A White Experience of Dismantling Internalized White Supremacy Culture
by Kristin Elaine Wilson
There are so many issues and conundrums to White Supremacy Culture, and one conundrum is that we are primarily surrounded by Whiteness in America. Why is this a conundrum? When we behave from a place of White Supremacy, the society around us validates that behavior. Our society is set up to reward behavior based in traits of White Supremacy Culture and punish behavior based on a liberatory culture. Here are some examples of common American White Supremacy Culture’s response to some of the basic traits from Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones.
White Supremacy Culture Trait White Supremacy Cultures response
Perfectionism Good job! Just keep working harder.
Fear of open conflict You are a safe, nice, kind, peaceful, caring person.
Individualism You are strong and independent.
Sense of urgency You are prompt and get things done quickly, therefore we can rely on you.
Defensiveness You are a good person and should defend your goodness.
Quantity over Quality Financial rewards for producing more.
Worship of the Written Word You are needed and valued when you can write out what we need from you. .
Paternalism Followers need to be told what to do to stay in line, or else
things will get out of line and dangerous.
Either/Or Thinking Thank you for always having the right answer and giving clear direction of what is right and wrong.
Our brains develop based on the feedback given from our environment, particularly throughout childhood. Our moral compass is formed based on family, community and society feedback. Our understanding of what behavior is considered good and desirable and what behavior is bad and problematic is based on what is reflected back to us by those around us. What happens when we have been surrounded by family, community, schools, and society reflecting back to us that the exact behavior that causes so much harm is good and desirable?
Whiteness is also built on the Christian principles that everyone should be striving to be a good person that contributes to society in positive ways. So when we learn that the ways in which we have been striving to do good and be good are the exact ways that cause so much harm, primarily to Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) and also to ourselves and everyone around us, then it fractures the core of our self identity. The reaction to this is what Robin Di’Angelo calls White Fragility.
A core teaching that falls under individualism is that we must always trust ourselves first and foremost or second to God only. And when we lose self trust then we are lost and become untrustworthy to others as well. This is dangerous territory, but it is not more dangerous than ignorantly living out and reinforcing the traits of White Supremacy. If you can’t trust yourself, then how do you make decisions and move through your day with any sort of confidence that you are not contributing to the problem? This is key. Once we realize the ways we have been indoctrinated to behave are actually part of the problem, then we cannot trust what we have been taught and the ways we have been programmed to behave. Losing trust in oneself is a natural part of the process in dismantling internalized White Supremacy.
Similar to the 12 steps of recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous, we must first admit we have a problem and we are powerless to that problem. “Hi my name is Kristin. I am in recovery from the belief that I am a supreme being. I am in active recovery from superiority complex.” In the recovery community, the second step is surrendering with a belief that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. In the context of recovering from superiority complex, this requires surrendering what I think and believe is right or supreme to what others think or believe. For me this meant accepting that I was and had been wrong… about just about everything!
This is the moment in decolonizing and recovering from White Supremacy that one must lose trust in oneself. I may have the urge to speak, because I think I have something important to share or something that could be helpful. Instead, I learn that the thing I thought to be so important to share to help improve things actually could cause damage! Instead, I don’t speak that thing, and if I do speak then I talk about the process I just walked myself through in recognizing the way superiority was showing up in me in that moment, and how I am consciously choosing to lay that down in my commitment to recovery from superiority complex.
It is a scary process to surrender “one’s internal sense of knowing”. As a White woman working to dismantle my own Whiteness and superiority complex starting back in 2005, I did not have other White folx to support me with guidance or accountability. I didn’t have mentors and models to follow. The scariest aspect of this process for me was when I learned that my intuition was even impacted by this superiority programing I was raised in. This meant I was even doubting and questioning my intuition and my “body wisdom” as an act of decolonization and recovering from White Supremacy!
Everything I thought I knew about myself and the world around me was turned upside down. I learned I was programmed in an upside down way. The veil was lifted and I was made aware of the reality that our society was built on the made up idea that White people are supreme beings. I was completely disoriented. I did not know up from down and down from up. I did not know what I could trust within me. I read all the books I could find by BIPOC authors to reorient my understanding of the world to center those most marginalized. I realized those pushed to the margins of society with less access to resources and opportunities had the broadest most accurate perspective of the big picture of what was happening in our society and our communities. I watched every movie and documentary I could find that centered the lived experiences of BIPOC. I gave more value to the perspective of BIPOC in community, in my workplace, and in my personal life and relationships.
This process reoriented my entire understanding of the world. I shifted from being the center of my own universe to seeing the web of life, and how we are all interconnected and impact each other in all we do. Surrendering self trust allowed me to truly open to so much about the world that I was previously blind to. I was blind to it because society is set up in a manner that keeps White folx blind to the big picture, blind to the harmful impact of Whiteness on BIPOC communities, blind to the destructive impact on all of humanity and the planet, and blind to the ways Whiteness was taking away my own humanity.
It was through this process I began to learn about community and how to center the “we” versus the “I”. It taught me how truly connected we really are. White Supremacy Culture taught me to always look out for myself first and foremost, and other people’s suffering is not my responsibility. This disorientation process taught me about the work, effort, and time it takes to tend to connections and relationships. It taught me about just how different our lived experiences are based on the color of our skin. It taught me to really slow down and take the time to learn how people want to be treated, respected and cared for. It humbled me and taught me to always be in a position of learning versus knowing.
