A cishet white Christian man called me a cunt today. I'm supposed to be offended.

I'm not.

It's the same as when they call me crazy. I don't flinch at that either.

Why would I?

If "sane" means walking around like genocide isn't happening every single day...

If "sane" means pretending not to see the injustice right in front of me...

If "sane" means swallowing the delusion of supremacy, trading my life for green paper, handing it over for a piece of metal that doesn't even let me drive freely...

If "sane" means accepting that human, land, or animal must die so that I can be free...

Then I will wear "crazy" like a badge of honor.

(Go read Allison Holdmymolotov's breakdown of the word "crazy." She nails it.)

So when he called me a cunt, I recognized it for what it is. The system's automatic response to anyone who stops performing obedience. If he's that bothered by me, I must be doing something right.

But hear me out. It's not about hate.

To be clear: I know there are decent white cishet Christian men. That's not the point.

The point is that I have lost my default trust in them. I no longer look to that demographic for guidance, opinions, breakdowns, or moral authority. As a whole, I don't believe they possess humane judgment anymore. Not all of them, but enough of them. Enough that I can't afford to give them the benefit of the doubt.

And honestly? That breaks my heart.

Because I grew up looking up to them. My whole life, they were the voices of reason, the leaders, the protectors, the ones I was supposed to build with and submit to.

Now? I have no faith in their collective judgment. And that feels strange. It feels like waking up from a trance and realizing the people you trusted to hold the map don't actually know where they're going.

Andres Idda Bianchi

I would love to repair these relationships. Truly.

But we cannot repair what was never built on equal ground. We have to meet in shared humanity first. Not with one side demanding submission and the other pretending the system is fine.

Until then, I will trust my own compass. I will listen to the voices that see the whole picture, not just the ones who benefit from the frame.

Knock, knock.

Is the patriarchy broken?

Or did we just finally stop asking it for directions?

The following are my words. I wrote them in response to a post on Idaho Falls Drinking Liberally Facebook page.

If I lived in a white body and did not view myself as an inherent threat, I would make the same argument you made, one which trusted the legal process and viewed the altercation between Austin Metcalf and Karmelo Anthony as “boys being boys” or as a bullying situation which escalated to dangerous levels.

However, I live in a Black body. Race and racism affect me on a regular basis. I have to engage in the double consciousness concept articulated in 1903 by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois.

When I state this, hundreds of white bodied people want to affirm, "No! That is not necessary for you to do around me. I am safe! I am not your enemy. I have no intentions of hurting you. Do not let those who want to divide us make you see me as white. I am more than my skin color."

Which is a true argument. You are more than your skin color. You very well might be a safe person for me to interact with.

The problem may not lie in you or myself. The problem DOES exist. White supremacists do exist.

And, here is how racism affects you. Neither you nor me can tell who is a white supremacist until it is too late.

By too late, I mean, we both learn they hate me at the same time, when they are actively hurling an insult; actively denying me access to a room, product, or opportunity; actively assaulting me. Up until that point, they were acting "normal."

It is the "acting normal" part which hurts you, who live in a white body. That "normal" is what Black people HAVE TO associate with "racism."

Why? Back to the "neither one of us can tell who is a white supremacist until it is too late."

I am not seen as human by white supremacists, like you are.

I am Karmelo Anthony.

My Dad is Karmelo Anthony.

My Uncle is Karmelo Anthony.

My little brothers are Karmelo Anthony.

I have a lifetime of experiences being in a "tent" surrounded by white men/boys, fearing for my Life, and having to survive the encounter.

I wish racism meant skin-based bullying. I wish it was limited to individual actions alone. Unfortunately, that is not what racism is.

The challenge before millions of people who live in white bodies is called: individualism.

I can't be an individual under a racial caste system. No matter how polite I am, no matter how loving I am, no matter how good I am - the white supremacist is ALWAYS going to see me as livestock that needs to obey them and see you as human - simply because I live in a Black body and you live in a white body.

Now, I wrote a lot. I hope I minimized the emotional charge around my message to the best that it can be minimized. No matter how much sadness and grief is felt, whiteness is still violent and race is still affecting us both.

That is the missing element in your analysis. Four white teenagers surrounding one Black teenager is not what you "think" it is.

And, that hurts.

Because I have 1) a class coming up on Sunday, June 7th, 2) just dropped an article on John Brown which took me a month of research to produce and 3) preparing for the Harlem Book Fair, I KNOW I am unable to write fast enough to address current events.

I’m bleary eyed, though, and this is a very fast write because I can’t get a question out of my head.

Here is the background context: on April 2, 2025, a thunderstorm delayed a high school track meet at David Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas. Yes, Texas, so you already know racism is the order of the day!

Inside a team tent, a verbal dispute erupted between two 17-year-old student-athletes from rival schools: Austin Metcalf, who was white, and Karmelo Anthony, who is Black.

