Whiteness Is Violence
A few days ago, I woke up to see actor Brian Cranston on Twitter claiming that Trump’s actions are the result of mental illness. Usually, I choose not to respond to shit like this because it just creates a pathway for white people to attack me with what they believe is wit and logic as they contort themselves to place Trump and his crew on the fringe of the white zeitgeist. I watched with frustration, resignation, and increasing violence, how the white people responding to my tweets continued to reinforce the lie that Trump and his ilk are an aberration from whiteness and not the norm.
I received tweet after tweet after tweet of white people claiming that all these people are “brainwashed”, “sick”, “mentally ill”, “extremists”, etc. I got to witness white people twisting in the bullshit as they worked hard to distance their idea of whiteness from the violent and ignorant rhetoric of their white supremacist patriarchal capitalist frontman and his millions of followers. They repeatedly insulted my intelligence and my looks in their quest to tell me that trumpers are a different kind of white or the right kind of white and that I was just a liberal troll. It was irritating and ugly and went on for days. I blocked the most offensive and violent ones and provided short replies to the rest — a reply that said these people were not “brainwashed” or “crazy”…they made a choice to support this and they are complicit in their attempts to distance themselves from it.
Mental Illness Is a Scapegoat
That’s the part that white people continuously lie about — that these people are making informed choices to support this administration. That they have looked at the country and decided that whatever harm they experience right now is the price they are willing to pay to maintain white supremacist patriarchal capitalism. These people are willing sacrifices to their white pride ideology and they have no problem using violence to achieve it.
The ironic part was how the white people working so hard to distance themselves from who they see as the “brainwashed” masses attacked me for saying the obvious — that trumpers know what they are doing. Many of the white people refuting my statement tried to belittle and demean me, engaging in the same violence they call themselves distancing themselves from. I couldn’t tell the liberals from the trumpers because their responses were so similar and their violence was identical. That’s because regardless of what intersection of identities they embody, whiteness is their primary identifier and they weaponize it constantly. Their investment in the ideology of “whiteness is rightness” supersedes everything else, which is why, even as they condemn the actions of trumpers, they also protect them and their idea of whiteness by ascribing that self-destructive behavior as mental illness. By making trumpers mentally ill, it creates a divide between the good whites and the bad whites, while simultaneously creating space for healing and redemption for the bad ones.
“They’re just ill.”
“They need therapy.”
“They just need love and support.”
“We need to give them a chance to see their mistakes.”
“They just don’t understand.”
Every Black person I know has heard this in defense of some white person’s racism all their lives. I know I’ve heard it so many times that I refuse to consider it anymore — because I know it for the lie that it is. I’ve experienced how white people absolve themselves of racist behavior. None of this is new. Experience teaches you that white people are not invested in justice or equity — they are uniformly interested in maintaining white supremacy. The liberals seek to appear benevolent and kind. The white nationalists seek to appear militant and threatening. Both have the same overriding objective: whiteness above all others and they have no problems employing extreme emotional and physical violence to ensure it.
White people who hate this administration wasted my time as they tried to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their relatives, friends, co-workers, lovers, etc. who support this nightmare. Their goals were multifaceted — some wanted to create distance between them and the other white people; others wanted me to absolve them of their white guilt by telling them they were different. Others wanted me to give space for their violently racist brethren. All of them wanted me to shut up and learn my place was to never criticize whiteness. They used various tools of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism to silence me: ableism, sizeism, racism, sexism, classism. “They’re crazy,” they said. “You’re a fat pig,” they said. “You look like a prostitute,” they said. “Forgive them,” they said. Every part of me was under attack as they sought to defend whiteness from scrutiny. Someone even stated that the Nazis changed their minds like there wasn’t a massive war that resulted in them rebranding their message that has led to the current massive resurgence of popularity. But still, white liberals classified as aberrations and this labeling them as aberrant was their version of resistance.
Whiteness is Violence
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — violence is the white normal. Physical violence, emotional violence, white people use violence like they use air. It is an inherent part of their culture and ideology. It is their source of power and they know it, even while they deny it and that is because lies, like violence, are another white weapon of choice.
We have watched the orange gremlin lie without being held accountable for decades. Every day, he lies and lies some more. The people around him lie. His followers lie. Whiteness goes unchecked because its violent power is effective. How else could a genetic aberration sow as much damage across the planet in an attempt to coddle its inferiority complex with a desperate drive for dominion? Extreme, horrific violence and lies telling them it’s for the greater good.
America told white people that as long as they are white, they are better than anybody else. Even though wealthy and powerful white people enslaved Black people specifically to avoid paying other white people to work, somehow it became the fault of the enslaved and oppressed people. Enslaved and oppressed people who died to escape — the less wealthy white people built entire industries off the labor of Black people; they worked to find ways to capitalize off slavery and told themselves that abject poverty they created by enslaving people was better because it wasn’t ownership and as long as they had someone to look down on, they had a pathway to power. Power is the driving force behind whiteness which is why you see white women, white gay people, white disabled people, white trans people, and virtually every combination of oppressed identities support white supremacist patriarchal capitalism. If they don’t explicitly support it, they pretend to ignore it under the mistaken impression that their whiteness will save them from the monsters they create to protect their shitty identity. They weaponize their whiteness to oppress others then use their oppressed identity to deny their racism. Violence and lies, all to maintain the illusion of power that they refuse to admit is cannibalizing them. It never ends and the internet continues to confirm that their shitty gaslighting tactics have not changed.
