Most White People Are Never Going To Change Their Ways
By: Marley K.
Tags: Politics, BlackLivesMatter, Race, Equality, White Supremacy

My Black Soul Has Been Grieved

I have been meditating over the last few months on what to do about Black folks’ approaches to racism. I was hoping last week White people would prove me wrong. I spent the past weekend doing what I do when I need to work something out in my spirit, smoking Bajan cigars, listening to Trap music and indulging in my favorite adult beverages on the back porch in silence for hours. I took a few moments to appreciate Trump will no longer hurt us come January, but his aggrieved supporters aren’t going anywhere. That’s at least three generations of racists Black folks gotta plan for.

There is no rest from hate in America. The election confirmed it.

I’m still shocked America has so many racist White people willing to support a snake oil sales associate as long as he hurts the same people they dislike, including White antiracist allies Trumpsters deem traitors.

I desperately wanted to be wrong about how White people would vote, but I know White people love Whiteness and all the privileges that go along with it more than most would care to admit. I get no joy about being right about shit like this, but people. I know people, especially White people. Most Black people know White people.

I gave White folks warnings about the dog whistles and GOP fuckery was on the horizon. I also talked about liberal racism. I knew Trump had churned to the surface stuff that’s always in most White folks in America, but they must have been taking suppression pills or some shit to keep their racism at bay. But Trump has spent the last 13-years ginning up the old America. It was that same old America Trump was trying to help seventy-million Americans get back to, the one when they could treat us like shit. The separate and unequal one. The one where White boys ride at night looking for Black boys to hang from poplar trees.

As I warned over the past few years about liberal and conservatism racism and what was brewing barely underneath the surface, White people (and a lot of Black ones) did what they always do. They asked me to be optimistic. Believe in the process. Trust White people. Times are different. Look at the bright side. Well, guess what?

Our Never-Ending War With White Supremacy

Ain’t no fuckin bright side with racism and White people. They love racism more than they love humanity, and they did exactly what I knew they would. White racists are at war with us again, and when they aren’t at war, they are aggrieved and look for revenge for some shit they believe we took from them. Black folks have been living and acting as if we’re just having a minor dispute with family. This Black-and-White issue in America is very much like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. White folks started that war with Brown folks with no plan to end it. It’s been almost 20-years and even though we know bad intel started it, White folks have no problem funding and fighting a war that will yield no fruit.

Black folks are in a war, but we’re acting like we don’t know it. To be more specific, we’ve been conditioned to believe we’re not. White people know they are in a war, Black folks are the ones who are uncertain. Our ancestors were at war with White people. Our elders were and are at war with White people. They won a few rights and concessions and raised us to think the war was over, but it wasn’t. Our generation was and is at war with White people, and now our children and grandchildren are at war with White people. White Supremacy is an enemy combatant and we can’t kill the motherfucker!

To live with White people is to be in a constant war where they have all the power, all the soldiers, all the forces, the best generals, the most training, and all the tactical gear. We’re out manned, outweaponed, undertrained, and to be frank, we just aren’t built like White people. We’re peaceful people, we just want to be left alone, just as the slaves did when they were emancipated. But White people are different. They have an insatiable White rage. They need to conquer and/or control anything and anyone not deemed White, and they are created and programmed to take. Giving is not in their plan. They need to be at the top so they can control everything.

It’s hard to live with people who have that. Black people have never been equipped to live among White people. We’ve done the best we could with less and still made something out of nothing, but I’m exhausted seeing us scrape by just to be pushed back.

The majority White folks in America voted White with no regard for the rest of us non-White folks. The forty percent of White folks that voted for Democrats aren’t even all Democrats. They just figured Trump went overboard, but they had nothing to say about Trump and Sarah Palin’s type of racism prior to 2020. We’re giving White folks way too much credit without dissecting the White vote for Biden. I’m tired of dissecting them. Some saviors are the same sinners that got us here. But who came through and saved America, Black people, the very people they’d kill if they could.

Now here comes calls for us to be gracious and befriend crazy fucking Trump voters. Fuck them. I wish I would. We are in a domestic violence relationship that continues because we Black folks allow it.

