So You Want to be an Accomplice

The social contract in the US was built on the backs of Black, Brown and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) to serve white folks. Native American genocide transformed to ever-decreasing reservations and rights, reduced tribal acknowledgment, water pollution and desecration of sacred lands. Slavery simply transformed into Jim Crow, redlining, destruction of Black wall street and Black leaders, and school to prison pipelines. That social contract always had an implicit clause that “all men” meant white ones, which is why there’s an implicit “too” at the end of Black Lives Matter. The police force was set up to protect the riches (property) white people accumulated off of the stolen labor of people of color and the stolen land of indigenous folks. While some ethnicities such as Italian, Irish and Jewish Americans got to become white in this country, BIPOC could not. Racism for BIPOC simply transformed.

There’s a great meme about the difference between politics and oppression. It goes something like this: if you want to agree to disagree about whether we should levy a new school tax or put up a street light on a corner, fine. That’s political discourse. But if the foundation of your argument is whether or not a group of people deserve the same rights as the majority, that’s not politics. That’s oppression.

Difference + power = privilege. So when folks with privilege are the statistical majority and they have the ability to vote against the rights of a statistical minority or even a majority (like women) who has less power, the marginalized stay disenfranchised unless those in power do something to give it up. The long arm of history might bend towards justice, and we can certainly make glacial change through policy. Voting and laws are an important part of the process. But, when the laws and policies are always manipulated by ideologies that empower unequal circumstances and unequal treatment, sometimes things need to get stirred quicker to bring more equality. That’s equity.

The question isn’t whether someone is asking for their rights to be heard the “right” way, because the ability to define what’s right is a function of the powerful who determine that rightness. The question is, “What had to go so wrong that reasoning, explaining, voting, art-making, talking, building, pleading, asking, filming, debating, peacefully protesting, marching, educating, etc. wasn’t heard time and time again that people had to resort to uprisings just to have their rights acknowledged?” Everybody has a breaking point. And every civil rights movement has had an element of rioting and protest before meaningful change has occurred. Am I saying that in a just society people should hurt each other? No. But I am asking you to understand, beyond stereotyped confirmations, what’s happening here. I am asking you to see that BIPOC have been treated as far less than property as part of this country’s history.

What you’re seeing is a breaking point in our ability to stuff our own dignity for the comfort of the dominant culture at the expense of ourselves, time and time again. What you’re seeing is two different USofA’s. One who built it while being abused or had it stolen from them for generations, and one who benefited from it for generations. What you’re seeing is one group of humans under generational trauma while another set of humans remained untouched by racism and disengaged from the correction of it.

The United States of America is built on racism. It’s so racist that our political system has become a choice between an abusive oppressor or a neglectful one for BIPOC. Overt racism is like an abusive parent. Covert racism and neo-liberal white dominance is like a neglectful parent who allows the abusive parent to abuse you while gaslighting you about it because they don’t want to or can’t take responsibility for protecting you. BIPOC folks may have written off the abusive parent as a hopeless case. But, it’s also not BIPOC’s job to tell the neglectful parent how awful the abuse is or to teach that person how to protect us.

What’s inspiring about this moment in history is that maybe, just maybe, finally the neglectful parent, with the power to change things, might stand up to your abuser with you. But we’ve been hopeful before and disappointed time and time again. So understand BIPOC are still skeptical of performative allyship that looks good on social media, but doesn’t make the changes needed. White folks waking up may be exhausted by all this newness, but understand that your exhaustion just reminds us how checked out you’ve been while we have been dying and suffocating and you haven’t protected us.

So, You Want to Be an Accomplice in the Change?

Here are some things white folks can do or look out for:

1. Stop Using The Emotional Labor of the Marginalized and Playing it Off As Your Own

While you’re waking up from the slumber of collective racial ignorance, the temptation may be to sound like you knew what you were doing all along. I get it. Everyone wants to save face. No one wants to feel like they’re a jerk. But, for the love of human decency, please stop taking the emotional labor and wisdom of BIPOC as your own. Quote us, give us credit. Pay us. Stop perpetuating white dominance even in your allyship. You’re not entitled to our labor—that’s the root of the problem in the first place!

Find resources. Watch Kimberly Jones talk about the riots on Trevor Noah and buy her book. Pay BIPOC for their wisdom and work. Talk to other white folks about this stuff so it’s not all on BIPOC. I’ve been inspired by how many white folks are wanting to change, wanting to do their part responsibly. Keep it up!! Don’t stop.

2. Understand that Giving You Grace is a Gift, Not an Entitlement

Change doesn’t happen without relationship (not acquaintanceship). The reason humans are motivated to look at and change harmful behavior is because we care about someone more than our need to be right or comfortable. For too long, white folks haven’t cared about BIPOC enough to change—and it’s been harming BIPOC with no real consequence to white folks. We need to see your skin in the game. If it’s not costing you, it probably isn’t true allyship. Again, it’s inspiring to see that maybe this is reaching a critical mass for change.

It’s hard to learn when you feel like you can’t make mistakes, and from that point of view I can understand why the impetus toward white fragility and tears. But the time to be confused is over. You need to get it. Understand that when we are angry or seemingly not giving you an inch, it’s because for far too long we have watched your kind flop about and center the conversation back on your own comfort at our expense. Anger is a very valid and legitimate response to that. Sometimes we just can’t hold space for your meltdown or ignorance. It would go a very long way if you just listen, apologize when you see where you went wrong and stop invalidating us. Stop trying to apply your worldview and the way life works for you onto our experience of oppression. Accept that you’ve internalized racism. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s baked into our society. But do take some responsibility for changing that.