According to police reports and witness testimonies, the confrontation quickly escalated from a demand for Anthony to vacate the tent into a physical altercation. Within moments, Anthony pulled a pocketknife from his backpack and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest. Metcalf later died from his injuries at a hospital, and Anthony immediately surrendered to authorities, weeping hysterically and stating he acted to protect himself. (I got that from Wikipedia, so consider the source!)

📷: Héctor Berganza

Now, fast forward to June 3, 2026. We are inside a Collin County courtroom. Following three days of intense jury selection drawn from a pool of some 600 citizens, a 12-person jury—along with six alternates—has been officially seated. Not a single Black juror sits on that bench!

​During the selection process, on the last day, the prosecution utilized peremptory strikes to remove the final three remaining Black women from the pool.

The defense immediately leveled a Batson challenge, arguing these potential jurors were being excluded based strictly on race. The prosecution counter-argued a race-neutral justification: the women were struck because they worked as educators of school-aged children.

District Judge John Roach Jr. accepted the state's reasoning, overruled the defense's challenge, and permitted an all-white jury to be solidified.

As opening statements begin, Anthony faces first-degree murder charges and a potential life sentence as an adult, while his defense rests entirely on Texas self-defense and stand-your-ground laws.

As I have been exploring in the past half-dozen articles I’ve published on Substack, ​The seating of this all-white jury presents a profound psychological and cultural contradiction in the European American consciousness. It is a byproduct of collective cognitive dissonance!

Let me explain using what I hope is a familiar story to illustrate my point. Millions of white Americans praise, honor, and profess to embrace the legacy of Mother Rosa Parks. They teach their children about her historic defiance on December 1, 1955, when she sat on a Montgomery bus and refused to collude in her own oppression. They view her as a shining example of individual integrity—someone who calmly accepted the immediate legal punishment of arrest, booking, fingerprinting, and jail time without weaponizing shame or guilt against her oppressors, who genuinely believed they were simply enforcing the law to maintain the social contract, be it segregation or otherwise.

​Yet, after eight white people were seated on that Texas jury the remaining four European American citizens sat in that Collin County jury pool and watched the systematic extraction of every Black prospective juror, a glaring disconnect occurred. If these white citizens truly loved and internalized the strength of Rosa Parks, why did they not emulate it?

​When confronted with the demand to match the courage they so deeply admire in historical Black figures, European Americans frequently retreat into a state of perceived impotence. They construct distinct psychological defense mechanisms to justify why they cannot—or will not—disrupt the machinery of structural racism.

​1. "Just Doing My Job"

​The first and most pervasive/frustrating rationalization I can observe relies heavily on a deeply ingrained faith in the absolute fairness of the legal system. (Or is it faith that they, as individuals, are fair?) White jurors often tell themselves that because the judge approved the state's "race-neutral" reasoning - the educator exemption - the process must be valid. They convince themselves that they are merely passive, neutral cogs in a legally sound machine, they absolve themselves of moral responsibility. Just like under segregation, they normalize their participation by thinking, "I didn't create this system, and the judge says it's legal, so it isn't my place to disrupt it." This allows them to avoid seeing that choosing silence within an oppressive structure is a direct act of collusion.

​2. "The Insider Strategy"

​The second rationalization is rooted in a false sense of strategic heroism. A white juror watching an all-white panel form will often think, "If I speak up and get held in contempt, I will be thrown out of the room. If I am replaced by another white person who is racist then I can't help anyone. It is better for me to stay silent, get on the jury, and try to be the lone voice of reason during deliberations." This thought process completely bypasses the power of external disruption. It allows the individual to avoid the immediate, terrifying social consequences of a public refusal—such as fines or jail time—while comforting their conscience with a hypothetical future where they play the quiet savior.

​3. “White Supremacy Culture is All I Know”

The third rationalization is driven by a deep-seated fear of losing white social capital and disrupting collective racial comfort. To stand up in a crowded Texas courtroom and refuse a judge’s order requires breaking a silent contract of white solidarity. It forces the individual to bear the immediate discomfort of being labeled "difficult," "radical," or a traitor to their peers. “White citizens” look at the immense suffering Mother Rosa Parks endured—the constant death threats, the loss of her employment, the terror of a 1950s Alabama jail—and subconsciously decide that their own temporary legal and social comfort is worth more than a Black teenager's right to a jury of his peers. They admire her strength precisely because it cost her everything, yet they refuse to spend a single fraction of their own social safety to match it.

I can’t hide in whiteness, like my European American friends and family can. I guess that is why I am struggling with this question.

Now over 500 days into this second Trump Administration, why would you want to?

Slowly, under this second Trump Administration, I am learning how, and why, segregation inside the United States lasted so long.

​American apartheid, as I have seen it called before, did not endure merely through the cold mechanics of legislation, which meets the current generation’s definition of oppression, nor was racism sustained solely by the overt terror of the noose and the nightrider. Those were the outer expressions of segregation’s inner movements.

