I am tired, or The trauma of white supremacy

I don’t know about you but I am tired. Like deep in my bones, weary and wondering when will it end? The past few years have brought us a nonstop flow of Black pain and suffering as we have seen Black kids, teens and adults whose lives have been taken too soon by a system that refuses to see the humanity of Black people.

We have seen a new generation of activists and thinkers rise up and demand full inclusion to to the table of humanity and we have also seen the old guard of white supremacy fight tooth and nail against recognizing or even acknowledging that Black lives have value. Yet more white people are starting to understand that racism is not a matter of choice but rather that it is a system that was created and that continues to be maintained…and that the greatest gift one can give to this oppressive system is white silence. White silence is almost as good as saying kill niggers and anyone else deemed not worthy.

However, white supremacy has caught its second wind and I fear that frankly, it might just win and if it doesn’t win, it will be as destructive as a Category 5 hurricane by the time it’s done with us all. Hurricane Donald Trump is hellbent on reclaiming whiteness as the law of the land. Hurricane Donald and his minions have made it clear where they stand and whether it’s giving tacit approval to white nationalists who proudly wear their hate out front unlike the hate mongers of yesterday or deciding that 800,000 young people, the majority of whom are people of color, no longer are safe in their homes, in their country. It is clear that Donald Trump is not playing with us.

I am tired. I am tired of Trump and more importantly, I am tired of white people who are so overwhelmed with all of this that in the end, they fall victim to the seduction of whiteness and embrace her familiar warmth because no one told them that it is not enough to simply become educated on the issue. Once educated, one must spring to action, otherwise the line between an active white supremacist and a silent but frozen white accomplice is a very thin line.  White silence is violent and it is being complicit in the systems that were designed to lift you higher while lessening the rest of us.

Frankly, I am tired of talking and wondering how to nudge people to the ultimate goal of destroying white supremacy and feeling like all my work has been for naught. Perhaps I am indeed spitting in the wind. I am tired.

But I don’t have the luxury of giving up the fight, because it is my freedom and safety on the line; my children and grandchild’s well-being and very lives as stake.

I need to see more white people actively in the fight. It’s the kind of thing that might lessen my weariness. Something that might give me and other people of color real hope. Don’t stand by the sidelines while those of us who are the system’s greatest victims are ground down by it.


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1 thought on “I am tired, or The trauma of white supremacy”

  1. Yes. I agree. There is so much to gain if we white people join in the struggle, and we will all lose catastrophically if we don’t completely eradicate racial prejudice – both personal and systemic.

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