For The Ones Who Want To Love
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly ill society.”
I am at war.
Multiple battles are occurring simultaneously, but I am most often and keenly aware of two ongoing conflicts in which I have been engaged for thirty-one years. The stakes are high. What I lose in defeat is not just my life, but my right to the very thing that makes life worth living: freedom to move in spaces that are unclaimed. The occupation of my body, mind, time, and the only earth available to me has been forceful and violent, and has rendered these spaces inhospitable to—and frequently uninhabitable by—me. I do not have anywhere else to go, nor should I have to leave. So, I fight for my freedom.
One war, two battles. And to make matters worse, against opposing forces that are invisible to most. The subtle ways my right to move freely are constantly being encroached upon are unrecognizable to those who are tempted by the lure of false power and the illusion of safety and security. Some of us are convinced by these unseen enemies that if we work within the confines of the normality their violence has established, we can eventually all be safe, free, successful, and even “good” people--if we just work a little harder. If we could just be a little better at the things they have decided are of value, we can all have enough resources to live free of the anxiety, stress, hopelessness, and fear that comes with just not being good enough at the things they have decided we should be good at.
Meanwhile, they weaken the defenses against their onslaught by weaving a second narrative. To account for the odd reality that certain groups of people seem to be better at being good at all the things people should be good at, and are therefore deserving of the riches they have acquired, they’ve made a convincing argument that what we observe is a result of human nature. It is natural for individuals to do whatever it takes to ensure their group has access to more resources; it is natural to believe that because we can take and we can use, we should take and we should use. It is natural to value the lives of those that look like us, those we have decided belong within our group, above those that don’t.
And yet, while we’re sleeping, they busy themselves ensuring that these particularly advantageous characteristics are overrepresented among people that look like them. They lie, manipulate, steal, cheat, rape, and murder repeatedly and gleefully, disguised by charisma and gentlemanly behavior. They are hidden in plain sight by the resilient and largely irrelevant myth of inherent goodness. After all, if they have everything that one should strive for, they must be good, right? And, they argue, it’s possible to do bad things or empower the people who do bad things…without being a bad person. It’s politics, and yet, somehow, human nature at the same time. They are just looking out for their families and their groups—same as anyone else would--and it is perfectly within the purview of goodness to ignore and cause other people’s suffering in efforts to ensure one’s own “survival.”
Despite a plethora of evidence and the observable devastation that is constantly being wrought upon particular groups of people and animals and the earth, a refusal to acknowledge the existence of this destructive force and the methods it employs to repress resistance pervades. The forces of supremacy have masterfully created a largely self-perpetuating system, which is powered by a refusal to doubt their assumed harmless intentions no matter the innumerable instances demonstrating the contrary, no matter the long history of testament given by those they have exploited, raped, and oppressed. In this lack of willingness to believe, any chance we have of not only living, but also of loving, is stolen from us.
After the state of warfare became visible to me, I used to envy the optimism of those who have not yet seen. When I realized the war was taking a toll on me whether I recognized the scars for what they were or not, I grudgingly began to admit that it was much better to know the source of my immitigable discontent and inevitable sense of otherness than to believe that there was just something wrong with me. Better to know that my lack of ability to adjust to social expectations and “normal” ways of living does not indicate an inherent flaw, but rather an inherent strength.
The realization that I have always been a fighter before I was even conscious of what I was fighting against brought a sort of grim satisfaction that is often overshadowed by another, darker realization. The stubborn optimism of good-hearted people I once envied is the invisibility cloak of the enemy. It is how the forces of supremacy move unchecked, consuming our freedom, laying waste to our lives. They disguise their violence in our own refusal to acknowledge their methods. Betting on an assumption of innocence until proven guilty, they demand narrow conceptualizations of proof and mockingly exploit the wide berth of their assumed innocence by using these weapons to lay claim to our entertainment, our relationships, our occupations, our futures—our very imaginations.
One war, two battles. Within the war, resistance occurs on different fronts. Existing in a black woman’s body, I most readily perceive the ways in which the war manifests in the lives of women and black folk, although I am well aware of other battles being waged. Some resist oppression on the basis of sexual identity, others class inequity. While the centuries-old resistance may give indication that our numbers are substantial, there are those who fight only for the right to join the enemy ranks, and still others who fight without a clear objective at all. The genius of supremacy’s insidious tactics is that they allow individuals to protest and resist the symptoms of the problem without ever addressing the problem itself, with many choosing to oppose only those symptoms they are aware negatively impact their “own” groups. This often leads to a curious, but debilitating inconsistency whereby those who claim to fight for freedom in one battle find themselves agents (consciously or unconsciously) of supremacy in another.