White people persisted in this behavior because discrimination built a home inside the American psyche. Despite Black people choosing to resist, segregation remained because it established an unwritten, deeply internalized contract of psychological arrangement—a group-agreement and accepted guarantee that white anxiety would always be quieted by Black humiliation.

To watch this Second Trump Administration re-align itself around the grievances of the dominant caste is to witness the frantic restoration of that contract. We are seeing, in real-time, the desperate re-fortification of a (necessary) psychological border wall. And the foundation of that wall is a simple, lethal expectation: the demand for deference.

​Racism, in its daily operational reality, functions off white bodies receiving automatic deference from Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. This deference is not a polite social custom: it is a tax extracted under the duress of white racial violence.

​Historically and presently, the white body (collectively and individually) inside the United States is conditioned to move through society as an absolute sovereign. It expects the right-of-way in conversation, the benefit of the doubt in conflict, and the immediate lowering of the gaze from the colonized. This submission is the price of safety for the oppressed.

When a Black person stops to politely let a white person walk by them on the sidewalk, softens their tone when speaking on the phone, or swallows their outrage when insulted, they are paying a protection fee to prevent the eruption of a violence that is always simmering just beneath the surface of the law.

From 1886 - 1972, these social transactions were codified as legal segregation. Today, under the current political climate, it has been privatized and decentralized. The expectation of deference has returned with a raw, vengeful appetite. It is present in the boardroom, the grocery aisle, and social media. It is the demand that the so-called marginalized remain small, predictable, and comforting, so that the dominant white-bodied individual personality never has to confront the illegitimacy of its position.

​Very few anti-racist European Americans possess the emotional stamina I display daily online and in person to mitigate the comments, the glances, and the casual cruelties–the microaggressions–that happen and make up the content of Black life. They enter the arena of racial discourse with high ideals, but they quickly become utterly exhausted.

​This exhaustion does not stem from physical labor, it comes from the devastating psychological tax of witnessing the inner landscape of those who look like them, yet do not ascribe to a universal human ethic. To see one’s own kin, neighbors, and colleagues casually trade in the devaluation of other human beings is a specific kind of horror. It forces the empathetic white observer into a state of chronic cognitive dissonance.

​To many Liberal and Progressive European Americans, it seems to land as an absolute betrayal to their sense of Self that white supremacists want—and fundamentally need—this racial deference. The progressive white consciousness has long consoled itself with the myth of inevitable moral progress. They believed that overt white supremacy was a relic of an uneducated past, a regional pathology of the rural South, or a fringe radicalism easily managed by the passage of time.

​To discover that this hunger for dominance is widespread, sophisticated, and seated in the highest offices of the land feels like an intimate treason. They are forced to realize that the people they share holidays with, the people who manage their funds and teach their children, are actively invested in a racial caste system.

​Without this deference, the white supremacist feels vulnerable in a manner that “good white people” simply cannot explain. When an oppressed person refuses to participate in the rules designated for their racialized social position by lowering their eyes or softening their stance in a way a white person can barely notice, the white supremacist experiences a profound disorientation. These “bad white people” act as if their very lives are in mortal danger while standing before a non-submissive Black or Brown body.

​This is not hyperbole, although I wish it was. Instead, it is the pathology of the tyrant. When you have equated your safety with absolute control, any expression of equality from the subjugated looks exactly like an act of aggression. The absence of submission is interpreted as an active threat.

​To the master class–I use this phrase on purpose–a Black person standing upright, unyielding and self-possessed, is a terrifying mirror. It implies that the matrix of power is fragile, that the illusion of natural superiority is broken, and that the bill for historical atrocities might finally be coming due.

​Worse yet, the white supremacist is typically nice, cordial, and polite when interacting with other white people who do not inspire any racial stress. They are good neighbors; they return borrowed lawnmowers; they hold doors open at the church. (Yuck!)

​Consequently, unless you, as an anti-racist European American, explicitly step out of line and “pretend to be a white supremacist”—unless you do not test their boundaries by remaining silent during a racist joke or nodding along to a coded complaint—you will never know the truth. You will remain blind to the fact that the “neutral white people” around you do not like, respect, or view Black, Brown, and Indigenous people as fully human. The polite exterior forms a socially fabricated camouflage, masking a cold indifference to the destruction of non-white lives.

​Those white bodies that are not actively insulting others, committing blatant acts of discrimination, or physically assaulting Black, Brown, and Indigenous people sincerely believe that race, racism, and whiteness are not affecting them or the people they interact with.

They have been granted the luxury of historical amnesia. They can imagine a pristine, colorblind space where race, racism, and whiteness do not exist, and attempt to create this reality within a brutal racial caste system through sheer willpower alone.

​

They believe that if they do not say the n-word, the n-word carries no power. They believe that if they smile while underfunding Black schools, or speak softly while displacing Brown communities, the systemic violence vanishes. This is the core delusion of the moderate: the belief that innocence can be maintained through passive participation in an oppressive structure.

When these white bodies are finally forced to learn that race is directly affecting them—that they are not neutral observers but active beneficiaries of a predatory arrangement—they do not default to repentance. Instead, they project white rage onto Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.

