Dismantle White Supremacy; “supremacy” is an unnatural, social construct, just like race.

I suspect this post may make some readers uncomfortable., so stop reading, if you need to; but know that I believe those of you who “need to” (pause) also need to come back and read this.

I abhor “white supremacy”. I also experience every feeling from discomfort to shame when a survey expects me to identify my “race”, because my skin tone is considered “white” by those who categorize humans in this way. That’s not me, but that system kept everything but my gender and religious beliefs from getting in the way of opportunities. And religious beliefs are hard to “see” just by looking at someone.

I never have aligned with the values or attitudes of “white”. Furthermore, I don’t believe we should be doing anything to support the social construct of “race” as a valid classification. Race is, and needs to return to and remain, a verb. Ugh!!

I was born in 1958. While going through all the papers my Mother never threw out; she’s currently 97-years-old, I found some personal “writings” from when I was in 2nd grade (1966), where I espoused “blacks better than whites”. I also found letters I wrote to my parents from the mid- to late-1970’s in which I expressed my incredulity that “race” was still an “issue of discrimination”. Granted, I was raised in northern New Jersey by college+ educated, but NOT “entitled”, parents, who were born in the 1920’s. But still, I didn’t and still don’t care to accept oppression (for any reason) as “inevitable”, or worse yet, “justifiable”.

I will be forever grateful to my friend Bev Zuk, for introducing me to Dr. Heather Cox Richardson’s writings. After reading her nightly newsletter, I looked up her “profile” and found this interview. My immediate response was “yes, yes, yes!” This all makes sense to me. My secondary response was, “Oh shit, what has truly changed in the last 10+ months? Or even in the last 40 - 55 years? When we will the people learn?? And then follow Dr. Maya Angelou’s teachings “When you know better, do better“. Dr. Richardson had three statements in this interview that really resonated with me:

1.) “The power of the past to help us understand the present.” Her phenomenal approach as an historian and a history teacher.

2.) “False equivalency as a pattern of the way people talk in politics to take dominance, which is an abuse of language.”

3.) “You can’t know what the past means until you know the future.” (Attributed to William Faulkner)

So I am posting this to ask, what’s changed? Watch this (yes, it’s 54 minutes long and WELL worth it). Then let me know what you think and how we can join together to make the America a country of kinship in which we can believe and which represents our core values!