White Supremacy is not the elephant in the room - it is the room
Back from one of the largest women’s prisons in the country following the Buffalo grocery store mass shooting.
As one reporter said, “The Right will talk about mental illness and the Left will talk about guns and I’ll be reporting on another shooting this year.”
The shooting in Buffalo is an echo of our country’s denial.
It took me years to understand that white supremacy is not about skinheads or the KKK. It’s insidious; it’s the air we breathe…it’s not the elephant, it’s the room.
Tucker Carlson has been promoting ideas around the Great Replacement Theory - a belief system the maniac in NY bought into that people of color will replace White people in this country. This theory is supported while Critical Race Theory is challenged.
Why can’t our youth learn about the Tulsa Massacre, Emmet Till or Ruby Bridges? Why can’t we acknowledge our past?
I just learned that Black women in this particular prison are not allowed to have dread locks because they are considered unsanitary.
This is one example of the madness BIPOC (Brown, Indigenous, People of Color) experience on a daily basis. Whether it’s calling the police on a Black, male bird watcher to George Floyd - the madness continues.
When I started DTBF I was in my own denial about the extent of how race is related to mass incarceration because I was meeting so many white women in prison. I focused on trauma as the sole contributor to why one ends up incarcerated.
Every woman I meet has a story that is rooted in poverty, trauma, neglect and loss. The difference is that our White students did not experience trauma as a result of their skin.
Even having a regulated nervous system is a privilege!
Driving to prison, I listened to podcasts on nonprofit management, donor centric versus community centric fundraising and biased data collection - podcasts explaining how white supremacy shapes the whole nonprofit sector.
Vu Le blew my mind. Born in Vietnam, he moved to the US at 8 years old - and is now an author, blogger and keynote speaker. He is challenging the imbalance of power between donors, foundations and those in our communities who need their voices heard.
Seven years into this work - I would never have guessed that white supremacy was shaping the grants we’re applying for, the data we’re collecting and the voices at the table of my board.
We couldn’t do what we do without our fantastic board and incredible donors but when I step back we are all white people with resources.
We have expanded our board to include a formally incarcerated graduate but how do more of those closest to the problem have a voice at the table?
How do those of us who have access to resources (education, property ownership, generational wealth) once again - control those resources?
Quote: Nelba Marquez Green