Thinking about white supremacy

I had a perfectly lovely post about napping in my backyard written for today’s newsletter, but then I woke up Sunday morning to the news from Buffalo and writing about naps seemed silly. Superfluous. Or more than that, to write about naps would come from a space of white privilege which is to say, a newsletter about naps would be brought to you by white supremacy.

But, then, let’s be honest—every one of these newsletters is brought to you by white supremacy. White supremacy is the system that gives me the space and freedom to think about things like napping, let alone to nap extensively in a coddled and mostly worry-free space. White supremacy gave me the land I own, which in a truly just world would never belong to white people who violently stole it from indigenous people. White supremacy is why I live in a place with people who are mostly like me. White supremacy gave me my job and my comfort and my relative affluence. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

White supremacy is why in this newsletter, I can mostly take a break from things like white supremacy and cisheteropatriarchy and the other things that I make my living talking about for nine months of the year. I love teaching about these things. It is so important to teach about these things. It is also exhausting. Sometimes I want to talk about napping, instead. To be able to put those things aside is a privilege.

I don’t have anything new or insightful or thought-provoking to say about what happened in Buffalo. It’s all been said over and over and over again. You can’t possibly rank all the things that are horrible about this story, but I would put its sameness at the top of my own list. So, this has happened again. So this is still happening. Same, but different. Different, but the same.

This week, I will give some more money to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tries to track and combat the groups that spread these hate-fueled ideologies. I will remember Buffalo in the fall, when I stand in front of a classroom of mostly white intro students and feel that bone-deep dread that comes when we have our first conversation about race. Conversations about race are so important and also among the hardest ones we ever have.

What awkward and hurtful things, fueled by ignorance, will my students say out loud? How will I manage creating the space where they can speak these things as the first step to dismantling the ideas behind them, while also balancing the needs of my BIPOC students, who deserve spaces where they don’t have to hear these things?

Will I be able to move the needle, even the tiniest bit? Will I shift some white student in that classroom just two steps away from what their parents taught them? Will I be able to, at the very least, create a setting in which, for the length of 14 weeks, it’s clear that being racist or homophobic or transphobic or sexist or ableist is just, you know, not okay? Sometimes, even that might be enough—for them to know there is a world in which views like the one held by yesterday’s mass murderer are not okay.

As difficult as these conversations are, they’re still easier in the safety of the classroom where, at least so far, I’m the authority figure. I’m the “expert.” I’m in control. Having these conversations with family and friends and neighbors? That’s even harder.

I’d rather be talking about naps. There are so many other things I’d rather be talking about and I’m not alone. But this is not the world we live in. This newsletter is brought to you by white supremacy and it will be until things like what happened in Buffalo this weekend never happen again.