The work to dismantle white supremacy IS ITSELF often clouded by white supremacy.

By the effort, and expectation, surrounding who gets centered and what it means. By the attempts to disengage with the substance of what we’re saying by focusing on the tone of how we said it. By acting as if your participation in this conversation, in this effort towards healing, is solely for our benefit.

It is not. Nor should it be.

If you are a white person interested in dismantling white supremacy than do it for yourself. For your children. For your humanity. Do not bring your progress to strangers on the Internet looking for cookies. Do not bring your feelings to strangers on the Internet looking for absolution or comfort. Do not assume that simply because someone holds a certain identity that they are willing or able or interested in holding space for you. Consent is everything. Always ask before assuming. And before you ask, give your intention thoughtful consideration.

Understand the sacredness of what you are being called to do and do it with your whole heart. Make it your responsibility to identify this wound of white supremacy everywhere it lives IN YOU first, so that you might help heal it everywhere else.

There’s an expectation placed on people with marginalized identities to tip toe and tread carefully around these “issues” as if they aren’t centuries in the making. As if this complacency is unique to these times. As if there hasn’t already been time to find your way on your own accord along a path littered with “please” and “thank you” - the time for prioritizing the perceived respectability of the debate above all else is not only over, it’s an example of white supremacy.

It’s an example of asking us to say it nicely while the boot of systemic and institutional racism remains pressed firmly on our necks.

No.

Our rage is sacred.

It belongs not only to us but to our Ancestors.

You do not get to decide how, where, when, or why it gets articulated.

If your response to it’s articulation is to bring us your own feelings?

Then that’s information for you.

That’s an example of how this wound lives in you.

That’s white supremacy, too.

Image Reads: Your feelings upon being made aware of racism? Are not superior to the feelings of those who have been subjected to racism. Your theoretical observations about racism? Are not relevant. Do not use them to debate our lived experiences. Tend to your own discomfort. Listen to understand. Give us the grace and respect of honoring our feelings by not asking us to place them second to your own.