that permeates every facet of our dominant culture. It upholds as “normal” and “expected” the ubiquity of language, ideas, prejudices, preferences, values, social mores, and worldviews established by the white perspective.

What Trump offers his supporters is the golden ticket to end all golden tickets: an insular quest to prioritize and enshrine the collective interests of white America and to neutralize social changes diverging from white-centeredness.

All this, of course, is white identity politics, but this goes mainly undetected by so many white Americans who are socialized to regard the sustaining of dominant white culture as “what is expected” or “the way things ought to be.”

It is therefore no coincidence that anti-immigration sentiment, the imagined “war on drugs,” racist dog whistle politics, and the mechanisms of mass incarceration that surgically target communities of color are regarded as somehow appropriate and just within the mainstream consciousness.

Allahar addresses the contrary nature of norms that grant a surplus of meaning to whiteness at the expense of those defined as the other:

“While the U.S. extolls the virtues of democracy, equality, freedom and fairness, it is also true that various U.S. governments have been known to install and support dictators in other countries. And as the recent events of Charlottesville show, racism, fascism, Nazism and the KKK are also part of the American social fabric.

After all, the country was built on slavery, racism, Native genocide, colonialism and imperialism, even though most are in denial of these facts. And to the extent that racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia are widely practiced, young people are socialized to that ethic. Of course, not all Americans are racists etc., but the current president of the US, the key advisors he has appointed, and the 63 million Americans who voted for him bear eloquent testimony to this claim.”

The fact that Trump was ever able to sniff the Oval Office is a testament to the power of white supremacy.

The power of white supremacy is revealed in recent removals of Confederate monuments generating a spike in Confederate flag sales.

The power of white supremacy is revealed when many within white America construe kneeling during the national anthem as being more depraved and more worthy of contempt than the unjust murder of black and brown lives.

When I look at Trump, I don’t see him as the problem. Rather, in him I see the expected byproduct of white America’s desperation to consolidate the power of the white supremacist cis-heteropatriarchy before another morsel is chipped away by the “assault” of inclusion, multiculturalism, and full liberation of marginalized groups.

Those truly concerned with “stopping” Trump must also commit to dealing with uncomfortable truths that infest the context that brought him to power. Dereliction of this responsibility will guarantee that the legacy Trump exploits will continue to thwart social progress, bastardize justice, and uphold the great moral compromise that asserts white lives hold more value than others.

This story first appeared at The Humanist and is republished here with permission.

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Everything short of racial justice is white supremacy. Everything.

Credit: Vlad Tchompalov/Unsplash

I’m going to say something about race that may seem to fly in the face of everything we’ve been taught about how to handle complicated and divisive adult issues—but, as unproductive as it may sound, it’s the truth: There is no compromise.

There is no compromise to be had, none whatsoever, when it comes to racial justice. There are no baby steps that are acceptable. There is no middle to meet in.

Everything short of racial justice is white supremacy. Everything.

There is no compromise to be had, none whatsoever, when it comes to racial justice.

If this sounds harsh or unreasonable to you, I really need you to understand why it is not. If this last election and the torrent of narratives against “identity politics” has you thinking that maybe, just maybe, some middle ground between white supremacists and anti-racists must be found, I need you to understand the danger this belief puts us in. Because the desire to make racial equality a topic which is up for debate, or racial justice a goal that we can ease ourselves into, is what has sustained the system of violent white supremacy for hundreds of years. I need you to understand, because I need you to understand what those who say that we are “pushing too hard” or “asking for too much” or “moving too fast” are really saying.

The average American will easily agree that they believe that freedom, justice, and equality are basic rights, rights we are born with. These ideas are woven throughout the entire narrative of our democracy. But in practice, very few people actually believe that freedom, justice, and equality are rights that every American deserves. When you enjoy your freedoms, and you tell those who want their freedoms that they have to wait, that they have to go slowly, that they have to give you time to make uncomfortable adjustments to the amount of privilege that their inequality has afforded you, what you are saying is, “You were not born with these rights. You were not born as deserving as me. I have the power and privilege to determine when it is time for you to receive freedom and equality, and my approval is conditioned on how comfortable and safe you make me feel about how that freedom and equality will impact the privileges I enjoy.”