Reality has set in for me. I won’t see race relations improve, just like my 70-year-old father hasn’t. Just like his 90-year-old mother didn’t when she died, and just like her parents didn’t who were cotton pickers and share croppers. White people are not changing, and there aren’t enough White people with power to make changes quickly enough to ease some of our short-term and long-term issues.

White people have already moved back to doing White people’s shit. Celebrating in the streets when they don’t have shit to be celebrating. They should be ashamed they make up 80% of the nation, and most White voters chose White Supremacy. But nope they were in the street singing Sweet Caroline, drinking, and attempting to decenter the real objects of Trump’s voter suppression, Black people.

The way we co-exist with White people has to change because White people won’t. White people are always at war with us, and you can’t ever have peace when folks are starting and funding wars that we may not even know are aware.

Nothing We Do Is Good Enough

We’ve been nice to White folks. That’s never gotten us anything except used, walked over, and hurt. We’ve tried being friends and sharing their spaces since fighting for integration. That hasn’t work too well either. White folks still don’t like us after all these years. We’ve contributed to society in countless ways, and somehow our advancing America has only advanced White people. Nothing we do makes them see or treat us equally or more humanely. No matter how rich we become, no matter how much more educated we are, and no matter how much we assimilate, White people still cannot accept Black people. We’ve never been grandfathered into the fabric of America. We’re never enough.

We’re tired.

We’ve been killed, shut out of opportunities, vilified, and used as scapegoats for White mediocrity. We’ve integrated White spaces, and White folks have created new White spaces to flock to. We’ve tried raising “good” kids, moving to the suburbs, talking White, nothing is ever good enough. Nothing we do makes most White people see us differently to change their evil ways. I’m throwing in the towel to the old ways of doing anti-racism and chasing equality.

Doing the same thing when it isn’t working and expecting different results is insanity. Black people keep doing the same shit and getting the same results.

I’ve read too many history books and been to too many towns in America that still haven’t moved out of the 50s. In 500-years, we should have more, be more, feel better, live better, but we can’t because of White people and their trusty sidekicks, racist People of Color. If 2020 has taught Black folks anything, it’s that most White people keep a plan to do us harm and cheat us out of rights and power, yet we’re still working trying to help them build a society that we’ll never fully get to be a part of or enjoy.

I can’t do that anymore. I’ve wasted too much time, been hurt too many times, and have nothing to show my efforts except debt and wounds.

I can’t keep grooming my children and grandchildren to go into a world that will never accept them. I can’t keep asking Black people to put their hope in people who have a solid reputation for doing everything except the right thing. White folks have been doing barely enough and nothing at all, contributing to our current state. It’s unacceptable, and it’s insane to keep working toward the same goals, moving in the same direction, and using the master’s tool to dismantle or fix problems White people created.

It’s Impossible To Make Progress Working With White People

It’s impossible to achieve equality with White men like Trump and Mitch McConnell in our politics, Bill Barr as the Attorney General, and White women all over the place wreaking havoc in Black lives. You can’t make progress It’s hard to achieve equality when most White women are busy selling Black women down the river and selfishly throwing us under buses when an opportunity comes.

The Democratic Party doesn’t realize how racist they are and how exclusive and White-focused the party is. There just aren’t enough resources or people devoted to anti-racism, and most White people who think they got this don’t understand anti-racism is a lifelong endeavor. We’re all living in a racist system, and White people foolishly believe they don’t even engage in racism. Progress has to be more than just White people getting it. Because even though you guys get it, enough of you don’t change to validate all that getting.

It’s impossible to move forward without reparations and justice, and America isn’t interested in giving Black folks the two things we need most. Equality means supporting us financially, because in America that’s the only thing that will make our playing fields somewhat equal. Why should I be so vested in continuing this dance of moving two steps forward and ten steps back?

I’m not. In fact, I hate doing double work. I hate repeating myself, and I hate doing stuff that I know won’t work.

I’ve concluded like so many other Black anti-racism educators and essayists like Lecia Michelle 📃 that you can’t really work with White people because they are never invested in achieving equality as we are — and most White folks will eventually leave us like they always do. It’s really too late to be teaching this. More White folks should be further along in their racism education and able to put that education to work, but the anti-racism education of White people has been used as a cookie or badge in their social circles to prove they aren’t racist. They even do it to us.