I have experienced firsthand the anguish accompanying the slow, dreadful realization that many who want to love have been robbed of their capacity to do so by their inability to see the vastness of supremacy’s reach. I have battled alongside black men who are unable to see the varied ways in which supremacy acts to strip women of their potential; beside women who remain blind to the ways in which racial conflagration seeks to cripple black folk; beside black women refusing to acknowledge the systemic nature of the attacks on queer persons. Beyond feeling sadness, I am at times downright alarmed by a dogged ambiguity that compels good people to fight against the interests of those they wish to love.
But I am also encouraged. I also fight beside other embattled warriors, injured and weary, but determined. People who have made a choice to risk everything we have been convinced matters without any certainty that the spoils of victory are even desirable, much less possible; to oppose supremacy in every form it manifests, every single time—even if within. They have willingly unplugged from a pleasant perversion of reality to reject a simulated caricature of happiness for freedom—at times uncertain, brutal, and taxing, but freedom nonetheless. They have chosen.
I write this to the ones who want to love.
To those who want to love the women whose lifespace has been viciously colonized by male supremacy. To those whose skin has been called white, but who have no desire to gain advantage through the subjugation of those whose darker hue has branded them subhuman and marked them for enslavement and exploitation in a system of white supremacy. They have taken more than just our lives. Our capacity for love has been the greatest casualty of this war.
I know this because every single time you look at me and fail to see the heavy burden I have shouldered for thirty-one years, the extent of slander, violence, exclusion, and disdain I continue to survive, there is no possibility of you seeing beyond all of these experiences to the core of who I actually am. And without truly knowing me, you cannot love me, despite your most sincere desire to do so. How can I entrust my safety to you in my most weary moments, desperate to lay down my weapons and bare my vulnerability for a precious breath of respite, when you don’t even know what I’m up against? When your hesitance for self-evaluation, your refusal to rebuff the tantalizing illusions their lies create, makes you part of the threat?
I don’t absolve myself of complicity. Over three decades of direct confrontation has forced me to become privy to my own susceptibility to the temptations. For too long I unthinkingly was willing to abide the flaws of white men, as if their practice of misogyny—or other manifestations of the illness supremacy causes—was somehow more tolerable than that of black men, unaware of the subversive ways anti-blackness had warped my definitions of success, of beauty—of humanity. But I am actively working to identify and counteract supremacy’s monopolization of my perceptions of normality and possibility. I want to live and love to my full capacity. I know you do as well. I also know that this ingrained notion of the natural and the normality it yields does not permit us that opportunity. So, I say to you now:
To hell with human nature.
We as human beings have the faculties to override biological impulses. If nature is what brought us to the brink of destruction as we now find ourselves, then it is high time we stopped tethering our imaginations to the natural and started believing in the possibility of a radical alternative: that the normal is not the inevitable.
I am asking you to trust me, even if you cannot see what I see. Just as the unequivocal centering of the white and male experience has compelled me to always be conscious of those perspectives, at times even involuntarily, so I ask that you let me lend you my eyes, so that you may see the world as I do. I am asking you to choose, even if the risks appear greater than the benefits. Make a choice to change your fundamental assumptions. When confronted with an uncertainty of intention, err on the side of history. Assume when a woman describes the rampant degradation and sexual assault she has endured and witnessed, she is only one of hundreds of thousands of other women who endure and witness the same thing on a daily basis from men who seem perfectly “normal.” Do not doubt the veracity of the black folk who speak out about being targeted by racism from your colleagues, friends, and family.
Do not dismiss or minimize the discomfort of oppressed people navigating an environment that has only ever been designed to oppress them. Assume that we have all been infected by anti-blackness, misogyny, ableism, and greed. See yourself and those around you as recovering from a debilitating illness, and be willing to abide the anxiety, embarrassment, shame, discomfort, anger, sadness, grief, and fear that is an inherent part of the recovery process. Assume that all human behavior, whether conscious or unconscious, is either resisting supremacy or promoting its dominance--there is no neutral. Recognize the equivocation, the unreasonable doubt, as the blindfold it is. After all, what do you have to lose, besides an artificially inflated status that you either refuse to acknowledge or claim you do not wish to have?
Finally, I ask you to consider something. I could be wrong about everything. I could be writing this, a pitiful and misinformed diatribe, out of bitterness at my own failures. I could just be plain insane—believe me, I’ve considered the possibility. But what if I’m not? How would you live your life differently if these assumptions were true? How would you, as a person who wants to be loving and good, change the way you interact with the world if you knew it were possible to live and thrive without valuing survival above all else? If you knew that every single thing you did bore significant consequences for the lives of those you wish to love, what would you do differently?