Graphic by Tawana Petty
ENDING THE OPTION TO OPT OUT
by Tawana Petty
I am an anti-racism educator who practices the pedagogy of coliberation. I am down to work with anyone, within capacity, who is willing to undo the internalization of whiteness as supremacy. Whiteness is a political ideology which has been sheltered and codified by brutal, dishonest and inhumane systems. It is governed and protected by archaic laws and policies that prioritize property and profits over people. It thrives on, and perpetuates a racial hierarchy that has never existed, therefore preventing the fullness of our humanity. It keeps millions on a racial seesaw hoping to hop off and jump head first into the rarely ever achieved American Dream.
I believe that once we do away with the myth that keeps us internalizing whiteness as a privileged identity, we will be able to be more honest about the impact the system of white supremacy has had on all of us, including non-Black people.
Only then can we co-create the world we all deserve. A world that doesn’t raise Black and Brown children to be born into the world as inferior hoping to attain a proximity to whiteness. A world that doesn’t encourage white children to swallow alive anyone, including themselves in order to achieve the mostly unattainable, mostly mythical dream.
Blackness is a political response to whiteness. What can we become when our politics become more humane.
