I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my piece about white supremacy and leadership from white women who appreciate being “educated”. I appreciate you all for reading, sharing, and engaging, but I want to raise up and share something that I said in a comment addressing how even that idea (that I write to educate you) is an extension of white supremacy.
Part of unpacking white supremacy is acknowledging the ways in which efforts to dismantle racism are structured to center the needs, wounds, and ultimately the education of white people. I write these pieces because they are healing for me. While it’s great that they’re instructive and helpful to white people, that isn’t my intention and it’s important to me that my intention; to heal myself, to hold space for people who have similar wounds to my own, is seen and understood.
I write to heal myself. I share to heal myself. I speak up for myself. For my soul, and the parts of myself that have been hurt and silenced by this bullshit. The fact that other’s can get something out of that is beautiful. The fact that I can say things I’ve been taught not to say and receive so much love in return is beautiful! - but in the context of my work and my art, I absolutely and unequivocally UNAPOLOGETICALLY center myself.
In respecting, acknowledging and acting accordingly - in how you approach and interact with me, in what you see and expect from me, in how you share my work – you are disrupting white supremacy.