Do Better

by Rachel Ricketts

  Non-Black PoC using AAVE and otherwise stealing from Black culture for monetary and other gains.

  Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee nations enslaving Blacks as an assimilation tactic.22

  Black Ethiopian Jews being ostracized from the greater (white) Jewish community for centuries (and present day).23

  The undermining of the vital contributions of Black American leaders, many of whom were murdered or persecuted, to advance racial equity, LGBTTQIA+ rights, women+’s rights, etc. for all Americans.

  Black men+ who refuse to date Black women+ or only dating light-skinned Black women+.

  The resentment of the Black Lives Matter movement by non-Black PoC and the invalidation of the specifically violent race-based harms Black people face worldwide.

  Moreover, pervasive forms of oppression like fatphobia and colorism are steeped in anti-Blackness, since whiteness created the white, thin, Eurocentric ideal of beauty specifically as a means to differentiate from and subjugate Blackness.24

  Much like everyone else I have participated in anti-Blackness. I spent a lot of my life trying to be whiter in speech and spirit and was afraid to date Black men+ for fear of how Black love was judged by the white gaze. But we need to do better. Particularly white and other non-Black folx. We need to honor the ways all races and ethnicities are complicit in oppressing Black people (no one more than whites of course). In the words of the Combahee River Collective Statement, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”25 We need to accept anti-Blackness as the most evil and widespread racial terrorism on the planet and consequently recognize how addressing anti-Blackness supports the liberation of all. To assert otherwise is to perpetuate the white supremacist system that treats all non-whites, and thus our experiences, as equivalent and invariable. And, as with anti-Blackness, we need to honor the ways Indigenous folx face extreme racial oppression through their erasure.

  ANTI-INDIGENEITY AND DECOLONIZATION*

  I grew up as an uninvited guest on unceded Musqueam territory, lands that were stolen by settlers who dispossessed the rightful stewards—the Musqueam peoples—removing them from their homes and hunting and fishing grounds, ripping them from their land and thus their identity. The atrocities of such state-sanctioned terrorism were never mentioned in my nineteen years of education on those stolen lands. Indigenous people were rarely thought of let alone spoken about, except as the brunt of some joke. Most of the identifiably Indigenous folx I saw growing up were living on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, one of the most impoverished and addicted communities in North America. Every non-Indigenous person in the Americas, whether your family arrived as a slave, settler, migrant, or refugee, lives on stolen Indigenous land and consequently possess some form of settler privilege. White supremacy seeks to erode, deny, and ignore Indigenous peoples, perpetuating Indigenous invisibility whereby the majority of non-Indigenous folx know little, if anything, of Indigenous culture or even what Indigenous folx look like. All BI&PoC are indigenous to the lands we originate from—be it Kenya, the Philippines, or Peru. All folx living in the Americas who are not indigenous to the lands we live upon, myself included, perpetuate and benefit from anti-Indigeneity and colonial land theft. All white people in the Americas are settlers and must acknowledge their settler privilege, and many non-Indigenous PoC in the Americas perpetuate settler privileges. As Potawatomi professor Dr. Kyle Powys Whyte states, “Having settler privilege means that some combination of one’s economic security,… citizenship, sense of relationship to the land, mental and physical health,… career aspirations, and spiritual lives are not possible—literally!—without the territorial dispossession of Indigenous peoples.”26 The result is a long list of horrors for Indigenous peoples worldwide, with current consequences, including:

  European colonizers committing genocide against Indigenous groups worldwide, including my ancestors, the Taíno of Jamaica, who were essentially decimated by the Spanish.27

  Portuguese Jesuits in South America leading missions to hunt, enslave, and evangelize Indigenous people.28

  The Māori of New Zealand were frequently refused service throughout the ’50s and ’60s, with many hotels, bars, and other establishments displaying “European only” signs.29

  The traumatizing legacy of violent residential schools throughout the United States and Canada, which sought to “assimilate the Indian” and the last of which closed in 1996.30

  Today, the culmination of these and so many more white supremacist atrocities have resulted in an Indigenous mental health epidemic, with suicide and self-harm constituting the leading cause of death in Indigenous Americans and Canadians up to age forty-four. Decolonization is beginning to get more traction, but non-Indigenous folx are still co-opting the Indigenous narrative and, to be blunt, fucking it up.

  Decolonization is “a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic, and psychological divesting of colonial power,” as defined by Māori professor and author Linda Tuhiwai Smith.31 It is a specific intellectual and deeply spiritual act of not only divesting colonial power but also promoting Indigenization. As Indigenous scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang assert, treating decolonization as a metaphor for general social justice efforts is yet another act of colonizing Indigenous theory and thought, which “kills the very possibility of decolonization” by recentering whiteness and settler innocence.32 Decolonization certainly falls under the umbrella of racial justice, but it asks for something different, which is to imagine and create an existence outside of the settler nation. It differs from reconciliation, which is motivated by moves toward settler innocence and seeks to “rescue settler normalcy.” Decolonization necessarily upsets the status quo in a confrontational—not to be confused with violent—way.

