The Pendulum of White Supremacy
The United States has never rectified its past. Therefore, it can’t move forward. Since its inception, when colonizers embarked on this land to kill, maim, destroy, and confiscate land that was never theirs, they sold us a fallacy of equality equivalent to snake oil. An imaginary bootstrap that was magically going to propel us from the perils of racism, sexism, misogyny, and homophobia.
Any hope that the pendulum would land somewhere on the left always goes back to the right in this nation. The racial reckoning deemed to have taken place during President Obama’s two terms in office was proven to be nothing but a grand experiment as the undercurrent of white supremacy reared its head with the formation of the now-defunct Tea Party, and Google searches for the word “nigger.” (Notice the hard “r.”)
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Left. Right. Left. In 2020, with George Floyd's death, books like White Fragility by Robin Diangelo and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander began to sell like hotcakes. New study groups and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) task forces formed throughout the country. The one-step forward, two-steps back dichotomy began to resemble a forward march as whites attempted to understand white privilege in a game of who could become the best anti-racist. (Notice I did not say ally.)
Fast forward to 2025, and this country is swinging so far right that every day has become an exercise in self-discipline and burying my head in the sand as countless DEI programs are being dismantled with the flick of the pen. I get whiplash some days trying to figure out what the colonizers are trying to distract us from now. The one percent is now driving the whip and throwing metaphorical nooses on trees.
As an author, I find the words being thrown around misleading. I can see how whites can start to believe their children are being indoctrinated into an existence that may one day swing toward something like equality. As a proud 70’s baby, I can say for certain that I drowned in indoctrination since kindergarten.
It wasn’t until college that I discovered Thanksgiving was not a happy dinner party between the pilgrims and indigenous people. Always a shy child, books were my solace. Still, I realize today that although I visited the schools’ libraries often and soaked up every English class, I honestly recall only ever studying Harlem, a poem by Langston Hughes, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Blackness was hidden only to be pulled out in the context of slavery, our ever-present-origination story. As if we were never queens, kings, or educators worldwide. Even in graduate school, courses centered around the white man as the epitome of all subjects and skills. So, who is indoctrinating whom?
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STOP! Right foot first. Where does this author of color, whose fourth book, To Dance Under the Weeping Tree, center around a fictional Black madam and bootlegger? I can only hope that the left-leaning will pick it up and celebrate a Black history steeped in marvelousness, struggle, heartbreak, and a lack of representation.
I am only one of the 92% who still believe love conquers most things, and all that divides us has been carefully orchestrated by the colonizers of old. It’s time we stopped swinging and met on middle ground.