How this movement helped me see white supremacy’s hold on my life.

Thanks to the voices of Black activists leading the latest charge for racial equality in the US, I’ve been processing through the way white supremacy has dictated the terms of who I could be. I’ve found it kept me blind to things that matter to me, and in general contributed to my coexistence with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety. I truly believe that white supremacy is the thread that held all of my own internalized oppression together, and pulling on it has started to unravel my existence in a really beautiful, painful way.

As a curvy, queer, outspoken and intelligent Latina with multiple chronic illnesses I have always felt absolutely incapable of living up to… some mythical ideal. I distinctly remember being asked, “Who is the voice telling you you aren’t enough?” by one of several therapists I’ve had in my life and not having an answer. My mother, while a different ethnicity than me, never made me feel like who I am is wrong. She is small and light haired and blue eyed, but she always sincerely told me how much she loved our differences. My father’s voice was supportive, if not informative in its silences at times. The voice did not have the face of any one of the youth group leaders or teachers I had as a child. And yet, deeply ingrained in me was the feeling that I was broken beyond repair.

There has been a lot of civic growth for me in the past few weeks. I have engaged more with the system than ever before. And personally, so much exposure to the work and vulnerability of BiPOC women has opened my eyes to the albatross around my neck. I now have a name for that "mythical ideal" I have felt pressured by my whole life: white supremacy. I see now that white beliefs of heteronormativity, whiteness as the ideal, beauty as thinness, healthism and sexism have weighed on me in silent judgment my whole life.

And now that I’ve put a name to what used to be this mysterious standard I judged myself against, I realize I actively don’t want to uphold the oppressive systems involved in my own pain anymore. The judge has a face now, and it is the face of white supremacy. There is so much freedom in pulling back the curtain and seeing Oz for the small, bitter man that he is. I have named my oppressor and I do not love him enough to stay under his thumb. I do not share his values or respect his reality. I have seen the bars of this cage and I am prying my way free.

The flip side of this freedom is that I feel truly robbed of so much of my life. I sobbed the other day because it hurts to think that white pressure for assimilation stole my chance to learn about my heritage and to learn the language of my ancestors. I hurt to think about the sheer quantity of moments I didn’t savor because I felt "fat." Or the academic path I wasn’t offered because I am a woman. I think of the self loathing I’ve harbored for a body with a different pace than most, of the agony I’ve put myself through in chasing the ever moving target of producing enough to be loved.

White supremacy tells us to give up of so much of our humanity in service of sameness. It cleaves away our ancestry and uniqueness and sense of justice and tells us it is creating unity while stoking fear for our differences. It lies and tells us we are serving ourselves by working toward the “best,” so that we don’t ask questions about our end goal.

Until we start to ask ourselves why believe what we believe, we can’t understand the hole racism has ripped in how we see the world around us, who we surround ourselves with, or what we experience and yearn for in life. I think of Sonya Renee Taylor saying "Whiteness... is killing you, too," and I truly believe her.

Finding the stains of white supremacy in my life has illuminated the same blight in the foundations of the nation around me. But in seeing the oppression for what it is I have hope. Hope that more people will pull back the curtain and join the fight. Hope that in doing so, more people will understand the power and money they thought they had to hoard to be successful is capable of doing mighty things like ending violence and lifting people from poverty and helping us to truly see humanity in each other. I am tasting true freedom now, and I cannot stop until it is available to all. But maybe that’s another post.