  To decolonize is to withdraw from white supremacy in a way that tangibly counters anti-Indigeneity and promotes Indigeneity. It is to follow Indigenous peoples’ lead without expecting them to do all the work to decolonize. It is to acknowledge the specific horrors faced by Indigenous peoples worldwide, past and present; challenge settler privilege; and renounce settler innocence—no matter your race or ethnicity.

  INTERSECTIONALITY* & STANDPOINT THEORY*

  What is vital in the conversation about oppression is intersectionality—an often misused term coined by Black law professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in the 1980s. Intersectionality is, in Crenshaw’s words, “a metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves, and they create obstacles that often are not understood within conventional ways of thinking about anti-racism or feminism* or whatever social justice advocacy structures we have.”33 To dismantle white supremacy requires dismantling heteropatriarchy (and vice versa) alongside ableism, classism, ageism, capitalism, fatphobia, transphobia, homophobia, and the like. Given the global and pervasive state of white supremacy and its disproportionate impact on Black folx, Indigenous folx, women+, and LGBTTQIA+ folx, unsurprisingly queer and trans Black and Indigenous women+, living at the intersection of those most marginalized by white supremacy, are the most equipped to understand how to dismantle it. According to standpoint theory, a feminist theory arguing that knowledge derives from social position, those who share political struggles based in oppression are the best candidates to define and explain important social and natural problems. The theory maintains that those dominating social hierarchies (aka holding the most power and privilege) are out of touch with social reality and humxn connection and, as a result, can’t view or frame their intellectual contributions objectively or soundly. Kinda like whiteness being invisible to white folx.

  In order to survive, queer and trans Black and Indigenous women+ have to immerse themselves in the racist, sexist, cisgender, and heteronormative power structures and have no choice but to bear the brunt of those oppressive power structures, even if they aren’t consciously awa
re of it (though methinks that would be hard). As a result, they understand systems of power and privilege the most and are best suited to educate and lead the collective as to how to dismantle them. Everyone else, especially cis hetero white folx, need to learn how the fuck to follow.

  The most disrespected people on this planet are Black and Indigenous women+, especially Black-Indigenous women and femmes. We all need to address our anti-Blackness, promote decolonization, and uplift, support, learn from, check in on, pay, and follow Black and Indigenous women+ educators and activists (ideally queer and trans ones). Our collective well-being depends on it.

  GLOBAL RACE RELATIONS

  Now we have a clearer sense of the pervasive nature of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity. We understand that they’re global systems that have existed for centuries and continue to play out on the international stage in a myriad of ways. White supremacy has conceived of Blackness and Indigeneity in very specific ways to ensure white power. This is why folx have been considered wholly Black under the “one drop rule” (to increase the number of enslaved workers), while Indigenous Americans had to prove their status based on blood quantum (to ensure their erasure and the freehold of stolen lands). If we acknowledge the bigger picture, we can recognize that race relations are fraught and fragile worldwide. We are in the midst of a racial crisis, most notably targeting Black and Indigenous people, and it is not new. Though it may be to you. Let’s take a gander:

  America, the most notorious enslaver, was built on Indigenous murder and Black slave labor, cementing white wealth today. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, by 2050 the median white family will have $174,000 of wealth, but median Black wealth will be $600.34 A 2018 U.S. Census found Native Americans have the highest poverty rate of any racialized group at 25.4 percent.35

  In 2019, the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls found the ongoing pattern of violence against Indigenous peoples, especially girls+, women+, and LGBTTQIA+, constitutes “Canadian genocide.”36

  Sweden’s racist legacy began with profiting from the transatlantic slave trade for nearly one hundred years as a major supplier of ships and chains, as well as owning a Caribbean slave colony.37 In 2018, the Sweden Democrats, founded by Nazi supporters, became the country’s third-largest political party.38

  In the UK, an OG enslaving nation, Black folx are forty times more likely than whites to be stopped by cops, while other visible PoC are four times more likely.39 The UK’s anti-Black ecosystem is so bad that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the first openly biracial member of the British monarchy, essentially left the royal family—and she’s white-passing!40

  In 2019, Brazil, the last country in the Americas to give up slavery and the largest enslaver, kidnapping nearly five million Africans (ten times more than the United States),41 elected the “Trump of the Tropics,” Jair Bolsonaro, who has permitted open siege on Indigenous tribes, resulting in murders and the intentional burning of the Amazon rainforest.42 What the actual fuck.

  I could go on for days and we’d barely scratch the surface. Racism, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, and white supremacy are universal social constructs with unrivaled historical and present-day impacts. They are rampant and rule every corner of the globe, and we need to acknowledge that shit. We need to breathe it the fuck in and really and truly be with the truth of the consequences so we can get to dismantling these inhumxne global systems and overthrowing the power dynamics that created them (white folx especially). And that effort, my loves, starts with you. None of us live outside of these systems, and the only way we can disassemble the toxic structure from the inside is by first searching inside ourselves. We all have a role to play and specific gifts to contribute.

  Spiritual Soulcare Offering/Call to Action

  Exploring Our Anti-Blackness

  Before we begin, for my Black loves, please take good care as you move through this exercise, as it can be triggering.

