DISCLAIMER
This blog is intended for mature audiences aged 18 and older.
It contains thematic elements, references to sexuality, and strong language.
If you suffer from Black or white or whatever-kind-of fragility and do not want to learn about social constructs, and learn about your role in sustaining them (because we all do), this is not the blog for you.
My intent is to uncover and share the truth via incontrovertible facts about our socialization and how racism has morphed and continues to covertly and overtly express itself in our present-day experiences. The intent is to make people aware and change their inherently biased attitudes and actions, so that we can move forward in humanizing and liberating all Black people. It just so happens that certain groups of people are less aware and more empowered in the white patriarchy than others.
Iyanla Vanzant made a great point to Oprah during a Super Soul interview: we haven't yet eradicated racism because we don't like to talk about it. People, white people especially, think that white and non-Black people loving the idea of Black people, i.e. fetishizing and exploiting Black bodies and Black cultures, and ultimately verbally, physically, sexually, financially abusing the aforementioned behind closed doors and/or out of the public view, means that they're not racist and that racism isn't a serious problem anymore.
INFORMED BY MY EXPERIENCES
My understanding of prejudice has been shaped by my existence at the intersection of race and gender; my observations are based upon my three decades of lived experience as a Black woman in America and abroad. I am cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle class, formally educated, light-skinned, petite, and slim but curvy, which I acknowledge as axes of privilege. I also have tightly coiled, textured hair, dark brown eyes, a broad nose, and full lips, so I am unambiguously Black. I am a second generation American with parents hailing from the Caribbean.
Living in the Dominican Republic during a study abroad trip in 2011 was my first experience in the midst of extremely overt internalized oppression, and fueled my initial shocked disbelief and eventual understanding of internalized oppression. I incredulously wondered, “How can a bunch of Black people hate other Black people?! How can they deny being Black!?” The worst experience I can recall from my time in Santo Domingo was my Black woman friends and I being denied entry into a nightclub and then being forcibly removed from said club, specifically because we were Black.
While I was living in one of the most blatantly colorist countries in the world, I tanned a lot; my progressively darkening skin slowly but surely deepened the degree to which I was negatively viewed and treated. I'm actually thankful because it opened my eyes to colorism in a way I would not have received had I never experienced being of a darker complexion in such a complexion-charged, we-want-to-be-white-and-we-know-it environment. At the onset of my time there, my light-skinned privilege actually made it difficult for me to understand why some of the brown-skinned Black girls in my cohort did not want to get any darker for fear of worsening treatment.
On a regular basis, however, I am light-skinned and greatly benefit in the realm of colorism. I acknowledge the fact that colorism is an actual layer of oppression and that all Black people do not experience the same levels of oppression.
LIBERATION IS THE GOAL
I am not nor have I ever been perfect and angelic in the sense of internalized oppression; it took time for me to unlearn and deconstruct what I was taught about beauty, worthiness, femininity, success, etc. Yes, when I was a child and teenager I thought my usually light Black skin was prettier than dark Black skin. After slowly realizing that I was fed a bunch of lies about how my and other people's worth was hinged upon how closely we could appeal to whiteness and everything under the umbrella of white supremacy, it made me passionate about studying how every human is oppressed within the system and how we can stop mistreating humans socially, politically, economically.
How do we stop the dehumanization of everybody?
Unlike a few “pro-Black” factions, I do not intend to reverse white supremacy by saying that Black, cishet people are superior to anyone. No human is superior to another. I want to defy and dismantle all social power structures that say otherwise.
That said, my focus is to champion the rights of intersectional Black folx.
Most cishet Black men and white women do not want to admit that they have levels of privilege but they do. For this reason, the aforementioned groups are usually working to transfer power from cishet white men to themselves, while using Black femmes for unpaid, unreciprocated labor, ingenuity and support, instead of actually liberating people and destroying social systems. Not all privilege is white, as demonstrated by the list of personal privileges I enjoy within the white patriarchy.
WHAT IS PREJUDICE?
The ideology and logic behind all oppression is dehumanization. Most people think that the -isms and -phobias are characterized by overt hatred, distancing and repulsion, but at their core they are about stripping certain humans of their inherent worth, individuality, multidimensionality, freedom, opportunity, safety, security, privacy, perceived capabilities and capacities, right to life and right to pursue happiness (outside of oppressing others), i.e. stripping them of their humanity.