​

They look at the disruption of their peace and equate the psychological and emotional pain they feel to “reverse racism.” In their minds, the injustice is not the system (behavior of the white body politic) itself, but the fact that they are being asked to pay for the racism of other white people, over whom they possess no direct influence. They internalize their discomfort not as conviction, but as victimization. It simply does not feel good to be treated like an oppressor when you have spent your entire life believing you are a good person.

​

​It is precisely within this psychological theater that I choose to stage my resistance. I refuse to give that deference. I refuse to adjust my posture, alter my language, or contour my presence to accommodate the fragile self-image of white emotional safety.

​And because of this refusal, over the past few weeks on my Facebook wall white men have been melting down under the strength I demonstrate towards them.

When they encounter a Black body that does not bow, their internal compass spins out of control. They are legitimately hurt. The pain they feel is real, but it is the phantom limb pain of a Babylon falling. My appearance of not caring about their racial stress generates even more inner torment for them. They are accustomed to their emotional weather dictating the climate of the room. When their tears and their fury fail to move me, their world tilts on its faulty axis.

​This second Trump Administration did not create this losing power dynamic: it merely stripped away the requirement for white supremacy to wear a mask. It has shown us that segregation lasted because the dominant culture loved the comfort of its seat more than it loved justice.

By Black people withholding our deference, we break the spell of white racial innocence. We force the individual personality to show its attachment to white supremacy culture to itself, and in doing so, we reclaim the terrifying, liberating truth that our own inherent humanity is undeniable.

Prior to the first Zoom session, Matthew Reynolds and Orion Bradshaw sent out front-loading materials with which to familiarize ourselves. This was a crash course in white privilege, internalized racism, critical race theory, and other terms with which those who study anti-racism may already be familiar. These materials did a great job of bringing certain thoughts to the forefront of my mind and preparing me for what would be covered during the sessions. I experienced a lot of introspection during this time, as I mulled over what terms like “community” and “equity” mean to me and the challenges I have faced in striving to build both in the real world and online.

Photo by: Eric Mclean

Leading up to the first session, I was anxious to see who would be in my cohort, what topics would be discussed, and excited to develop my equity lens with others. It’s been more than 10 years since I was last in a classroom, but I found as I worked through the front-loading materials that my studying abilities were slowly coming back to me. Although I was somewhat familiar with the source material, I gained new perspectives as I worked through it.

Each of the three nights spent with my cohort flew by. We watched videos together, discussed our reactions and shared first-hand accounts from our own lived experiences. There was laughter and camaraderie, confusion, curiosity and sometimes tears as we each reflected on the material being shared and found common ground between us. The entire experience was enveloped in the support and care shown by our facilitators, Matthew and Orion and mirrored by each of those in attendance.

We were encouraged to keep a journal for the duration of the workshop, and I’ve found that a lot of my personal growth is recorded there. It is invaluable to be able to flip through a few pages and see abstract thought become more and more solidified as the days pass. Each of the three 3-hour sessions provided opportunities for growth, learning and unlearning, and the development of my own, unique equity lens.

I feel like I am better supported on my journey now that I have created my equity lens. I feel empowered, capable and ready for action and continued learning. The members of my cohort have established a group text where we can continue to share our equity lenses as they evolve, and share what’s working and where we struggle.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to Matthew, Orion and the members of my cohort. The space provided was positive, supportive and educational. “Crafting Your Equity Lens™” offered me the resources, perspective and time of reflection that I needed to continue moving forward in my anti-racism journey, a journey that I will continue for the rest of my life.

If you are looking for some direction or a shift in perspective on your anti-racism journey, please consider signing up for an upcoming “Crafting Your Equity Lens™” workshop. There are already dates announced for July and October 2026. You can register and learn more at www.mrrconsulting.org.

"Too much AI."

And look, I'm not saying that a person is wrong to flag it. They might have real concerns about labor, about data scraping, about the environmental cost. Those concerns are valid. I share them.

The problem I see is that response didn't ask anything about how the video was made. Didn't ask what tool, what model, what trade-offs. Just a blanket rejection. End of conversation.

And that pattern, the outright rejection without inquiry, is becoming a way to avoid the work.

I understand the harms. I really do.

• Harm to artists and writers whose work gets scraped without consent.

• Harm to Black communities, predictive policing, biased hiring algorithms, medical misdiagnosis, surveillance.

• Harm to the planet, water, energy, e-waste, all of it. AI data centers are increasingly located in Black and lower-income communities, consuming massive amounts of electricity and water with little local input or benefit.

An EAGER member sent this study the other day: "AI reduces human persistence and independent performance." Important. Real. Worth talking about. (The study found that even brief AI interactions, about ten minutes, made people significantly worse at performing tasks without AI and more likely to give up.)

Photo by Markus Winkler

I'm not willing to let any of that become an excuse to stop organizing against white supremacy.

