trapped

***i am so incredibly indebted (reparations yes) to the many many folks of color who have challenged and continue to challenge me from every angle: those who have held my ignorance while holding my hand, shut me down when i needed it, drawn detailed maps of whiteness as presence (as racism), turned my gaze back, generously offered tools, frameworks, stories, compassion, patience, anger, grief... these are such enormous labors of transmutation*** 

from white supremacists with torches murdering and severely wounding people in charlottesville to madison police chief koval rounding up poor black folks throughout the city, on his equally supremacist and fascist "mission" ::: the continuum of white supremacy shows itself starkly 

the grief and anger spinning, our communities reeling

white supremacy culture isn't simply packaged in torches, nazi insignia, police badges, donald trump... it implicates the "nicest" of white liberals, the "fiercest" of white anarchists, the "smartest" of white radical leftist intellectuals, and includes deeply embedded and vigorously defended expectations:
-for everyday environments that bend and shape themselves around white people desires

-for interactions that assume white people should possess the constant presence of both safety and comfort, exploring/ expanding/ appropriating or withholding/ shutting down/ giving up at whatever whim

-for material opportunities, paths towards achievement - property, jobs, relationships, accolades, education, wealth, political power - that concede to an entitled "normalcy" of whiteness

-for ceaseless explicit and implicit control of "intangibles": narratives, aesthetics, rhetoric, emotional well-being, dialogue, manners, critiques, etc etc etc

... that fucked up whiteness of the mind. it is poison