In this disorientation process of losing self trust, I also lost self value and love. I learned ways to prioritize others needs that was not loving and caring for my own needs. I believed it was an act of reparations and dismantling White Supremacy Culture to sacrifice my own needs for what was best for BIPOC. I pushed myself harder to carry more of the load. I made myself go to community events after work no matter how exhausted from work I was and how much rest I needed to sustain in all the work. I loudly and proudly supported BIPOC having their needs met, taking breaks, getting rest, while not allowing this for myself. I did this for many years and endured a lot of wear and tear. Over time that wear and tear crushed my own soul and led me to think my existence was not innately of value. I behaved from a place that thought I had to do all these things to earn my value and place on the planet. I see this pattern among White folx play out frequently in mixed race social justice spaces.
I knew logically that one cannot truly love another without loving oneself first, and one cannot truly show care for another and joyfully support others having their needs met and boundaries respected without first caring for my own needs and respecting my own boundaries. Regardless of “knowing” this logically, I did not “know” it in my bones, in my lived experience. I did not see the way forward for how to embody self love and self value while dismantling internalized White Supremacy.
I was regularly allowing myself to be pushed well beyond my max, violating all my own boundaries and disregarding all my own needs and allowing others to do the same. Then the day came that I was pushed too far, and something deep inside me awoke and arose and took a stand for my value, my needs, my existence. Once this aspect of me woke up, the part of me that would take a stand for me and my value and place in this world, there was no going back to ways of martyrdom, which was really White Saviorism playing out.
This was the major turning point where all my ideas of Liberatory Culture became real, visceral, and embodied. I could feel how my commitment to choose love, joy, and freedom in my own life was now my moral compass for a commitment for all people to have access to love, joy and freedom. I saw the joy, the love, and the experience of freedom in the moment reflected back to me in the smiling eyes of BIPOC loved ones in my life as well as White loved ones in my life. When I turned this corner, I found my trust in myself once again. I learned what my needs were and where my boundaries are. I could trust myself when I was meeting my needs and respecting my boundaries, and I am trustworthy when my needs are met and boundaries are clearly communicated. This became reflected back to me in my workplace, in my relationships, and in my community.
It took years for me to build enduring relationships with BIPOC. It took years to build a new lens that could see the injustices and how my behaviors either contribute to injustice or contribute to liberation. It is a daily practice, moment by moment, to stay practiced in liberatory traits that contribute to my own decolonization and dismantling of White Supremacy Culture within me and around me.
What I am referring to is outlined below is a chart that compares the same White Supremacy Culture traits from Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones work as listed above to Liberatory Culture traits.
White Supremacy Culture Liberatory Culture
Perfectionism Be your authentic true self, and mistakes are how we grow
and learn together. Flexibility and adaptation best supports
healthy evolution.
Fear of open conflict Address harm and injustices with clear, direct,
compassionate communication
Individualism Collectivism - Interdependence
Sense of urgency Sustainable change takes time. Take the time needed to do
what you are doing with safety, love and care
Defensiveness Feedback and accountability are acts of love and care. Open, listen, and receive it as a gift to grow and learn from.
Quantity over Quality Quality always matters.
Worship of the Written Word All voices matter. Oral storytelling has the power to heal
the collective.
Paternalism Collective wisdom - the wisdom of everyone impacted
informs what is best for everyone involved
Either/Or Thinking Both/And Thinking - there is more than one beneficial way
of doing things. Multiple things can be true and right at the
same time.
The more I practice liberatory traits, the more I see and experience the ways I am regaining my humanity, and am better able to love myself and others. The more I practice liberatory traits, the more I trust myself and simultaneously become trustworthy.
This is why we do this work. Is there any better reason to be alive right now than to learn how to better love and care for this beautiful planet and all who dwell here in a way that feels loving, caring and freeing for all?
It helps to find people in society that are reflecting Liberatory love and care and allow yourself to see aspects of yourself in them. Be the change you want to be while seeking the reflection of the change you want to be in people that are also reflecting that desired change. This is interdependence. Are there ways my experience may resonate and reflect something back to you that supports your journey toward collective liberation?
The disorientation journey is not an easy one. It is scary to lose self trust, lose self confidence, and lose self love. It is scary to feel lost and confused and question everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world. I have no doubt this process is different for every White/light skinned person, and I am confident there are shared experiences in this process. It is not a timeline of phases to go through and check off as accomplished. It is an every day commitment. I believe this process of disorientation and losing self trust is a natural part of the process to decolonize and dismantle internalized White Supremacy. I believe the deprograming of all that was taught to White folx in a society built on the ideas White Supremacy requires a full surrender of all we White folx think we know, which also requires losing self trust.
It is an act of resistance for White folx to allow oneself to be lost and lose self trust to the society that tells us that people that look like us are better people who deserve more at the expense of others. Superiority/Inferiority thinking and behaving is what keeps us separate, and as long we function as if we are separate we will continue on a path of destruction. For the light White skinned person, the surrender of self trust and self love founded in a White Supremacy Culture is an essential step in the process of dismantling White Supremacy and recovering from the superiority complex that keeps us separate.
Through disorientation, we then have the chance to reorient through a broader lens that includes the lived experience of BIPOC and those most marginalized. Embracing the truth that each and everyone of us matter and have great impact on each other and world brings us back to our power. The truth is we are connected and therefore we do have the power to change the world together and be free together. Once we embrace and embody this reality, then there is no stopping us. Then we will be free. This is what makes it all worth surrendering self trust and self love that comes from the indoctrination of White Supremacy Culture. We do this to regain our humanity and get free together!
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