Because that's what this is starting to look like. Another purity test. Another reason to reject someone's work as not good enough. Another way to point outward instead of inward.

The work is inside yourself

If you're constantly scanning other people's tools, other people's videos, other people's choices, are you doing the work? Or are you finding a reason not to?

I'm not saying raise no concerns. Raise them. But raise them in service of the work, not in place of it.

Voice-to-text is AI. Auto-captioning is AI. Small grassroots organizers using free tools to translate flyers or clean up audio because they're exhausted and under-resourced, that's also AI. You're upset Educators are using AI? I don't know how they're using it. Neither do you. We can make assumptions all day. But assumptions aren't organizing.

At the end of the day, our job is to end white supremacy. We are not going to do that by constantly focusing on this one thing and using it as a reason to reject each other's work.

I've been here. I've done this.

I've wrestled with this myself. Still do. Every single day. Just like I wrestle with everything else.

Do I turn the lights on?

What groceries do I buy this week?

Who makes the floor cleaner?

I know you're looking for a way not to perform white supremacy. Not to participate in the culture. You're a white body person moving through white supremacist structures, and you genuinely want out. I get it.

The hard truth is you can't fully opt out.

And if you can't, then you can't expect anyone else to either.

That doesn't mean give up. It means stop pretending purity is possible. Stop using your own guilt as a measuring stick for other people's work.

What you can do is self-reflect.

Not to perform. Not to announce. But to honestly ask yourself:

How can I reduce my usage of white supremacist culture today? Not eliminate. Reduce.

Tema Okun, who wrote the groundbreaking essay "White Supremacy Culture," names "either/or thinking" as one of its core characteristics—simplifying complex issues into binary categories and ignoring nuance. That's exactly what we're doing when we say "AI bad" or "AI good." The real work is in the messy middle. We don't just do this with AI. We put organizing in that neat little either or box too.

Because here's what they designed:

The wealthy, the systems, the infrastructure, the tools, the supply chains, their job is to make us dependent. On the lights. On the grocery store. On the floor cleaner that comes in a bottle from a company nobody trusts. On the AI that runs through data centers burning water.

They built it so that even our resistance has to pass through their hands.

That's not a personal moral failure. That's a trap.

So stop expecting yourself or anyone else to have clean hands.

Do the work anyway.

Reduce where you can.

Organize to build alternatives.

And when you see someone else using a tool you wish didn't exist, don't reject them. Ask: What would help you need less of that?

Because the answer isn't shame.

The answer is collective power to build something else.

What To Do Instead Of Outright Rejection

You can have valid concerns and still do the work. How?

Ask before you reject.

Instead of "too much AI," try: "What tool did you use? How did it affect your process? Did you consider the labor/environmental cost?" That's a conversation, not a shutdown.

Separate the tool from the person.

Critique the infrastructure, not the comrade trying to move work forward under it. The problem isn't that an educator used ChatGPT. The problem is that we don't own the infrastructure, the data wasn't consented, and the resources are being extracted from Black communities. Say that.

Redirect your critique upward, not sideways.

Your energy belongs aimed at the companies building this extraction machine, not at the organizer who used auto-transcription to write a flyer after a 14-hour shift.

Do the internal work first.

Before you comment on someone else's AI use, ask yourself: Am I doing my own work right now? Or am I finding something external to critique so I don't have to look inward? As the University of Michigan's anti-racist pedagogy guide puts it, dismantling white supremacy culture "requires us to be aware of its characteristics in our internal, interpersonal, and institutional lives."

Offer alternatives, not just rejection.

If you don't want people using a particular tool, help them find another one. Small, open, low-carbon, community-owned options exist or could exist, if we built them. Don't just say no. Say "here's what we could use instead" and then help make it happen.

Know when to hold and when to fold.

Not every battle is the main battle. White supremacy is the main battle. If you spend all your energy fighting AI use in a solidarity video or a classroom, you're not fighting the thing that's actually killing us. Choose your fights like your life depends on it—because it does.

A note on Audre Lorde

I referenced her earlier, and I want to be precise. In her 1979 essay "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," Lorde was speaking specifically to white feminist scholars who were excluding Black women's experiences while using the same oppressive structures they claimed to oppose. She wasn't saying "don't use anything made within systems of power." She was saying don't be surprised when tools built on exclusion produce exclusion.

The AI we have was built on extraction, anti-Blackness, and environmental violence. Using it won't dismantle those systems. But pretending we can simply refuse it while the systems keep running isn't resistance. It's performance.

Lorde also wrote: "Your silence will not protect you." Refusing to engage isn't safety. It's silence.

I'm not saying ignore the harms. Name them. Fight them. Build different tools. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Australian Human Rights Commission have both called for regulation, transparency, and safeguards specifically to protect Afro-descendant communities from algorithmic discrimination. Support those efforts.

But don't use AI as an excuse not to do the work. And don't reject someone else's work just because you saw pixels move in a way you didn't like.

The house is on fire. The master's tools are poisoned. And we still have people to save.

