APADIA 14: At Sea After Charlottesville

(What’s APADIA? See here.) 

Glennon Doyle articulated something today; I’m summarizing below what you can read in full at those links.

“Who you are is not about what you believe. Who you are is about what you do.

 

This country was built on the blood and sweat of slaves and we have not collectively repented because we still benefit. We all have to get humble. We have to identify how we as members of white culture benefit from the system neo-Nazis seek to protect.

 

White supremacy is the system that offers many of us good schools and food and medical care and protection while so many of our siblings of color are disallowed these things. The system we live in is white supremacy. The American dream is largely based on it.

 

What I saw in Charlottesville is a manifestation of what is happening inside much of white culture: desperate grasping at the privilege whiteness has offered us in this country. It is our terror of what real equality will do to our comfort – to our supremacy. We are raging toddlers terrified we are going to be made to share.

 

I plan to do the work that will untangle me from this system from which I and my family benefit. So I can say with certainty that white supremacists aren’t marching for me. So I can say with certainty that not only do I not want what they want, or feel how they feel, or think how they think, but that I don’t benefit from what they march for.

 

Let us not make America great again. That greatness they yearn for was rooted in death and oppression. Let us make America good. For all, for the very first time.

 

Do not let it go without saying. If you denounce white supremacy, say it. Let it be known. You are not how you feel or think. You are what you say and do.

I agree with this entirely and I think it’s beautifully said. But I don’t know how to make it true. I am white, and have always lived inside the system she describes. I don’t know what to do, even on a small scale, to be useful toward any change. What can I do? What difference can I make?