Support Diverse Journalism — Become A Member Of The Establishment

What is the compromise between justice and oppression? What grey area between inequality and equality exists? There is none. You cannot have a little injustice and call it justice. You cannot have a little inequality and call it equality. And whenever you decide that you have the power to slow or stop justice and equality for others — you are immediately ensuring the continuation of injustice and inequality by placing yourself above those seeking justice and equality. There is a claim of superiority inherent in believing that you have the right to slow racial justice. It is a claim of superiority that white supremacy has granted you, and that you cannot accept without becoming a willing proponent of this white supremacist system.

You cannot have a little injustice and call it justice. You cannot have a little inequality and call it equality.

Lives are ruined while we “wait our turn.” Children are expelled from school, young adults are locked away in prison. As people of color in this country we receive substandard health care, we are denied job interviews, we are denied bank loans, we are paid less, our neighborhoods are denied investment and infrastructure, we are locked in poverty, we are erased from history books and movie screens, we are harassed by police, we are murdered by the state. There is no amount of discomfort on behalf of white America that would make the continuation of this white supremacist system anything other than inhumanely cruel.

Those who want to uphold white supremacy, or even delay its destruction, are denying the humanity of people of color in this country. There is no nice way to ask for our freedom that will lead to it being granted. Believe me, we’ve tried. Even having to ask is an act of oppression in itself.

Your Calls For Unity Are Divisive As F*ck

We live in a country where people will try to convince you that if you do not prove to white America that you are worthy of freedom, justice, and equality — if you do not ask nicely, wait patiently, prove your worth with respectability and good deeds — that it is right that it would be denied you. We live in a country where people will try to convince you that you do not have freedom, justice, and equality because you have not done enough for those things.

We live in a country where people will try to convince you that pushing for freedom, justice, and equality in a way which white America has not pre-approved will only lead to more oppression, injustice, and inequality. We live in a country where people will try to tell you that white America is not at all responsible for the white supremacy it upholds, that their hands are forced by your refusal to make the prospect of your freedom, justice, and equality more comfortable for them.

Those who want to uphold white supremacy, or even delay its destruction, are denying the humanity of people of color in this country.

There is no compromise to be had. There is nothing between oppression and freedom that doesn’t guarantee our continued subjugation. We cannot trade away our humanity to those who claim to be allies in the hopes that what they will build in our name will be anything more than our oppression. We cannot ally ourselves to those who would be turned away by our demands and ever expect those demands to be met. So if there is no compromise, what can we do?

We keep pushing. We keep fighting. We check ourselves for the internalized white supremacy that tells us that we have to take it slow, that we have to settle for less. We check our allies for the internalized white supremacy that tells them that they are not required by their belief in justice and equality to fight white supremacy, no matter how uncomfortable it may make them. We show people how their words do not match their actions. We do not for one moment let white supremacy feel comfortable in our presence.

So You Want To Fight White Supremacy

We raise our kids with this same, uncompromising belief in our rights. We challenge any attempts to normalize our oppression. We continuously bring to light the racism that others would prefer live in the dark. We celebrate every victory and always know that it is not enough. We fight not for the hearts and minds of individual racists, but for the freedom, justice, and equality that we are overdue to receive and that they have no right to withhold. We push past our own individual liberation and comfort and fight for every last one of us. We comfort each other, hold each other, and make space for grief and despair and exhaustion. But we don’t give up. We don’t compromise our neighbors, our children, our humanity.

Do not let anyone tell you that your time has not come.

Do not let anyone tell you that you ask for too much.

Do not let anyone tell you that you should have to ask at all.

We don’t compromise our neighbors, our children, our humanity.

I do not know what freedom, justice, and equality will look like for us — I have never seen it with my own eyes. But I do know what our oppression looks like, and right now, it looks like the compromises of our souls that we are being asked to make every day in the hopes that it will somehow lead to our liberation.

We are worth more than this. We are worth the fight. We were born worthy.

Looking For A Comments Section? We Don’t Have One.

]]>