A love letter to white women....

Mycellial network. We are all connected.

I wrote this piece as a Facebook post and was then asked by a number of folks who read it to turn it into a blog post. So that is what I did.

This is a letter to my beloved kin, white women. Hello kin. Hello. I wanted to talk to us - publicly - because I have been seeing some of our patterns show up, they've been here from the beginning, of course, but they are getting louder, and I want us to turn to each other. To gather each other close and with rigor.

But first, I want to recognize how many of you, how many of us, have stepped deeply into risk, putting your, our bodies between state violence and those being targeted. I know how many of you, of us, are bleary with sleeplessness after organizing mutual aid networks that are both secure and spreadsheeted. I also know some of you, of us, have shifted the shape of family, moving beyond support into merging care with the ones on your block you are loving. That you, we, are becoming different even while focusing on action. There is something here that is deeper than I usually see our people do en masse and I want to honor it. Deeply. Truly.

And then there is something else. The something else has started to get much louder over the last week, or at least louder in front of me. I know it has been here all along. Here are some concrete examples of it: I have heard reports from three different people about being at Singing Resistance events or collective moments where there are speakers and then seeing white women turn to the children in the room and shush them. Try to put them into their place. I also know of a number of white women who are organizing necessary responses to the violence of this moment but who are doing it with missionary zeal, talking about following their path, putting all of their energy into their vision without once looking horizontally to see if there are others who have done or are doing the same thing. I tried to explain to a white woman recently, one who is filled with the glory of her vision, that one of the reasons some of the other, mostly although not exclusively BIPOC-led initiatives, are moving a bit slower than she wants is because they are checking with each other as they go. Being in the relational part of the work even as they set up support for others in relationship to their community and kin. Recognizing that in order for this to be sustainable and relational for the long term as well as the moment, there has to be some horizontal checking and care even as the energy is moving quickly towards action.

Dear ones, some of our patterns are less visible when the chaos is high and the need is overwhelming. We are one of a mass of bodies getting shit done. But when enough time passes or when there are moments of quiet, other things begin to show up. And I am not only talking about older white women with this piece; this is a cross-generational thing. I am seeing and sometimes hearing that particular shape of white women resentment that emerges when a white woman has given her everything to a cause and doesn't get back what she wants to or people aren't as excited as she is, not joining what she has created, not showing their gratitude. I am seeing white women who are so attached to their particular vision and to making it succeed, all fueled by a feeling that this is in service to others, that they aren't hearing the whispers and the confusions by those around them as they push forward without showing relational respect. I am sure that this is also happening in other bodies, hello mammals, but for now, I am talking specifically about white woman-ness.

In moments like this one, I always but always think of the white women abolitionists who fought for Emancipation and then, once Emancipation was (legally) put into place, looked around to see what else they could "fix" and then created what became the boarding school system, the abusive violence directed at indigenous children all in the name of assimilation. We did that, us white teachers and social workers and nurses. Us people who care.

In other words, what I am describing is part of a continuum of people turning life into an object and then trying to control it for their own need, based on their comforts and values and longing, which at one end of the continuum is annoying and at the other end is genocidal but it is all part of the same root.

So beloved white women kin, please let us watch each other. If you see this happening, please turn towards our kin and ask them to hold a contradiction with you: we need the efforts and care that are being brought forth, this strategy that uses our privileges to build things that are needed but, at the same time, and with the greatest of humility, we have to recognize that we carry within us deeply rooted survival needs that are about our own comfort and centering; our desire to feel and be seen as valuable and worthy. And because those needs are deeply rooted, we often don't see them when they crop up, although others do. Which is why practicing relational humility rather than defensiveness is key to this moment.

Link arms with each other and say, hey, while we are doing this work, let's check each other on what we are bringing to it. Who else are we in relationship with? How are we checking our actions against something other than the minds of other white women? Is there anyone else doing the same thing or something similar and can we help them rather than start something new? Is there a part of us doing this thing because we have an image of ourselves as brave and selfless, a kind of inner hero narrative? Come on, loves, tell the truth. Where are we holding on to control rather than care, feeling a sense of ownership to our work that we are attached to, expressing false humility when we actually want the attention, and believing that we know what is best for whatever moment we are in? Are we trying to build an empire or just a moment for the people nearest to us, people we want to ensure are safe? Loves, beloveds, there are a number of white women engaging in empire building right now, even though it is called care.

All of what is happening right now, the interconnected love and neighborliness and care, has the chance to become something that continues, this opposite-of-disaster-capitalism that might help us move further into remembering that the whole is only as strong as the connected love and strength of its constituent parts. This is possible and I will tell you, what makes me cold inside is that I also know that some of the places where our actions rise from, beloved white kin, is also the place where we carry the seeds that could prevent this from becoming more than we can imagine.

Love each other. Check each other. Practice not being defensive. Pray every single day for humility. Be fierce and also wise. Stay for the long term.

* dear white ones, if what rises as you read this is a critique of other white folks, please absorb it and use that energy to reflect before acting. there is so much for us to do with each other, SO MUCH, but the game we are most used to is the game where we tear each other down rather than find a way to relationally become different. Accountable. Fierce.

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So this is what I posted on Facebook this morning, between a phone call about a future contract and a phone call to help someone set up a pod to hold them through an incredibly difficult time. Within a few hours of posting it, I had direct messages and Signal messages and texts from people I know in the Cities, mostly but not all white women, asking if they can share this, if they can bring it to their mutual aid hub, their rapid response team, their neighborhood council. One person told me they had already put it on to their hyperlocal Signal thread, a thread that is about 70% white women, asking for help in moving with the work this way.

One of the things that has largely been invisible nationally is just how much of the mutual aid and rapid response work is held or person’d by women, gender nonconforming folks and transfolks… and of the women, how many are queer. It’s a conversation that folks are having on the ground, reflecting on it. Noticing it. I was talking with a trans friend and they laughed out loud and said, but of course! This time around what is politicized is care work! And I am not “not all men-ing” when I also lift up the very key men in this, the ones I hold close to my heart who are also in this deeply because they are not separating the care side of things from the rapid response side of things. The guys out there being all bristly fight response are visible on social media but not in the steady threads that are holding these cities together.

My prayer every morning is best summed up by that question: what is the polar opposite of disaster capitalism and how do we continue forward, letting ourselves be transformed by what our ancestors and many of our culturally rooted kin remember while also, always, grieving and strategizing to stop the dehumanizing violence that this administration seems to see as its birthright.

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If you are able, please consider supporting my work through Patreon. It helps pay for the time for writing this like this. And gratitude as always to Ashley Fairbanks for her work on Stand with Minnesota.