Sources Cited

1. Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" (1979/1984) — collected in The Selected Works of Audre Lorde (W.W. Norton, 2020) and Your Silence Will Not Protect You (2017)

2. Liu, G., et al. "AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance" — arXiv:2604.04721 (April 2026)

3. Climate Justice Alliance — educational resources on AI data center environmental justice impacts, particularly on frontline Black communities

4. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies — op-ed on AI data centers as environmental burden for Black communities (Essence, January 2026)

5. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) — press release on algorithmic discrimination against Afro-descendants (March 2026)

6. Australian Human Rights Commission — thematic report on AI and racial discrimination (September 2025)

7. Tema Okun, "White Supremacy Culture" (1999/2001) — characteristics including either/or thinking; anti-racist pedagogy guide from University of Michigan

Yeah, now, I am certain that I can not write fast enough to react to the current events of injustice. I’m overwhelmed. I know, as an anti-racism/pro-humanity educator, I’m not supposed to feel emotional exhaution–because of course, I’m not considered human by millions of European Americans. Somehow, I am so strong, I am not supposed to be “drained” from teaching those who can experience the same national racial moments as me, yet not be transformed, internally, by them.

So, forgive me. Maybe precisely because I am Black, I did not know who New York Times columnist David French was until former ESPN sports commentator Jemele Hill used a clip of him discussing his moment of racial awareness on her Spolitical YouTube channel. That happened last week, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026.

To educate myself, this is what I learned through Google. Born in 1969, David French is a prominent conservative columnist, attorney, and veteran with a career spanning law, military service, and journalism. He earned his B.A. from Lipscomb University in 1991 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1994.

French’s legal career focused on constitutional law and religious liberty–whatever that means.

He served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and later as a senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom. (Define “freedom.”)

He also served as the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE.) In 2006, he joined the United States Army Reserve as a judge advocate and deployed to Iraq in 2007, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Transitioning into full-time journalism, French became a senior writer for National Review and later a founding senior editor of The Dispatch. In early 2023, he joined The New York Times as an opinion columnist. His work often explores the intersection of law, politics, and faith, frequently advocating for classical liberalism and pluralism.

Lipscomb University

None of that mattered, in a positive way, to Jemele Hill. Apparently, French is just now processing the fact that he is “a white man having a white experience” and what that truly means outside intellectual acknowledgment that racism exists. She spent most of the 18 minutes on her YouTube, reacting to French’s statements explaining how she learned that European Americans can effectively grow up, and live their entire lives, without being curious about the Black experience or needing any cultural competency to be successful.

Here are some statements he made in a written interview I was able to find on the New York Times website to conceptualize why he was racial blind all these years.

“[One] of the things that aided the rise of the Nazi Party was that it is not as if the Nazis came into power and then everything changed for everybody — most Germans were still living under what he calls the normative state. That would be the normal life and existence that we all enjoy, where you can start a business, you can enter into a contract, you can go to court and enforce your rights against somebody who’s violated your rights. It all is normal. …

In the Jim Crow South, you had a normative state that was enjoyed by white Southerners. They lived in the land of the free and the home of the brave, they had free speech rights and they had free association rights and they had economic opportunity. But then you had a prerogative state that applied to Black Americans in the South, and they lived at the mercy and at the whim of the government — or even just their white neighbors could end their lives at their will and at their whim. …

I used to think: How did Jim Crow happen? How does stuff like that happen? And I don’t wonder anymore. I don’t wonder anymore because as soon as you allow a large segment of the society to live normal lives, even while you oppress others, it takes a lot to rouse the majority to do anything on behalf of the minority.”

That’s a lot. It is insightful–and, a little scary because this man is 57 years old.

In the American concept of personal growth, what he articulated is solely contained within the 15 characteristics of white supremacy culture. It is hyper-individualistic. We are often sold the narrative of the “great awakening”—a specific moment when a well-meaning individual finally has the scales fall from their eyes. French, a man of formidable intellect and deep roots in the conservative evangelical tradition, personifies this archetype.

Given the opportunity, he has written extensively about his shock at the vitriolic racism directed at his adoptive Ethiopian daughter. The white people where he lives did not respond negatively to her immigration status or her foreign-ness, but they did respond vehemently to her Blackness. While the personal defense of his child is noble, a sociological interrogation remains: How does a man of his education and age grow up within the borders of the United States and remain oblivious to the ever-present rot of racism until it touches his own dinner table?

To understand this, we must move beyond the comfort-inducing idea that white supremacy is born of poverty or “ignorance.” Neither is a result of a simple lack of information. In the United States, ignorance is not a void. It is a meticulously constructed state of mind. For millions of European Americans, “not knowing/not seeing/nazing” is a functional requirement for their social standing.

The American racial caste system survives because it is designed to be invisible to those it benefits. When French speaks of his “surprise,” he is inadvertently admitting to the existence of the “white bubble”—a psychological and geographical insulating layer that separates the European American experience from the lived reality of the “other.” He isn’t white: he’s normal.