  PAUSE, CLOSE YOUR EYES FOR TWENTY SECONDS, AND BRING INTO YOUR MIND’S EYE THE WORD “BLACK.” WHEN YOU ARE DONE, OPEN YOUR EYES AND NOTE OR WRITE THE MAJOR IMAGES, WORDS, EMOTIONS, OR SOUNDS ASSOCIATED WITH THE WORD “BLACK” THAT AROSE FOR YOU (DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER YET!).

  NOW, CLOSE YOUR EYES FOR ANOTHER TWENTY SECONDS AND BRING INTO YOUR MIND’S EYE THE WORD “WHITE.” WHEN YOU ARE DONE, OPEN YOUR EYES AND NOTE OR WRITE THE MAJOR IMAGES, WORDS, EMOTIONS, OR SOUNDS ASSOCIATED WITH THE WORD “WHITE” THAT AROSE FOR YOU (AGAIN, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER YET!).

  When you’ve finished, review your two lists. Were your associations more positive or negative for a particular word? If so, which one and why? In my workshops, most folx come to discern how anti-Blackness is so deeply ingrained it rules our innermost thoughts and language.

  Irrespective of our skin color, most of us have more negative associations when we think of the word “black” (criminal, dirty, immoral, ghetto) than “white” (pure, innocent, angelic), which is part of centuries-long social conditioning designed to prioritize whiteness and the white race as supreme and denigrate Blackness and Black people. If you genuinely didn’t (good on you!), you’re doing powerful work to counter status quo narratives. Either way, if it’s available to you, hop online and check a thesaurus to confirm the status quo affiliations for each word.

  REFLECTIONS:

  How did this exercise feel? What did you learn?

  How will you use this information to help counter your inherent anti-Blackness moving forward?

  When you finish, practice this exercise or simply check the thesaurus for the following word pairings (again, for the oppressed group in question, take good care as you do so): “Indigenous” and “white”; “man” and “woman” (binary terms intentionally used here); “straight” and “queer”; “thin” and “fat”; “disabled” and “non-disabled”; “cisgender” and “transgender”; “rich” and “poor”; and any others you’d like to address. Explore what arises and use that as information to support your inner anti-oppression work.

  FIVE

  Inheriting Mama Trauma

  Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

  —AUDRE LORDE

  Our ancestry impacts everything we do whether we’re aware of it or not. We bring our ancestors with us into every room we enter. Every conversation we have and every relationship we’re in is somehow impacted by those who came before us, particularly those from our ancestral line. Most BI&WoC are aware of this fact, as we are forced to endure daily racist misogyny and the legacy it has created, much like our ancestors did. White women+, on the other hand, have the privilege of reaping the benefits of their ancestors’ actions without much thought or attribution to how those benefits came to be or the fact that they are benefits at all. As history professor Kevin Gannon said in the documentary 13th, “We are the products of the history that our ancestors chose, if we’re white. If we are [B]lack, we are products of the history that our ancestors most likely did not choose.”1 The key to escaping the consequences of our ancestors’ choices, or lack thereof, is to unearth and address not only their existence but their impact. The trauma created by our ancestors and the ways that trauma gets passed down ancestral lines, causing grief, harm, and ongoing cycles of oppression. For us all. Past and present. White, Asian, whatever, but particularly for Black and Indigenous women+.

  It is estimated that between 75 and 90 percent of all visits to primary care practitioners in America are stress-related.2 This is magnified for those subjected to systemic oppression and all the more for those whose ancestors were as well. Enduring the brunt of white supremacy day in and day out takes its toll on Black and Indigenous women+ spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. My mom’s struggle with a lifetime of race- and gender-based violence, which led her to betray her own needs, voice, and dignity, is a prime example. She was unable to share her truth, especially her anger, and these repressed emotions and oppressive trau
mas manifested as physical suffering. The impact of my mom’s trauma began well before I was born and resulted in her spending decades unable to move while writhing in unfathomable pain. Decades of my being a primary caregiver rather than a child in need of caregiving. My mom’s physical pain creating personal pain of my own. Her lifetime of trauma, partly resulting from her mom’s lifetime of trauma before her, being passed down the family line like an heirloom. In the end, the pain from all this trauma was so great, dying became her only option for the reprieve she desperately desired and deserved.

  Before we get into it, please prepare yourself emotionally and otherwise for the following content containing medical racism, ableism, misogynoir, physical and sexual abuse, and death.

  A LIFETIME OF PAIN

  My mother was forced to starve herself to death. It was the fall of 2015, and she had been battling primary progressive multiple sclerosis, battling her own body, for nearly twenty years. That’s two decades of tripping and falling, hopes and dreams slipping to the wayside, helplessness and isolation. Multiple sclerosis, also known as MS, had ravaged her nerves and organs, leaving her stuck in unbearable chronic pain. Once a decorated interior designer, hostess with the mostess, and role model to single moms everywhere, at just sixty-five years young, she was left with the sole ability to control nothing more than her eyes and mouth, with bones poking through skin and nerve endings that screamed merely at the touch… and that ain’t no way to live.