THE EMOTIONAL MECHANICS
OF WHITE SUPREMACY
People get hurt; that’s life. Some people get hurt a lot. Because of this, it invokes trauma and that trauma is not something you can easily leapfrog over. And it takes time; it takes healing.
Life doesn’t necessarily stop for that, though. And things add up; emotions, when hit with trauma, will overflow. Some are going to be like shudders through the body, little ripples you can’t shake. Some are going to feel like waves, splashing back and forth across the person’s psyche, violently.
What Civ(tm) has done is slant things towards authoritarian tendencies (hierarchy is a pre-requisite for cities) and feelings of supremacy (needed to keep cities functioning over time). This comes out, in modern times as white supremacy / white nationalism.
In other words, Whitsup/Whitnat really on offering simple, solid solutions to feeling generated by trauma. “It’s not YOUR fault. It’s the other.” “The other is emotional because they are jealous. YOU are superior.” This channels a mind into an unhealthy cycle of shame and blame. As shame when they can’t succeed (increasing their trauma) and blame as a method of deflection to let off the pressure of that increasing trauma.
Above all, the reality is that diversity is essential. Understand everyone’s different and uncover connecting points to form the loose relationships that allows everyone to thrive.
Healthy relationships need to be formed within one’s one landscape, not in a power-over kind of scenario but as in shared power, taking advantage of another’s strengths and offering your strength in return.
And lastly, it’s all about facing that trauma by getting help. In addition, trauma takes time to deal with. And that’s difficult without support, through relationships and diversity, which are difficult to get when your traumatized.
Ouch.
In the end, it’s not a simple answer, is it?
WAY FORWARD
I suppose this post is simply this:
- To understand why things go fubar and slide off to that tempting Whitsup/Whitnat play.
- For all of us to pitch in and figure out ways to inoculate out youth against it. However, that requires ACTIVE embracing of promoting physical / spiritual / mental health as vital to being human.
- For us to rescue people already mired in this crap, and who want to come out, who want to rejoin the human race but don’t see how… or worse yet, why it’s worth it.
What’s going to be your part to play in all of this?