We may even soften when you stop being defensive and blaming us for the whole dynamic. And if we have a personal relationship, and we care enough about you, we probably will give you some leeway. But, don’t mistake that for an invitation to take over the entire space again. And don’t equate your experience of being poor or another marginalized identity as if it’s the same. Use it for empathy, but don’t equate it. Recognize that we are being very generous if we take time to educate you or share our stories, knowing full well your impulse might very predictably be to invalidate, defend and deny, leaving us exposed and retraumatized.

3. Help Turn This Election

After the novelty of posting that woke meme wears off, BIPOC will be looking to see who is still with us. You can’t be anti-racist and support what’s happening in our government currently. It’s been a full out war on marginalized folks. It’s not about politics, or whether you believe in big versus small government. It’s about oppression.

Help elect local officials that will demilitarize the police force, or hold it accountable. Help BIPOC register to vote with updated addresses and get to polls, if needed, without getting COVID-19. Stand up to voter fraud. Use your power as white folk to amplify BIPOC voices and protect us during protests. Elect officials who care about social justice in local and presidential elections.

4. Donate to Organizations that Support BIPOC

Whether it’s national like the NAACP or local, support the reparation needed. Donate time to learn. Donate acts. Donate scholarships for BIPOC to receive much needed therapy during this time. Center voices of color. Change the dynamic actively. Support Black-owned businesses. Support businesses run by Indigenous folks and people of color.

5. Start Talking About YOUR Whiteness

Start talking about your whiteness and internalized dominance amongst yourselves. Racism isn’t a problem for and by BIPOC. It’s a problem that white dominance created and only white people can change it. Start seeing yourself in a racial context. Start seeing your complicity, your silence, how you claiming “not me” contributes to the problem. Start seeing the lack of humanity in the institutionalized violence toward BIPOC. Start catching yourself in the acts of racism and be the change BIPOC wish to see.

A Special Note to Those of Us on Spectrums

For those of us who don’t fit neatly into identity boxes, whether we are on atypical neurological spectrums, gender-non-conforming, mixed races or bi or pansexual there are often NO safe spaces in which we can be ALL of ourselves without enduring some form of microaggression from even the people we hold most dear, even within our own marginalized communities. To be biracial, multicultural, trans or gender-nonconforming, pansexual, etc is to endure constant betrayal. We get shunned sometimes from the communities that we expect to shore us up against discrimination. And then we also don’t fit into the dominant culture. We may benefit from privileges, too. But chances are we are also the first advocates to support marginalized folks at great cost to our own wellbeing. We often get most of the cost and little of the benefit of our social identities. We are constantly navigating how much space to take up, when it’s okay to be vulnerable, and code switching.

So if you’re wondering why we don’t have much grace left for you just becoming aware of the constant assault on our beingness, we don’t have it to give. We have ZERO effs left. We are tired of hearing the discrimination when you don’t even know you’re talking about us. We are tired of feeling like we have to prove ourselves, or validate our admission into identity groups we deeply hold dear. We are tired of being invalidated by people in our privileged and oppressed communities. We are so tired. Please look out for us, too.

Black trans womyn have been the pinnacles of almost every civil rights movement from Stonewall to Black Lives Matter. That’s why BLM makes it part of their bylaws to have a black trans womyn as their chapter heads. When they’re safe, we are all safe. Protect and respect Black trans womyn.

A Note for Therapists and Service Providers: Humanist Versus Anti-Oppression Therapy

There’s a particular ideology in therapy that needs some finessed understanding so that white therapists or service providers don’t keep gaslighting their clients of color. There’s a concept in therapeutic communities of internal locus on control. The idea is that the more psychologically healthy someone is, the more they take 100% responsibility for their life circumstances. As Carl Jung said, “what we do not make conscious, we call fate,” meaning the circumstances we keep finding ourselves in is a result of our own ability or inability to take responsibility for it. There are psychological evaluations that will assess people based on how much of a victim vs agent in their lives they are. And there’s a lot of legitimacy to this, IF we actually have the power in the circumstance, and that’s the big IF.

For example, if as a grown woman, I have a budget for my bills, but I keep buying things like a Tesla on my credit card that I don’t have the money to pay for, then that debt is my own doing (poverty cycles aside). That’s largely within my personal power. And marginalized folks tend to have more personal power than folks who grew up with privileges because they’ve had to compensate for a world that doesn’t welcome them. However, there’s a damaging philosophy in some spiritual circles and psychological communities (aka spiritual bypass) that says that we can manifest our financial circumstances by simply focusing on it and we can choose our abusive parents in some sacred contract for our growth in this lifetime. But, a child doesn’t have the power to choose a parent or their abuse. And marginalized people don’t have the institutional power within society to change racism, sexism, heterosexism, transsexism, ablism, etc. That’s on the folks with power. That’s why there’s no reverse racism. We need white folks to fight for us within the systems that oppress us.

I can’t tell you how many times, as a therapist, I’ve worked with people who get stuck in their trauma because they get blamed for it and they diligently want to take ownership over something for which they had no control. They have been told time and time again that it’s just their chip on their shoulder, or they chose their abuse, and it’s so damaging. As healthcare providers, we have a responsibility to understand the cultural, racial, gendered and institutional contexts that our clients live in. Not everything is a result of our own choices. We may have choice in how we respond to events, or the outlooks we choose to employ, but we don’t have choice in the contexts we are born into or the resources we have to deal with them.

Let’s start listening to the ways our clients scan us for safety and invite those conversations. Let’s meet them where they’re at, rather than think of diversity as this “other” thing that we awkwardly try to include at as an afterthought in an intake. Ask what’s important to your client, but also listen for what you don’t know about this person, what they’re saying in between the lines. Time to wake up and stay up.

If this article stimulated thoughts for you, I’d love to hear how you relate, what was new, etc. Keep it classy folks, no haterade.