There is also the pressure of Whiteness placed on White folks engaging in anti-racism. White people are extremely oppressive and punitive, especially to good White people trying to do the right thing. Often, good White people waffle because of it. Nobody wants to live like Black people.

As I noted in another piece after the election, White people love racism more than they love humanity. I understood many people wanting to not talk about it for the moment so they could savor the W (of course they were mostly White), but that’s not how my mind works. I see nothing but more problems for us. White Supremacy today is the colonialism of yesterday. It doesn’t die. It just evolves. As long as there are White people, their will be racism and social hierarchies.

This election has shown confirmed what we Black folks already knew. We have no real friends, there are no Black and Brown coalitions, and White folks just don’t get “it,” any of it, despite living in the same world we do day in and day out. It’s exhausting trying to convince people to see the value in our humanity. And the White virtue signaling. It’s all too much to bear. White people will never see us Black folks as human or worth saving, therefore, it’s impossible to achieve progress. If we were dogs, bears, or a gun, perhaps we’d have a better shot.

Most White People Still Don’t Get It, Even Allies

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

For those White folks who got it, that’s great! After the election results, understand my shift in anti-racism to Pro-Black. While we Black folks are somewhat trapped in a relationship with White Supremacy, we’re not stuck in one place. It’s okay for Black folks to walk away from our fights for equality to start over doing some new things. We need not feel guilty for looking to small grassroots efforts vested in building Black people to lead and fight for us. Someone has to sacrifice. It might as well be those of us who get it. But not being as vested in equality as I was doesn’t mean I’m not still going to do anti-racism stuff. I can do two things at once, and two things can be right at the same time.

I agree we need to continue talking about racism and White Supremacy, and Black folks need to separate from White Supremacy as much as possible, no matter the cost. No one is going to save us but us. I am fully aware Black folks are not a monolith and we all are on different journeys with White Supremacy. I also know just like White people, a lot of Black people love and enjoy their proximity to Whiteness and the other benefits from living, working, and playing in a White society. Some folks are not about sacrificing and building, securing the food for the meal or preparing the table. They just want to come to the table when the food is ready to eat.

There are also the optimists who insist on bright sides, rainbows, seeing the good in everything, and blah… blah…. blah… that’s their prerogative. I can’t tell anyone how to feel. I respect their philosophies; I hope they respect mines. I’m tired of seeing Black folks keep waiting on White folks to change. They aren’t, and we’re suffering because we’re hoping and relying on people who have shown us they don’t give a shit about us. They don’t too much care about themselves either. Our values are different. Our morals are different.

Our reverence for humanity is different, and most White people don’t see us as human. White America should never forget how terrible Trump was to us and this country, but many have already and he’s not even gone yet.

This ain’t pre-school, this is real life and I’m not interested in teaching people, not interested in learning or living with people who don’t see me as human. We’ve seen the selective outrage and apathy. It’s the reason we’re here.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

After months of agonizing about the state of Black America, specifically descendants of American slavery, I’ve decided I can’t just sit around and wait on equality to catch fire with White people. They are barely interested enough to save their own asses from fascism, so Black folks and People of Color had to save them. While I’ll still be addressing anti-racism, I’m moving to a more Pro-Black, Black Liberation focus.

We Black folks need to ween ourselves away from the teets of White Supremacy. The last few days have confirmed there is no Black and Brown coalition. That’s some mythical, magical bullshit lazy White folks came up with to keep from having to learn about our individual issues/problems. Group non-Whites and move on. While some problems among the various racial/ethnic groups are similar, Black folks have some very specific issues that no other group has.

We’ve suffered longer, been discriminated against longer, even by other non-White groups, and we’ve never gotten the opportunities other groups received like Italians, Jews, Asians, and the Irish to be grandfathered into Whiteness. We’ve fought against White Supremacy longer, and we’ve done more to achieve civil rights than any group that has had to fight for rights.

None of these things matters. It still does nothing to improve our standing in America.

Anti-Black sentiments follow us everywhere we go. So if White folks don’t want to coexist us, maybe we should create our own stuff, support our own stuff, and create the society we want to have. We need our own communities where we can be safe. We need to plan and build self-sufficient cities and towns. Instead of playing sports for White owners, Black folks need to create quality entertainment and fund it ourselves. We need to create our own ecosystems for everything we need and want, and why not? Everybody else does it. Why are we buying hair from Koreans and Chinese? Why are non-Black people in charge of Black beauty? We need to look inward, accept some responsibility for our exploitation, and then do something about it.

