Intention vs. Impact: My Rich White Male Friends Threw a Secret Festival During a Pandemic & A Fight for Racial Justice
By: Rebecca Martinez
Tags: White Privilege, Black Lives Mater, Psychedelics, Portland, Ycombinator

This fall, September 2020, I received a phone call from a friend with an invitation for me. He was very excited to tell me about the second mini festival he was planning, “for the community”. For a brief moment, I thought to myself, The pandemic is over! Life is back to normal! And then, reality rushed back in. Everything was the way it had been before he called: people were sick and dying from COVID. People protesting police brutality were being beaten and teargassed downtown. Beloved Portland businesses were permanently closing, and 45 was trying to destroy democracy.

But my lighthearted, blue eyed friend had chosen an alternate reality. With the privilege of insulating himself from the outside world, he had made the choice to ignore the pandemic, as well as the current collective efforts toward anti-racism. I felt thrown off; alleviating immediate suffering in our community and thinking deeply about justice for all was occupying my waking hours and those of many people in my close circles. I’d blindly assumed that we were all on the same page. So, his party invitation came out of left field.

Early into the shutdown, when I’d asked him about his safety protocols, he chuckled and said, “Honestly… I don’t really care. And I feel like people are judging me for it.”

When we spoke about Black Lives Matter and the need to put Black people in positions of leadership going forward, he said, “I’m not really part of the race conversation.”

…Really. He said those words. And I know there are many underinformed people who hold a lot of power and share his attitudes. Happily ignorant. Opting out to avoid the discomfort of facing their own entitlement.

I hadn’t been invited to the first gathering. I wouldn’t have gone if I had; infection rates were climbing and it felt important to me to stay home and do my part, avoiding contact whenever possible; not just for myself and my network, but in solidarity with the vulnerable groups who were indirectly affected by my choices. I’d been at home reading, listening, soul searching, and having hard conversations with my roommate and my son. We were examining the way the pandemic and the fight for social justice were intricately related (remember that Black communities are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and lack of access to healthcare), and exploring how to check our own privilege and be better for our Black loved ones and neighbors.

So his call was shocking to me. I was stunned by the stark realization that we were living in alternate realities — to him, the fight for social justice was in some way low vibey and missing the “real point “— ascension of our consciousness to a fully awakened place of universal love. As if we all just needed to go home and take some MDMA, and then society would heal itself and somehow magically erase the present injustices and those that led us here.

I didn’t have the energy to even begin addressing what I had just heard from him. I politely declined his invitation and tried to move on, making excuses for him and the others. They live in a completely different reality. A world of startups and Y Combinator and funemployment. They think climate change activism exempts them from racial justice activism. How could they possibly get it? I thought. It’s not my job to call them out.

But I was losing sleep. My stomach was in knots. I wondered what my responsibility was, being in proximity to people with this kind of power and privilege. I wondered what it meant to be a friend when someone you love is being problematic as fuck.

I climbed out of bed and wrote the following. I wish to invite white and white passing people reading this to dig deeper and reflect honestly about how we are exercising our privileges, how our attitudes of entitlement, exceptionalism and escapism manifest, and explore our personal responsibility to face uncomfortable truths and help transform them. We belong to each other.

***

It would be amusing

Cute, almost

If it weren’t so maddening

The privilege

The naïveté

The entitlement

Nestled like a soft puppy

In the psyches

Of these “woke” white men

Who think

A pandemic is

Just a big fuss

An inconvenience

People are dying, man.

Not seeing it doesn’t erase it

It never did

So

When you call me and say

“I’m planning a

secret festival”

How am I to respond:

“What is festive about a time like this?”

“You’re being an asshole.”

“What alternate reality are you in?”

But no, I smile and nod and say

“Good for you. I can’t come.”

