…And the role we play in perpetuating it.

Not long ago we were made aware of this article, As U.S. Becomes More Diverse, What Role Will Nonwhites Play In Furthering White Supremacy?  We were asked if we had any thoughts on it, so we provided a few comments. Our commentary is below. Some will read this and interpret it as extreme. However, let us keep this question in mind as we read on: “What is extreme about an innate desire to live in peace and harmony while providing for one’s family and community?”

We are not going to refer to the system we are fighting against as White Supremacy. Those who identify themselves as being supreme because they are White are not now, not will they ever be, supreme over or superior to us. Therefore we call the system out for what it really is…Violent White Privileged Racism. We are fighting in a war against a system set up by Europeans (stringently reinforced and adjusted over time by their descendants) to afford them a disproportionate advantage over us, through violent and inhumane means, as we contend with them for who will inherit this planet’s resources. 

The role of Americanized Afrikans, and other non-Europeans, in furthering Violent White Privileged Racism stems from us failing to realize that we are in a real-time/ real-world violent life or death situation (an extremely competitive race if you will). The goal of this vicious competition is to achieve a lasting and controlling dominance, with the prize being outright ownership of and/ or dominion over this planet’s resources. Since we do not realize we are in this life or death struggle, fighting against an unrelenting and formidable opponent, we are, and will continue, allowing our opponent to dictate, sometimes openly and other times very subtly, the terms and rules of the competition (race). 

As an example of how we allow terms and rules to be dictated to us by our opponent in this race please read this article on “The Caucasity of Outrage Because Erica Garner’s Family Won’t Talk to White Journalists”, paying close attention to the reaction of White Privileged Racists who are feigning outrage and placing their faux hurt feelings above the wishes of a grieving family. However, and perhaps more importantly, read some of the initial comments from our brothers and sisters calling the grieving Garner family’s decision to only speak with Black journalists “divisive”, “counter-productive”, or “counter to the activism” of dear Sister Erica.

As we understand it, the activism of Erica Garner was not to unite or close the social, political, economic gaps between us and our Europeans descended counterparts. No, she fought valiantly and unapologetically as a woman, mother, daughter, and sister of and from our community against illegally sanctioned State killings of our people at the hands of Violent White Privileged Racists, operating with impunity, in the criminally injustice system of our society as so called law enforcers and prosecutors.  

For anyone, on either side of the aisle, to label the family’s request to speak with whom they choose to speak with as divisive or counter-productive, when the good sister was not fighting for what they are intimating she fought for, is an attempt to shame or guilt this family into further submission to the vicious system of Violent White Privileged Racism. A system that not only says Black lives do not matter, it extinguishes Black lives and bodies with extreme prejudice and at will in an unimpeded manner. That said, and as bad as responses to the family’s request have been, no responses are as damaging as the ones coming from our own community inferring the Garner family is being divisive, counter-productive, or counter to the activism of Sister Erica.

We do not need to be monolithic in our approaches to the issues we face. Being monolithic in that regard is counter-intuitive and counter-productive to the development, implementation, and oversight of a global strategy we so desperately need for our liberation.  Our people need the freedom of movement within disparate approaches in the fight against the global threat of Violent White Privileged Racism…yes we said global because it is and we challenge anyone to show us differently. We are too experientially diverse in our skillsets to be of a single-minded approach. This being the case though, we do need to be intractably indivisible and uniformed in the goal of our fight…liberation defined as setting ourselves free from imprisonment, slavery, and/ or oppression.

If our goal is to set our people free from the mental, emotional, political, economic, and spiritual imprisonment, slavery, and oppression we are living in, which stems from Violent Whi

te Privileged Racism, then we can never waiver. We cannot afford to entertain or give credibility to the ideological principles and theories coming from so called allies in the struggle, not because they are the children of former slave masters, but because their ideas serve their interests not ours. Their ideas of unity and oneness sound appealing, but at the end of the day and when the smoke clears, all they are saying is if we do not adhere, obediently without distraction, to the beliefs and deliverables they have set for us, they are going to side with the Violent White Privileged Racists we are fighting against. 

In his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King is spot on when he writes, “I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Sadly enough, too many of us who have the placement and access to spearhead effective change have not learned the lessons of our ancestors as they relate to our dealings and interactions with this very cunning and dangerous threat to our existence.  It is because of this that we assess our role in the furtherance of Violent White Privileged Racism will be bringing to fruition the conditions that will expedite the demise of our own best interests.  At the end of the day we are in a fight for our survival, and until we realize and accept this reality as fact, the Violent White Privileged Racism we are fighting will never end.