Finding my people and healing from white supremacy

[Music]

hi

my name is mandy and first and foremost

i want to thank

my friend and chosen family member dr

david and gweny for inviting me to this

platform

today i want to share some of my

learnings and stories about healing from

white supremacy

here’s part one who are your people ella

joe baker was a brilliant civil and

human rights organizer for more than

five decades

when meeting people she was fond of

asking the question who are your people

she meant where do you come from but

also who do you identify with

i want to start with this question

because when it was first shared with me

a couple years ago

i honestly didn’t know how to answer i

didn’t really remember which jumble of

european countries my ancestors came

from

i didn’t feel connected to methodism

which my mom practices

and didn’t really know if i should claim

my father’s jewish identity

religiously or culturally i didn’t want

to claim my whiteness

in fact i was actively judgmental of

other white people

i didn’t feel especially proud of my

hometown a wealthy white central new

jersey town a couple miles up the road

from trenton

but more like a world away from it

i’m queer and polyamorous but those

words can sometimes cause a reaction

that makes me feel more isolated than

connected

everything else felt trivial i’m a bread

baker

a gardener a vegan someone who loves

birds

and most everything in the natural world

james baldwin said the following

one of the things that most afflicts

this country is that white people don’t

know who they are

where they come from and that’s why you

think i’m a problem

but i am not the problem your history is

and as long as you pretend that you

don’t know your history you’re going to

be the prisoner of it

in the pursuit of being able to answer

ella baker’s question

i spent some time investigating my

ancestors

and myself i learned that i come from a

french cabinet maker

a german wagon maker and a carpenter

somehow acquired married into or were

born onto

family farms in settler communities in

wisconsin

i know of at least one ancestor living

in chicago who served in the civil war

for the union

there are stories of survivors of

shipwrecks in haiti

and a family member lost to yellow fever

while making the voyage

they had the means to hire domestic and

farm workers

and then during world war ii their land

was worked by german war prisoners

one of them saved the state’s cabbage

crop one year and had a local school

named after him

they were able to talk their way out of

bootlegging and train hopping

after being caught by the police

my grandmother grew up very fast when

her brother died in the war

and her mother passed shortly after

i also come from a norwegian and

englishman whose stories of emigration

are lost i come from a fire truck driver

and women who hosted borders

during the depression one of my

grandfather’s parents couldn’t afford to

keep him fed

and sent him away to his aunt’s home

i’m the descendant of russian and

ukrainian jews fleeing persecution in

the late 1800s

one line of these jewish ancestors last

name was lost

either due to error or assimilation

i come from polish jews who were

prominent fur traders in europe

extended family members were among those

murdered in the holocaust

including at auschwitz i come from

a pajama manufacturer real estate

investor

furniture wholesaler and an event

planner who all settled and thrived

among their family

and their jewish and eastern european

communities in philadelphia

all of my grandparents went to college

and were the first generation to do so

and both grandfathers served in world

war ii

i come from people who loved to collect

things rocks

dishware cars political memorabilia

tools antiques i’m the descendant of

journalists

salesmen cancer survivors people who

struggled with addiction

and mental health battles and people

committed to charitable and service work

i have ancestors who were in the united

states as slavery reached its peak

with nearly 4 million people enslaved

perhaps some of them had witnessed slave

trading

during stopovers in the caribbean and

the american south in the 1830s and 40s

i have ancestors who were in the united

states as the country was completing the

final displacement

of american indian people onto

reservations

and beginning to send their children to

schools intended to erase their cultural

traditions

the first ancestors of mine arriving to

the united states

lived on the stolen unseated land of the

kika poi

peoria kaskaskia miyamiya

ocheti shakowi patawaptami

sak and meskowaki winnebago

and leni lanave

have ancestors who wouldn’t have been

considered white until the end of world

war

ii as jews also became middle class

their neighborhoods in philadelphia

were redlined and disinvested as they

also became majority black

the gi bill arguably the most massive

affirmative action program in u.s

history

offered college and very cheap home

mortgages to my grandfathers

james baldwin also offered the following

white means that you are european still

and black means that i’m african

and we both know we’ve both been here

too long

you can’t go back to ireland or poland

or england and i can’t go back to africa

we will live here together or we will

die here together

my family has very very few cultural

traditions for my european ancestors

that persisted into my lifetime i do not

feel connected to france

germany poland norway england russia

or ukraine and yet

this exploration has helped me begin to

answer ella baker’s question

and james baldwin’s call for

accountability

i will assume complexity in the lives of

my ancestors

as i would wish anyone to assume

complexity about my life

looking at what i know about my

ancestors i see moments of poverty and

discrimination that could have linked

our lives to larger struggles

perhaps my ancestors would be dancing

for joy that me and many in my

generation are actively pursuing

anti-racist and anti-capitalist futures

nonetheless the family has histories

that i intend to reckon with

are those of race and class privilege

the disproportionate ability

to build generational wealth that makes

me upper class today

and the cycles of remaining comfortable

in our positions of power and

opportunity

okay here’s part two healing from white

supremacy

there’s something i need to remind

myself again and again

everyone raised in the united states is

raised within racist and oppressive

systems

i don’t believe that anyone is