Black people gotta change their attitudes and mindsets about Blackness and what it means to be an American. White America’s definition isn’t going to ever work for us, so we must create our own definition (s). White people have taught us their stuff is the best stuff and their way is the best. Their good stuff is just stuff they’ve stolen from other cultures and countries, they just claim those for their own. How many things have White people stolen from us and profited from that came directly from Black people or the African-American culture? We would be a lot richer if we stopped contributing to White Supremacy.

It will require sacrifice and support from White allies who understand none of us have the power to change this country. I would hope they see the value in this. If not, oh well. It was a nice ride. I can’t condone domestic violence. I’m a survivor of domestic violence, so I know what freedom from abuse feels like. If you don’t have the empathy and emotional intelligence to understand this is, you really can’t be an ally. No one sane who is responsible for their family is going to allow an enemy, predator, or intruder to come in and do harm it.

Not a bear. Not a guard dog. Not a whale, not a duck. Not even a cow. So why does America keep asking and/or expecting Black people to go against nature?

I see us going against nature by not protecting our own.

We need to support our own care for our own and love us back to life. It’s not like we don’t know how to. Black folks did it decades and centuries ago. Remember Black Wall Street, Black Harlem, New York, and old Overtown in Miami pre highways and gentrification and pre-integration? Reimagine Black thriving communities.

We need to reinvest in Black higher education and in developing more sharp young medical professionals with the state-of-the-art medical practices and hospitals for them to work in. Black health can finally be a priority.

Black folks need to raise children who will want to become farmers or become agriculturalists themselves who can raise food nationally to serve Black households. All Black people gotta eat, so grow your own food. Create national grocery chains. Employ people in those communities. Use Black farmers to supply those chains.

Why do we insist on waiting on White America to feed us? We need Black schools filled with loving Black teachers who know how to talk to babies and who aren’t afraid of our Black kids.

We need social networks created by Black people for Black people that don’t censor Black language, Black thought, Black ideas, or Black discussions, allowing us to communicate free of White and foreign gazes, concern trolling, and tone policing. We need to create and appreciate our own arts. It’s time to stop raising our children to aspire to White things, only to be beaten down by White Supremacy. We need to facilitate our own spaces that love our Black. We need allies to help like ideas with funds, because White folks have all the money.

We need to invest in real estate that allows us to build beautiful Black hotels, grocery stores, entertainment venues, restaurants, and other industries and businesses that can make stuff to be sold locally, nationally, and internationally and is good for the environment. We need to create the police forces we want to police ourselves. Black folks need political action communities just like Jews, Arabs, Asians, and Hispanics have.

We lose at politics because we don’t know how to play the game. White folks are the gatekeepers, and you gotta pay to play. We need to get on their level so we can benefit from our tax dollars like everybody else.

Black folks need to have their own, just like every group has. When you have your own ecosystems and communities, you ensure your community has what it needs to sustain itself. Black people can protect themselves and advocate their own interests. Who better to advocate for us that us. We wouldn’t have to deal with White folks bitching about us coming into their pretentious lil White communities they desire to keep us out of. Black folks should establish their own values and the value of things they own. At some point, we’re going to come to grip with White people shit, good stuff, or whatever you want to call it. It’s theirs, it’s not ours.

We’ve been fighting to share their shit because they keep destroying ours. We’ve learned enough from being around White people, we can do anything they do, if not better.

It will not be easy, and it’s going to require a lot of sacrifice. In fact, you may not even get any fruit from it from the sacrifices, but at least you can be a part of a new type of solution to combat anti-Blackness in America for the next few generations coming behind us. We can’t keep believing voting with White people will one day work out for us.

It hasn’t and it won’t. White people are on television professing they want to remain red states. Red meaning White-centered, racist and crazy.

We Black folks already know White people, and we know they don’t change. White people are the ones who need Black people to keep their racist systems and infrastructure going. They can’t survive without us. If there are no Black boogeyman, they’d have to look at themselves. If there were only White folks in White schools, they’d have to address White mediocrity. If Black people weren’t blended in with other groups, they’d be able to see just how racist they are towards us.