Racism, like any prejudice, is not about who you will and will not call an epithet to their face; who you think is cute; who you like to date, marry, or with whom you enjoy having sex; what your friends or family members look like; nor with whom you’ll hold a conversation. It’s about who you do and do not regard as fully human.
So many people erroneously base racism and prejudice or the lack thereof on proximity, attraction and relation. This is egregiously inaccurate. It’s like saying men can’t be misogynists because they choose to surround themselves with women; like the way women look; and, have female relatives. White slaveowners chose to surround themselves with Black people; found Black people attractive; and, had Black relatives.
You can't say you love your gay friends but rebuke gay marriage in the name of “not agreeing with their lifestyle.” You can't say you love Black people while turning a blind eye on our inequities, mistreatment and suffering; making us a monolith; placing our value on the ways in which we serve you; and, thinking that your physical attraction to and/or fornication with us is dismantling white supremacy. (Case in point: men dating, marrying and having sex with women and producing female offspring hasn't dismantled the patriarchy nor curbed misogyny.)
The same way you shouldn't hate a group of people based on their social classification(s), you shouldn't make claims that you love a group of people based on their social classification(s). How could you possibly know that? You don't know every individual within the group. They're not all the same; they all have multidimensional personalities, mentalities, physical forms and lives. You making that particular group a monolith based on stereotypes and preconceived notions about their physicality and behaviors is just as prejudicial as an outright hatred of the group.
THE PROBLEM LIES WITHIN EACH OF US
We're all a part of the problem, whether you agree with the various elements and layers of white supremacy or not. It's not solely an institutional issue; all types of humans continue to operate and sustain these systems on structural and social levels. White supremacist systems do not need cishet white men at the helm to perpetuate themselves; they can and do thrive even without cishet white men.
If we live in a world where Kamala Harris can be elected to a governmental office but Stacey Abrams could not (because of colorism, texturism and fatphobia) we're not making true progress.
We all have to individually, actively do the work within ourselves to deconstruct the beliefs we have inevitably adopted and challenge how they inform our actions (or lack thereof), whether we're white, Black, homosexual, cisgender, non-binary, queer, disabled, able-bodied, or none of the above.
It's about introspection; self-reflection; challenging normalized beliefs, attitudes and structures; respectfully doing research and respecting marginalized people's boundaries (living, explaining and defending our experiences is tough – this shit is emotional labor!); and, listening to and amplifying marginalized voices. Accountability is the name of the game.
“It is necessary to remember, as we think critically about domination, that we all have the capacity to act in ways that oppress, dominate, wound (whether or not that power is institutionalized). ”
WE'RE ALL OPPRESSORS
Most people also do not understand that prejudice is not absolved by proximity, attraction, relation, and not even a state of being. Just because a person is Black does not mean that the person does not harbor negative beliefs about Blackness and other Black people. Just because a person identifies as a woman, does not mean that she rebukes the patriarchy and uplifts other women. Some people do not fit within the prescribed parameters of whiteness, Christianity, heteronormativity, etc. but still carry water for the white patriarchy.
We've all been conditioned in the system of white supremacy and therefore have absorbed an unconscious, subconscious way of thinking that is rooted in oppression, exclusion and the policing of others based on physical attributes, appearances, cultural practices, or even ways of reasoning that do not conform to the white patriarchy.
Again, prejudice is not about with whom you spend time, space or even genetics. White supremacy is an ideal that has sprouted myriad social systems that any one person, no matter her/his/their social classification within it, can choose to believe and sustain.
LEARNING IS PROGRESSIVE
While I hope that white and non-Black people can learn from this blog, I'm mostly focused on helping Black people understand the ways in which we perpetuate white supremacy. Far too many Black people willingly contribute to our own dehumanization; accept, welcome and uplift non-Black people without reciprocation; and, abuse and dispose of one another based on intersectionality and/or lack of conformity to white supremacist norms.
I hope you are excited to delve into these concepts with me and learn more about how to uncover racism, prejudice and internalized oppression to substantively, holistically challenge and refute white supremacy.
I spend an immense amount of time, energy and mental and emotional labor on my work. Please consider contributing support below or via this link if it impacts and/or resonates with you.
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