It’s Always Intentional
The thing that fucks so many of us up is understanding that white people know what they’re doing. They know who they are hurting. They know how it hurts. They enjoy it, as long as they think it’ll never happen to them. There are so many people who were fine with deportation and closing the borders until they realized their spouses and families weren’t protected by their whiteness. There were so many non-Black PoCs who were surprised to find they weren’t white enough to be protected from the policies they supported. The torture, kidnapping, and murder of Black and Indigenous people are acceptable because white and white-adjacent people believe they will never be subjected to this violence. Different ethnic groups have gleefully participated in anti-Blackness and white supremacist patriarchal capitalist violence because it created a pathway
They are fine with our deaths if it serves their “greater good” aka white supremacist patriarchal capitalism.
They will endure suffering if it serves whiteness. They will take hits to preserve the power of whiteness for their children. The institutions of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism are so interwoven with societal rules that opting out results in societal punishment. It is easy to opt-in. It requires no effort while it takes significant effort to opt-out. When challenged, white people choose whiteness. Opting out is disruptive. And if there is anything that whiteness works to eliminate from its repertoire, it is disruptions. The machine must always run, and it must always run smoothly.
The more they opt-in, the more violent they become. This is intentional. The non-physically violent ones call themselves good people because they aren’t as physically violent. They don’t stop the violence. They don’t even try. They have their own methodology of dealing with their violence that invokes their humanity and opportunity for infinite second chances while dehumanizing and erasing their victims. You see this with every mass shooting and murderous rampage — especially when their victims are members of a marginalized population.
The more physically violent white people call themselves good because they are warriors in their battle to maintain white supremacy. They amass weapons and form militias and go on murder sprees along the southern border of the U.S. in the name of god and country. Their violence is largely ignored because their victims are not white. Their existence in this white-stolen land undermines white power. These are the foot soldiers of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism and they love their jobs.
Even in reparation groups, groups designed to foster empathy and provide financial support to Black people in this oppressive country, you find white people competing to be the best progressive white person. Their interactions with Black and Indigenous People of Color are always transactional as they try to remove themselves from their history and their present. Their goal is to prove themselves the exception, to rebrand themselves through their Black friend, lover, neighbor, co-worker, workout partner, all to say “Look at me! I’m different. I’m better than the other white people.”
White people toady up to the Black members to prove they are the most liberal — the real ally. All you need to do is co-sign on their fuckshit because they are not invested in destroying social hierarchies; they want to find the most efficient way to get to the top spot in the ones they value. The top of the white liberal ladder is humanitarian. It is still violent as fuck in its service to white supremacist patriarchal capitalism. The monsters keep changing their clothes but never change what they are.
Stop Giving Them the Benefit of the Doubt
The lesson that never seems to take is that we have to stop giving white people the benefit of the doubt. Full stop. They keep twisting and contorting the conversation to eliminate their consistent violence. They mute all conversations about racism and oppression, label it rude, jeopardize the financial and social stability of those who rebel. They decide not to hold their mothers/grandparents/fathers/uncles/cousins accountable because they are just like them. Sometimes a less overtly genocidal version, but still pretty okay with genocide — they prefer not to admit it. These are the people who balk at having an uncomfortable conversation or pointing out someone’s racism. They are more comfortable letting you die than risk rocking the boat. These are the people who tell you they are sorry as they watch you drown and then pat themselves on their backs for their “empathy.”
White supremacist patriarchal capitalist violence is as egregious as it is celebratory. Those who don’t participate, watch. Those who don’t watch, allow. Those who claim they don’t allow, really just pretend it isn’t happening and then lie about their complicity. This is the world we live in. This is the world whiteness designed.
As Black people, we need to stop trying to convince ourselves that this can change. With this pandemic, we are watching this layered survival hierarchy work in tandem as we are sacrificed for the comfort of whiteness, and the white underclass sacrifices pieces of themselves to accelerate the genocide. Their leaders issue calls to action, and the masses obey. We need to stop telling ourselves that they don’t know what they are doing. They do. It’s calculated and intentional because history has shown that they can be rewarded for their sacrifices with a higher space on the social ladder. They don’t care that they are a pawn in this game and are being consumed alive because the power is more attractive. They are convinced their loyalty to the ideology of whiteness will save them.
In white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, the promise of power always outweighs compassion, empathy, and humanity…and marginalized people, specifically Black people, are the first line of suffering.
Never forget — whiteness is violence. Capitalism is designed to exploit the many for the wants of the few. Underclasses are manufactured and the rules of supply and demand were designed by sociopaths. The american definition of success is always about exploitation and oppression. There is nothing natural about it as capitalism is designed to be cruel and reframed to appear benevolent. Capitalists and their supporters are egocentric genocidal monsters who are fine with exploiting others for personal gain. The very least you can do is be honest about it.
If you appreciated or learned from this essay, please feel free to compensate me by contributing to my Paypal or CashApp. You can contribute any amount you want at any time:
Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/TaLynnKel
Cash App: $TalynnKel
OR
Originally published at https://talynnkel.com on April 28, 2020.
