Me and White Supremacy

We need to talk about white supremacy. Not in the “bad” people, but in our own white selves.

Let’s start today, not just in New Zealand. But in America or wherever we are.

White supremacy has been with us throughout our nation’s history.

Through slavery…leasing convicts…lynchings and other racial terrorism…Jim Crow…racial hierarchy…racial profiling…mass incarceration.

When I was a baby, Martin Luther King, Jr., pleaded with white moderates:  “If you fail to act now, history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

Why didn’t I talk about America’s wealth being built with the blood and sweat of enslaved black people?

Why didn’t I talk about “good” people standing by and watching?

Why didn’t I talk about anti-blackness and white supremacy?

With my parents?

With my friends?

With my own children?

Though I didn’t articulate I was better than black people, I don’t remember ever articulating I wasn’t.

There is no such thing as being colorblind when it comes to racism.

My silence was complicity. White silence. White apathy. White centering. White privilege.

Complicity in white supremacy.

I am white, and I need to own it.

I am white, and through my acceptance of America’s original sin, I am a white supremacist.

Now, I have work to do.

Thanks, Rachel, Bryan, Layla, Josie, Clint, Jen, Mike, Jillian, Myisha, Dr. King, and all the others who are inspiring the dismantling of racism.*

 

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🌿 take a moment today to consider how you show up.

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*More I’m Learning From

17 Inspirational Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr., About Speaking Up When it Matters

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Justice in America Podcast with Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith

Speaking of Racism Podcast with Jen Kinney

Instagram: @Rachel.Cargle, @Laylafsaad, @morethanmiked, @ckyourprivilege, @degan_art