Even though my blood is

Simmering between my ears

It’s selfish and

Shortsighted and

Irresponsible and

SO INCREDIBLY TONE DEAF

A super spreader cuddle puddle

Drug bubble with more

Privileged Portlanders

We’re in election season

A global pandemic

A political uprising

A fight for racial justice

And somehow

Because you believe

Your consciousness shapes

Your reality

You think you can look away

And be exempt

When you say to me

“I’m not really part

of the race conversation”

What I hear is

I don’t care.

I don’t get it.

I don’t see the suffering of the oppressed

Who are shouting and mourning their dead in the streets

You’re not neutral

You’re disengaged

You’re reinforcing the America we’re in

How can I respond with

Anything other than

Digust, rage, distance

You’re not part of the solution

”Raising consciousness” with

Your rich, white dude-led mini festivals

And dancing and eye-gazing

Unless you’re informed through the lens

Of racism and sexism and classism

And hearing the people shoved down by those ism’s

You’re embodying

The problem

Harm isn’t always

White hoods and MAGA hats

It’s also centering your agenda

Placing your wishes over the needs of the community

Recklessness is turning your back on what’s real.

If I were Black, would you feel any different?

You don’t seem like someone I could trust

To have my back

In times like these

Or ever, really

You can’t ascend without

Going through the valley

These are dark and painful

And beautiful times

What you’re doing

That’s not expansion

Or enlightenment

I t’ s

p s y c h e d e l i c

b y p a s s i n g.

So, no.

I’m not even flattered when you say I’m

“high-vibe” enough to join your

“MDMA not-cult”

Here, on the outside,

We’re laughing, incredulous

Your behavior is a punch line

You should call Fred Armisen

This is great material

But I’m sad and sickened

And exhausted by

The newly enlightened

Misguided white boys

And shamans

The ones who appropriate the name

And the ones who know better

Talking endlessly about how they’re

DOING THE WORK

With their meditation

And yoga retreats

And appropriative cacao ceremonies

And partaking in medicines without a clue

Of what sacred reciprocity means

I’m tired

Because I don’t believe you.

I don’t believe that evolution is

Supposed to make you numb

Or ignorant

Or disengaged.

Why would mushrooms

Or cacti

Or vines

Or leaves

Or roots

The very spirit and intelligence of the Earth

Blast you away from herself

With her texture and blood and life and pain?

She’s never done that with me

She thrusts me into herself

Makes me bear witness.

Why would spirituality

Deny your humanity?

You’re not aspirational.

The more I see you

With your talks and podcasts and books and drugs

And intellectual cock stroking

The more I realize we have little to share.

We’re in different worlds.

You’re a white fish in a white pond.

My Black and brown and queer friends

Would cringe

If they heard the things I’ve heard

From the mouths of men like you.

And the worst part?

If I said this to you

You’d want to hug it out

You’d say “It’s all love.”

And then behind closed doors

You’d say I need MDMA

Because my

“Judgment centers are super activated”

Because you couldn’t possibly be the problem,

With your sweet laugh and blue puppy dog eyes

And innocent, ignorant intentions

You know what?

You go on ahead

Enjoy life in the clouds with

More rich, white, pretty people

Whose “trauma” was being too doted on as a child

or Silicon Valley stifling their spirit.

I’ll stay here on Earth

In the streets and the soil

and the mess of humanity.

How can “oneness” happen

When you’re ignoring

The pain of our brothers and sisters?

How can waking up mean

Shutting your eyes?

I’m on a mission to see more.

To witness it

To understand it.

To feel in my bones:

How an intersectional life manifests

You don’t have to join us.

I don’t have energy to coach you

To paddle upstream

At least stay out of the way

P l e a s e

Leave space for those who are emerging

No one actually

Asked for more

White saviors

Take up less room

Let others lead

Step out of center

For once

Is that so much to ask?

***

PS: Did this resonate with you? Join me at Fruiting Bodies, a soon-to-be-released podcast where we amplify voices of Black and brown folks, indigenous wisdom keepers, and women in psychedelics.

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