Growing up in Alabama and Mississippi, French was surrounded by artifacts of Black history. He walked on ground cleared by racial injustice and sat in pews of churches that often provided the moral scaffolding for Jim Crow.

Yet, for the European American majority, history is frequently taught as a series of dates and events detailing inevitable triumphs rather than a sequence of consciously thought out and intentionally implemented exclusions. Teachers, preachers, mayors and parents conspire together to cultivate a necessary “strategic blindness.” To acknowledge the depth of how evil racism is, before it became a personal problem, would have required French to question the very meritocracy that validated his own professional and social success.

The primary tool of this blindness is the reframing of systemic oppression as a collection of “isolated incidents.” By viewing racism as a matter of individual “meanness,” rather than a structural framework involving the conscious consent of “white people,” millions can maintain a sense of personal innocence.

European Americans often view the racial caste system as a historical ghost—something that was–but no longer is! This allows for them to feel comfortable while imagining “I am not a racist” even as they benefit from, and reinforce daily at work, the hierarchies that define the “American” life. When French expresses shock, he is reacting to the sudden collapse of the “everything is set up to produce fairness” world he believed he inhabited. The tragedy is that this world only felt fair because he was never the target of white people’s group behavior.

The most uncomfortable truth, which many avoid, is that the racial caste system is not maintained solely by extremists in white hoods. It is maintained through the mundane, daily behaviors of the “well-meaning.”

Redlining: Supporting “neighborhood character” that effectively bars low-income housing.

Funding schools by using redlining logic: Ensuring one’s own children have every resource while remaining indifferent to the systemic underfunding of schools in neighboring ZIP codes.

Self-segregation: Maintaining social circles that never challenge one’s cultural or racial assumptions.

These, and other, behaviors are the “personal choices” which reinforce the racial caste system. They are the physical acts of a hierarchy that ensures some families are insulated from state and economic violence while others are perpetually exposed to them. French’s epiphany suggests that until a “victim” of the system shared his last name, the system itself was invisible to him. This is the definition of privilege: the ability to choose when racism becomes a “real” problem.

When this epiphany happens so late in life, it often lacks the radical edge necessary for true transformation. If the realization of racism’s “badness” is rooted solely in personal grievance, it risks stopping at the defense of one’s own family rather than demanding the dismantling of the entire apparatus.

As observed by Dr. James P. Comer, a Black psychologist, the millions of European Americans who “do not want to know” are engaged in a form of psychological self-preservation. To truly know the depth of American racism is to realize that the “American Dream” has, for centuries, been subsidized by a nightmare inflicted on others.

The depth of David French’s surprise is a testament to the power of that denial. It is a reminder that in the United States, the truth is not hidden—it is simply ignored until it can no longer be avoided. The challenge now is not just to see the fire when it reaches your door, but to understand who built the house out of tinder in the first place.

Contrary to popular opinion, the thought-atmosphere inside the United States of America has never been objective or neutral. For those (unfortunately) navigating the "white" racial category, that “reality bubble” has historically been a cocktail of privilege and a very specific, frantic kind of anxiety. To understand the current friction between the generations—those born under the legal mandate of segregation versus those born into the aspirational (yet often illusory) era of integration—we have to look at more than just politics. We have to look at the body.

As Black psychologist Resmaa Menakem brilliantly argues, white supremacy isn't just an ideology: it’s a culture; a physical practice. It’s the way the collective white body manages its own trauma and discomfort by discharging that energy onto Black, Brown, and Indigenous bodies. For the white-bodied individual, racism isn't just a "bad thought"—it’s a soothing mechanism.

It’s a way to feel safe, superior, and regulated when the world feels chaotic. And, that is the nature of the problem we are facing.

When we apply the 15 characteristics of white supremacy culture defined by Dr. Tema Okun and Kenneth Jackson Jones to these two distinct eras, we see a fascinating and often painful evolution of how this "soothing" takes place.

Matthias Zomer

For those born before the mid-1960s, white supremacy was the literal law of the land. In this era, the soothing mechanism was structural. You didn't have to wonder if you were superior: the water fountains, the bus seats, and the mortgage lenders told you so every day.

Paternalism and Power Hoarding: This generation was raised in a world where "only one right way" was a legislative fact. The soothing came from the absolute certainty of the hierarchy. If a person of color challenged the status quo, the white body responded with defensiveness and often violence to restore "order."

Fear of Open Conflict: Interestingly, within white communities of this era, there was a high premium on "niceness." The conflict wasn't internal; it was projected outward. As long as "those people" stayed on their side of the line, the white body could remain calm.

Worship of the Written Word: This generation leans heavily on the "law and order" narrative. The Constitution, as they were taught it, was a holy document that justified their position.

For the segregation-era white body, the trauma of white supremacy (the loss of humanity required to oppress others) was managed through total containment. They don't see themselves as "racist"; they see themselves as "traditional." When they witness modern protests, their bodies often go into a state of high alert because the "sense of urgency" they feel is tied to the crumbling of the external structures that once kept them regulated.

