Acts 17:24–25, 28
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And they are not served by human hands, as if they needed anything. Rather, they themself give life and breath and everything else. . .
For in them we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:24–25, 28 NIV)
“In white supremacy, we live, move, and have our being.”
When people have asked me how I am doing in these trying times, in the wake of police homicides and the murders of Black women and QTNB (queer, trans, nonbinary; credit: E.L. Ninaz) kin, I have replied: I am solid. I am grounded in my understanding that I am at war: not against systems, not against racists, but against the force which has been deified through anti-Black colonial and imperial violence. And that in itself is a peace.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV)
White supremacy is the atmosphere of the United States; in it, we “live, move, and have our being”; in it, we can be made children and purveyors of it; and in it, its enemies are scented, hunted, and tossed to the wolves for their rebellion.
White supremacy is the primary organizing principle of conditioning for US citizens. To deny white supremacy is to un-citizen oneself — and therefore mark oneself vulnerable to the threats + dangers prevalent as a wayfarer without country + abode (the maroons).
Systems + institutions function as the machinery of white supremacy, the factory of it; when we examine the factory without taking stock of the “why” of its demand, we miss the animus of its steam and engine which drive it to produce.
White supremacy is omnipresent + complete like that.
The antithesis to White supremacy is the hatred of Whiteness. I must learn to hate this evil god, tear down its temples and its adherents. I must learn to Hate, which is its own god with its own provocations in times of dire need. The “love” that is sickly fed from the mouth of white supremacy is docility + an apathy to the true requirements of Love: an intimate and deep connection to the source of one’s divinity, which transcends the conditionings of trauma.
“I commit myself to my own Healing.” The greatest work I can commit to is the work of Self. Self-mastery, Self-realization, and Self-Love is a crucial step in the sorcerous practice of Freedom. How can I manipulate the elements and the fabric of the universe to craft a Freedom world without knowing who I am in the great expanse of existence? The poison of White Supremacy is the relocation of Self. In a white supremacist world, Niggas are incorrigible (irredemably wicked, broken, deviant). In the world of Niggadom (credit: Caira Lee), we are Everything. Everything is Everything.
Toni Morrison said, “The function, the very real function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work.” Locating my enemy in White Supremacy has cleared the smoky billows of the death-making machinery of racism and illuminated a critical vision. My enemy bears not one single color; it bears not one uniform of gender identity. Instead, it takes its shape and form in the very beliefs it avows itself to. My work is the violent and long-standing dismantlement of White Supremacy, its altars and mouthpieces, both within and without.
This is my commitment. This is my peace.
My citizenship lies in Blackness, full, complete, and total. Even behind enemy lines, I stand in full sovereignty and commitment to Blackness.