inherently bad including white people

but all people have racism reinforced

into us

whether external or internalized racism

simply by living in the united states

we are born into systems much larger

than us

a toxic culture of whiteness that

conditions us

however we’re not powerless we can and

must intentionally walk ourselves

away from that socialization

it is vulnerable to confront and admit

to the lies we have believed

that white people are somehow superior

to others

it is safer and more emotionally secure

to take ourselves to be innocent

however white supremacy doesn’t only

cause hell for black folks

as princeton professor eddie claude

points out quote

it is literally deforming and

disfiguring the character

of the people who embrace it unquote

if we aren’t confronting the lies we

were taught we adjust ourselves to

injustice

the place where i grew up hopewell

valley in central new jersey

is largely a place of abundance

preserved green space

a topped ranked school district and a

median income of about 135 thousand

dollars

i was instilled with the belief that

hopewell is a progressive community

that lives out the values of

open-mindedness and open arms to the

diversity of the world around us

i saw the problems of the world

happening elsewhere

down the road in trenton or across the

global south

in so-called developing countries in

reality my hometown has been a place of

violence

direct and structural a neighbor

in my hometown renata barnes recently

wrote the following

in truth our own sourland mountains are

soaked in the tears

sweat and hopes of first generation

slaves

as their descendants drive the roads

that began as trails beaten back by

their ancestors

in my lifetime i went to schools and

lived in a neighborhood that was

deeply segregated from the majority

black

and latinx state capital trenton just a

few miles down the road

one of the things that i learned growing

up was a white savior complex

i was very subscribed to the idea that i

needed to help or fix

black communities near and far

my first significant experience within a

community of color

was traveling to kenya as a 15 year old

with my biology teacher

dr nguyen who took us around the country

and to his own hometown

i romanticized the ways of life i

observed in kenya

perhaps i was craving the aspects of

kenyan cultures that

white culture did not provide me but

simultaneous simultaneously i came home

and set upon essentially making

decisions about what is best for other

people

what food to buy for distributions in

trenton for example

or what projects to fundraise for in

rural kenya

flash forward to my first job after

college and i found myself having a

quarter life crisis

feeling like my job at a mainstream

environmental organization was

completely unfulfilling

but i couldn’t quite put my finger on

why this seemingly mission-driven place

was so disappointing and why i felt such

guilt about how i spent my days

i had a huge awakening when i first read

the characteristics of white supremacy

culture

the analysis of kenneth jones and tema

oaken

i could apply every single

characteristic to my workplace

paternalism perfectionism urgency

individualism objectivity

fear of open conflict defensiveness

a preference for quantity over quality

believing in only one right way to do

things

trying to simplify complex things

hoarding power and expecting a right to

comfort

i also realized that this culture was

one that i knew deeply

and had perpetuated throughout my own

life

i’ve been learning that guilt and shame

can be important for mobilizing people

with privilege

but they can also become toxic if we sit

in them

it does not serve anyone to allow these

feelings to drive you to anxiety

and depression that is debilitating

it does not serve anyone to allow these

feelings to drive you to anger

and hostility or self-righteousness and

elitism

towards people you love

for people like me people with race and

class privilege

to be in solidarity with people unlike

myself and

to be able to successfully call in other

people with privilege to hard

conversations

i believe we have to heal from our own

pain

from internalized white supremacy

i’m still learning how to pursue healing

but here’s what it’s looked like for me

so far in one instance where i caused

harm

to a black housemate she called in two

healers

to facilitate a dialogue though we

didn’t heal our relationship

in large part because of my own guilt

and shame that i trapped myself in

these healers were essential to

reframing my thinking

later sandra kim founder of everyday

feminism

and re-becoming human helped me

understand my own need to build

emotional capacity

to understand the realities of white

supremacy and how it to humiliate

dehumanizes white people to reconnect

with myself

reconnect with my lineages and reconnect

with nature

i found i needed therapy and medication

over time i began practicing getting

more rooted in my body

using breathing and meditative exercises

getting outside to walk every day and

dancing with my partner

i have found communities for healing

conversations with other white people

with wealth and class

privilege and other white people in my

neighborhood

i found healing in redistributing the

excess wealth and income

that i do not need i’ve slowly been

reconnecting with my jewish identity

through holidays

events hosted by a wonderful local group

and being in community

with my partner and another jewish

housemate

i have the honor to work at one of the

oldest and largest civil rights

organizations in the country

to organize with brilliant neighbors who

are defending public housing and

supporting

mutual aid during the pandemic and to

live

in a multi-racial and cross-class

intentional community

of artists and activists to show up in

these spaces as a white person

means constant self-reflection and

accountability

i think about ella baker’s wisdom for

how i participate in the movement for

collective

liberation she quote pushed

college students to see illiterate share

cop

sharecroppers as their people their

allies and their political mentors

she pushed northerners to embrace

southerners in principled solidarity

she organized back and forth across

various color and cultural lines

and across generational divides unquote

solidarity means finding my own stake in

racial justice

and slowly i think i’m getting there

along the way i’m finding that who i

consider my people

is growing and growing and i’m feeling

more and more myself thank you