A white woman was taunting me while in line at Target. when I didn't engage, she pushed her cart into me & my 2y/o who I was holding. I yell not to touch my child & that I wanted security. Im pulled out of line while the woman escapes. 80 folks watching, not 1 person helped.
When folks talk about what to do in the face of white aggression, be prepared for the one inherent injustice: pegging "crazy" to the one who raises their voice in defense.
For me, there was no other option other than to be physical in response to someone being physical with my child. And that response was not an option bc this woman would be laid out. And then guess who's the aggressor?
She ran like a coward once I roared back. My experience of being followed, physically pushed, and taunted in public spaces have one thing in common: white women who in the aftermath bear no consequence.
What are the options for me as a mom of color who needed help: The white teen cashier who said she didn't see anything? The white manager who wanted to give me a gift card after she let the other woman go? What are options against the daily white aggression for people of color?
I came home and had no where to place my rage for these moments. I did the only thing I could thing of to let it out. I sat by a window with a lot of light, and heaved and cried until my adrenaline dissipated.
I am sick of learning the same lesson—that there is no immunity or protection from white rage, from white power, and the particular license white women exercise on ppl of color to push, to bully, to taunt, and manipulate the perception of who is the crazy one.
More than any other lesson is that for every white aggression, there is no road to accountability for white women who take every liberty and privilege to push, bully, shove women of color and then escape.
In those moments, the rage is in my blood: there is no such thing as a level playing field with white women. There is nothing that can or will dismantle the masters' house that I find myself in time & time again. And the most revolutionary thing I can muster is grieve in tears.
So this is where I can dump my rage—this strange box of words to help me understand my life of color in white dominated spaces. There's no nuance, there's no fancy closing thought at the end of this. It's just pain.
I have two choices in dealing with white aggression and injustice: bury it or use it.
To be honest, I want to say "the latter," but to be human and real, I'm probably going to do both. When I try to move through racism, even if it fuels future good, a deep, deep scar remains.
To be honest, I want to say "the latter," but to be human and real, I'm probably going to do both. When I try to move through racism, even if it fuels future good, a deep, deep scar remains.
One of the diabolical tenets of white supremacy (outside the fact white ownership extends to nearly all institutions, laws, courts) is gaslighting: That that white woman kept denying that she hit my daughter. And so my defensive yelling & her calm defiance became What Happened.
I hope to heal later today.
I hope you heal, too.
I hope you heal, too.
There's always talk, concepts, and ideologies about healing. And then there's actual real-life pain coming from rage that feels like alternating ice & fire on my skin. That is how racism leaves me & my body: in physical chaos with a stripped mental state and a broken spirit.
To deal with and heal from white supremacy is to confront the vastness of its spectrum without losing grip on your self: in historical colonizing, genocide, and in my buying a pot and pan in a Target on a Saturday. In the everywhere, in the all the time.
