Between freedom and equality
Most will say that we are at a crossroads in our nation, but all roads led to this moment.
The United States claims to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. How can a nation be a place of freedom when its denizens are robbed of their liberties every single day? How can a nation claim to have equality when the goalposts of multiculturalism are constantly shifting or being torn down?
America has an Identity Crisis
We are FUBAR. This nation is run by losers, and we live inside the maladaptive wetdream of the most supreme incels on the planet. White supremacists specifically, but insecure, mindless assholes writ large. The kind of people who don’t realize their own community is a mirror, reflective of a myopic and nihilist vanity so unimaginable it will be studied for generations. These losers buy into this every day by adopting a variety of white supremacy personality traits — ableism, capitalism, consumerism, anti-intellectualism, and an obsession with perfection, to name a few.
And that is why the snowflake argument is such effective messaging for the right, but a confession as well, because they operate with the same intentions; it’s just gaslighting and insecurity all the way down.
Liberals, the Right in Centrist Clothing
There is a cognitive distortion in seeing yourself in the enemy. Neo-liberals suffer from this greatly, as their values still center around capitalism, and when that is attacked or threatened, they go rabid. Suddenly, the tolerant left becomes the axis from which some of the most ineffective efforts arise and become the biggest blockers to community growth, survivability, progress, and ability to thrive. They align with malignant ideologies that are oppressive by design, aiming to preserve their way of existence within the status quo. This is the same reason why charity and philanthropy often fall short of their goals, as they themselves require the maligning of communities to subsist.
White Regression and the Equanimity of the Global Majority
Like two sides of the same coin, the principles of white supremacy require marginalized classes to adapt in solidarity, particularly in the form of the collective’s need to endure — a fight for preservation. Much like an olive tree still fights for its last bit of nutrients even as it is uprooted. We see this much across most of our societal constructs, communism still requires capitalism to exist, the light comes after the dark, and all that — Even death requires life. This is how white supremacy enables: a way to explain away all-or-nothing thinking and an inability to live in nuance — yet be so adept at creating it to draw layers of divide, never thinking of themselves as part of the global community; white folks never see themselves in it. Solidarity for the global majority then feels elusive as our repression requires divisiveness, lack of cohesiveness, where the in-group and the system they’ve built was designed to push us to the fringes, automated and impersonal, to kill us, and yet we are continually told to Take the High Road, Turn the Other Cheek.
All Ego. No Empathy.
White supremacy is parasitic. The brand that the U.S. specifically suffers from needs to be addressed, but globally requires treatment. Treatment will require systemic change, re-education, and re-edification.
To white people: flipping the table and liberating yourselves from the status quo is the only way to remove the veil, move forward, and save yourselves from your inherent selfishness.
Are those who adopt harmful ideologies capable of this type of deep inner work that requires addressing the most insidious parts of oneself and saying, “What the actual fuck environment is this creating, and where do I sit in this?” That kind of introspection requires vulnerability that many are not capable of. And yet.
What is pivotal? Many of us ask ourselves and scream into the void, saying, “What can be done in this moment?” “Won’t someone think of the future?” “How do we stop this madness?” “Is this actually our fucking life?” There is no more time to wait. Many have an idea that the world we live in isn’t exactly right, and yet sit back for one more heinous action, to say, “This is enough!”
How can this nation address inequities when capitalism requires subjugation?
How do we build a regenerative and sustainable way of life in a sick society that requires you to sell your body, mind, and soul and abandon yourself to fold into the mediocrity of white supremacy?
Those are questions with answers. Many of us know what needs to be done, but have had our autonomy and tools to take action within our communities stolen from us by way of political intimidation and straight-up violence.
So What?
What’s your point? Yes, racists suck, capitalism sucks. Yes, this system sucks, and we are all living inside the mass delusion of the world’s most awful demagogues. White supremacy is a mental illness. We need to stop giving them the oxygen they so desperately need to survive, because they will never be satisfied, never happy with any end result until everyone is dead, themselves included. This is a white supremacy-created problem that white people need to wake the fuck up and get on the front lines of and address.
My point is that we need to call it out every day for what it is; Call out the oppressors, name the oppression. Shame them publicly. Point out the various ways in which these folks wake up every day wanting to hurt and maim us without consequence; in fact, they do it with great applause. They are listening; they hate that we are talking to each other about it. They hate that no one likes them. Supreme loser shit. Revenge of the Nerds cosplay. But that is the point. We need to talk, discuss, plan, organize, and combat these issues. Not in the form of debates or intellectualization, but true action. We need to broadcast our voices and continue to take actions that show our collective power, and we need to do this moving in silence, and without permission, for it will never come.
Equality and freedom exist beyond the perimeter of the status quo.
Americans, and white Americans in particular, must move beyond theory, debate, and intellectualizing and get to the praxis — the vital cross-section of critical analysis and action. This is only done by listening to the voices most obstructed by the current worldview. White people need to shut the fuck up and listen — really listen — to Black and brown people. If you get defensive, feel attacked when someone denounces white supremacy as a pervasive social problem that stems from a deep affliction that is all ego and no empathy, you’re gonna have to sit with that and think about why that triggers you so much.
We need to address a fixed system: impersonal and biased, built to create divisiveness and marginalization, undemocratic, made to make us all feel unworthy and invisible, save for a select few.
To start, capitalist ideologues across the entire spectrum must do the work of deconstructing and divesting from the systems with which they find themselves sitting comfortably within by virtue of their privilege, but this requires self-reflection and genuine vulnerability; otherwise, it becomes a wound that festers, constantly re-injured and preventing future progress and healing from taking hold. This will be generational work, the work of righting the wrongs of disenfranchisement, the work of addressing the dismissal of truth.
Before we build the bridge to equality, white people need to redefine and redress freedom and the democratic process outside of the construct of white supremacy culture. They need to sit outside of the status quo and start at step zero, and undo generations of learned behavior and indoctrination. They need to take ownership of their part and complicity in this system and process.
Are they capable?