There would be no wars to wage if there were no Black people to make enemies. If we have our own jobs, they can’t claim we’re taking theirs. If we have our own schools, they can’t claim going to school with our children is bad for their kids.

If Black folks made their own furniture and designer brands, they wouldn’t have to pursue White designer brands making them rich. Aren’t you guys tired of buying designer shit from designers who hate you and do absolutely nothing for our communities. When is the last time Coach or Christian Louboutin donated to a Black community or created scholarships for disadvantage folks despite Black rappers and celebrities biggin them up? White folks don’t have to do anything for us to support them. The bar for us is so low.

We Black folks stay putting our money in White shit and get nothing in return. Get off the merry-go-round. Please?

We need investments, but Black people don’t have the resources, connections, infrastructures and other necessary supports that White people have, and this is where my allyship focus comes in. If White folks and allies want to help us, help us get free of White Supremacy. Please don’t ask us to keep playing nice to people not interested in having a community, which includes us. It’s safe to say we’ve tried, and we need to try something new.

White people should learn more about what we’re trying to do collectively in small grassroots efforts and begin investing in Black people. Fighting racism isn’t enough. Fighting fascism isn’t enough either. These things alone don’t work. Speaking up online and with your families clearly isn’t enough. White people aren’t changing fast enough.

Since racist White people and anti-Black People of Color aren’t changing at a pace that can bring immediate relief and America isn’t really interested in addressing institutional and systematic racism, the few good White people who believe in anti-racism will need to reimagine how they work with Black folks to help them in ways meaningful to us. Talking at stubborn, mentally ill, racist White people doesn’t work.

We’ve tried desegregation. Look at us. We are no better off than we were pre-Jim Crow, and Black people are almost as poor as we were when we were freed from slavery. There is a concerted effort by White America to keep us broke and powerless. It’s been working.

Black folks have tried protesting for decades, and that doesn’t work. White folks are never satisfied. We’ve tried waiting our turn, and that doesn’t work. We’ve been quiet, and White people ignore us. We tried living with White people and they just keep destroying good land, creating new White spaces to run from us. I’ve accepted the painful truth. It’s time for a new way forward. It doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, and it doesn’t mean we’re being anti-White, it means many of us are ready to move to protecting ourselves, love on us, and to support each other.

We’ve dedicated plenty of time trying to calm and appease Whiteness. Can we focus on us now? Will White allies help us?

My focus going forward will be to connect White allies with Black-centered projects, Black entrepreneurs, and Black small businesses they can support financially, with their gifts, skills, talents, and abilities. Allies can also amplify these people, projects, and endeavors through other like-minded friends, family members, and social networks. Support Black writers and essayists, buy Black books, support Black college scholarship funds and donate to historically Black institution’s. Give to Black hospitals, help a Black medical student get a residency. Support a Black middle-school music program. Give to a Black teacher via a PTA/PTO or sponsor a paid internship for a Black student. Fund Indiegogo and GoFundMe projects for Black people wanting to start farms. Do something that’s not for White people.

It’s really the best help you can give to us at this stage allies.

It’s A New Day, We Can See Clearly Now

We have nothing to lose by centering Black people. We’ve been at war with White Supremacy, and we’ve been losing that war for nearly 500-years. White people have no intention of letting us ever win it. I’m not advocating remaining on the same path.

I’ve tried for decades to achieve equality by joining forces with various White and multicultural vehicles. Nothing works and nothing changes, so I need to do something different. No more cute slogans. No more promises. Less heavy lifting. No more rescuing White people from themselves. White folks are going to have to learn something new going forward.

I’m sure I’ll lose some followers. Such is life. It’s the equivalent of centering their feelings over our safety and well-being. It’s par for this course. If they leave us they were never in our corner for us anyway.

If White people are serious about change, they must learn to evolve just like Black folks do. Anti-racism education centered on White folks alone just doesn’t work in reality because White people don’t change. If they won’t change, then we must. That change doesn’t mean we have to keep chasing White people and hoping they’ll be our friends. We’ve given them too much of our time, energy, power, and money. This is a long-term decolonizing exercise.

We must unlearn White Supremacy, all of us. As Audre Lorde, the American writer, feminists, and civil rights activist said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Let’s build our own homes using our own tools. Stay tuned.

Marley K With a New Attitude in Quarantine 2020

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