Five key steps to displacing your whiteness

1. Lean in. Sometimes Afrocentric knowledge hurts, and that's when you need to lean in and open up more, decentralizing whiteness is like debriding centuries old wound that is rotten to the core. You will have to work hard and quickly before sepsis sets in.

2. Old habits die hard.
Decentralizing your whiteness is not a gift to People of Color, Decentralizing your whiteness is NOT a gift to People of Color, therefore we do not owe you our labor or knowledge for free.

3. Stay the course. Do not feel berated or discouraged when those oppressed refuse to help for free. While you may not have directly participated in colonization and slavery you have been born into a world where you continually profit from its systemic inequalities. see step 2 above.

4. Double Down. Knowledge is power, so keep reading keep reflecting on how you have unwittingly contributed to the status quo, keep unlearning and then do the work QUIETLY (do not expect an ally ship cookie), donate, show up when needed and collect your friends when their privilege starts leaking (white tears are a valuable asset that signals they might want to start at step 1. above)  

5. Pass it on. If you learn something new you will be expected to clue in your other white friends and family members (this might be hard, so seek support from your community) never forget that while privilege isn't contagious it does leak and even with your new found knowledge you have not arrived at ally-ship mecca.

*ally-ship mecca is the mythical place where you end up after clocking a set amount of allyship hours, once you are there you are not only absolved of all privileges (while still benefiting from them) but you then become immune to ever being guilty of not being a super ally.

For the love of Black hair

Sitting at an all Black hair salon for the first time in several years, and the entire experience is like communing with my ancestors.  
Why did I wait so long? My stylist grabs the tiny stands of hair at the front of my head and breath in deeply and out reminding myself to pace my breath as she weaves her fingers though my hair revealing my tortured past.
I close my eyes and take another deep breath as I sink lower into my seat hoping to merge into the silhouette my chair and into my soundings.
On the radio 700 club is selling Christian prayers to the tune of someone describing how white Jesus saved him. The latest soap opera is play on the TV as someone yells "she's faking that pregnancy" over the sound of the industrial fan blasting recycled air sweetened with the smell of oil sheen spray. Ladies with manicured nails sit under the hair drier reading the latest fashion and tabloid magazines. The stylist beside me kisses her teeth and while others laugh to the point of tears as I show them the pictures and articles claiming that Marc Jacob invented Banu Knots, another customer exclaimed from the waiting area "did you hear, the Chinese invented steel pan music" every one laughs. I have tears in my eyes but it's not the over whelming sense of community in this shop on a Tuesday morning it's the searing pain from the process of having my hair tightly styled to perfection. In a distance I can hear my grandmother saying "dry those tears, beauty feels no pain" 

white supremacist agenda – systematically eradicating black lives

 

 Policing - in charge of extermination and procurement

Justice system – Ensuring detainment and normalizing of mass slavery

Educational system – Erasure of history, of self-value of self-worth. Indoctrination, introduction to militarization, behavior modification: how to be and act civilized like good white folks.

Religion – reinforcement of behaviour modification, mental and emotional slavery, pacify any means of rebellion thru indoctrination, subjugation. Insubordination = eternal damnation but obedience = eternal life.

Militarization – Money = More Power. Power is Safety, freedom, and Love therefore more wars equals increased freedoms

Media and popular culture – demonizing black: physical traits, black love. Appropriation and rebranding of black music, food and clothing.

What I was taught:

Black men are thieves, liars, fornicators, family deserters, violent thugs, who’s only value is in his ability to labour. Once naturalized and tamed his agility and strength can be capitalize upon.  

Black women are promiscuous, reproduce wildly, uncontrolled, loud, the source of problem, they must be controlled, sterilized and made to watch their off springs suffer, be enslaved, and executed. Their wombs are cursed with the diseases of blackness, they produce only social plagues.

What I did:

Maintained a socially upstanding life, as a leader at school, in the military, and at church; as an educational over achiever.  As an only child failure was never an option and I met and exceeded all expectations. Marrying at 21 to the 1^st white* man who professed love.

How I continue to unlearn:

Motherhood, failure, depression, suicide, cycle of self-destructive behaviours, truth, rebellion, love, community, organizing, constant life exfoliation and re-growth.

Practicing Black love as a Black person is truly a militant and revolutionary act.

Centering: Black, Indigenous and all Peoples of Color

Creating anything that is centered on the experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) isn't popular and can be problematic as white supremacy has weaved itself into every aspect of our lived and shared experiences. white supremacy demands answers, demands power and center stage, it demands not only that we hate each other but that we hate all the different shades of our heritage and all traces of our his/her story.

As for me, I wont buckle or budge. This revolution might start as a concept, but I will be there every day pounding the pavement, raising my voice in celebration of placing BIPOC in the center: For those of us who's birthright have been snuffed out from existence, for those of us who cant go home, or have no home, for those who have been disowned and disenfranchised.

I wont claim to know all the answers, or even know what all the questions are, but I will keep my money, my voice and my soul where my heart is at all times. I will keep on evolving, loving my comrades and my self. Until there is no strength left to move, no blood left to be spilled and no breath left to voice the struggles of our people.

After all ... I am Maroon.

"I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water."
- Maya Angelou (Rest in Strength)

While you sleep

My great grandmother, my grandmother my mother and my daughter are all alive, a precious bio-fact like a jewel I hold so dear. But on nights like these when I watch my daughter sleep I cant help but think of the history of evil that has impacted our lives from slavery, rape, servitude and incest, all four generations of us are all survivors of some of the worst types of evil this world has to offer.

And then I look at her sleep, so delicately peaceful, and unaware that even as a fetus she was called a "mutt" by her white father's white coworker and friend. Then I remembered the 1st time she came home and explained that she wished she lived in Jamaica where people looked like her. And as I asked her to further explain her feelings, it all faded to black as my heart sank. I stood there motionless with every racist encounter I've had flashing thru my mind and body, triggered, angry and speechless.

I focused on her words as she explained her discomfort and her new acknowledgement of the racial divide in authority figures at her school. I remembered mumbling something about our city's history and the need for more diversity and the pace of change.
But really, how do I explain to a small child that as different as she feels she will not only experience a multitude of racist encounters, racist people, racist systems of white idolatry but will also be treated differently because of her light skin privilege? A privilege that must always be checked.

 For now I stand here over her bed watching her sleep, praying to my ancestors, the universe and my black god(dess) that she (my peacefully sleeping daughter) will be as fierce, as brave, as strong, as wise and even more resilient than the five generations of women who have all survived and are all alive, loving her and teaching her the best way we can.

*Image - Family Tree (Limited Edition Lithograph) - Keith Mallett