In stark contrast, then come the children of the "colorblind" era—the generations born into a world where the signs were taken down, but the systems remained. For younger European Americans, the soothing mechanism has shifted from the structural to the performative.

The Dominant Characteristics:

Perfectionism and "frightened to be the bad Guy": This is the hallmark of the integration-born. Because they have been taught that "racism is bad," their greatest somatic fear is being labeled a racist. This creates a paralyzing perfectionism. They want to "do allyship right," but the fear of making a mistake triggers a massive stress response.

Individualism: Unlike their ancestors who identified strongly with the "White Race" as a monolith of power, younger generations often try to "individualize" their way out of the system. They say, "I’m not like them," using their personal relationships with people of color as a somatic shield to prove they are "safe."

Objectivity: This manifests as the "debate me" culture. When faced with the raw, lived experience of Indigenous or Black pain, the integration-born body often retreats into "logic" and "facts" to avoid the visceral discomfort of empathy.

Comparison and Contrast: How Each Generation Responses to Injustice

For example, when a police shooting occurs or a pipeline is pushed through Indigenous land, these two groups react from different somatic basements.

Response to Protests

Segregated: This generation feels triggered by a loss of law and order, centering their safety. Their bodies seek "Paternalism"—the need for a strong leader to "fix it," like their “Little House on the Prairie" father-figure would.

Integrated: This generation feels triggered by the defensiveness demonstrated in social media comment sections. Their bodies seek a level of “objectivity"—the need to find a reason why the victim was at fault so they don't have to feel guilty. The problem is: those causing the harm look like their parents and grandparents.

View of Progress

Segregated: Measure progress through the development of technology or more inclusive language in legislation. It’s the more-is-better value system. They see the end of Jim Crow as the "finish line."

Integrated: Sense of Urgency. They want the problem fixed now so they can stop feeling uncomfortable, often bypassing the deep work of relationship-building.

The "Soothing" Method

Segregated: Practicing racism through exclusion. "Stay in your place so I can feel calm."

Integrated: Practicing racism through tokenism/assimilation. "Be like me so I can feel calm."

The Statistical Reality of the Divide

The tension isn't just "vibe-based"; it's reflected in how these groups perceive reality. According to 2023-2024 social surveys:

* Perception of Systemic Racism: Approximately 68% of white Americans over the age of 65 believe that "individual prejudice" is the primary cause of racial tension, rather than systemic structures. In contrast, 54% of white Americans aged 18-34 acknowledge that systemic racism is a major factor in society.

* The Policing Gap: In response to events like the murder of George Floyd, 89% of white Boomers expressed "great confidence" in local police, whereas that number dropped to 65% among white Gen Z and Millennials, who are more likely to view the institution through the lens of historical injustice.

* Comfort with Diversity: While 98% of younger white Americans report being comfortable with interracial marriage and integrated neighborhoods, their actual lived experience remains highly segregated. In many "liberal" enclaves, the Individualism characteristic remains high: they support the idea of integration, but their social circles remain 90% white.

Breaking the Cycle: A Call to the Somatic Revolution

If you are a younger European American, you are caught in a bind between two worlds. You have the inherited "armoring" of your grandparents, and the "anxious performance" of your parents. To move toward true justice, you have to stop using Black and Brown bodies as a way to regulate your own nervous system.

How do we do that? We practice the Opposite Values.

From Defensiveness to Vulnerability: When you are called out, notice the tightness in your chest. That is the "white supremacy culture" trying to "soothe" you by making you the victim. Breathe through it. Listen.

From Individualism to Collectivism: Stop trying to be the "one good white person." Join a community of other white people working to deconstruct their attachment to whiteness. Take the burden off of Black, Brown and Indigenous people to endure you while you process your racial stress.

From Either/Or Thinking to Both/And: You can both be a person who wants to do good and a person who is currently benefiting from and perpetuating a toxic system. Holding that complexity is where the healing begins.

The Reckoning

The segregated generation used the whip and the law. The integrated generation uses the "manager's meeting" and the "unconscious bias training." Both, however, are often just different ways of staying in control—different ways of keeping the white body "comfortable" at the expense of everyone else.

To the younger generations: Your ancestors built a fortress to keep themselves "safe," but that fortress has become a prison. It has robbed you of the ability to connect authentically with the rest of humanity.

Resmaa Menakem reminds us that "the body is where we live." If your body can only find peace when you are "the one in charge," "the one who is right," or "the one who is the 'good' ally," then you are still trapped in the 15 characteristics.

The path forward isn't just about reading the right books or posting the right hashtags. It’s about personally building a body that is strong enough to handle the discomfort of truth without needing to "soothe" itself through the oppression of others. It’s about trading the toxic air of supremacy for the fresh, often cold, but life-affirming air of genuine accountability.

Choose the discomfort of growth over the comfort of the cage.

I am repeating myself and this is starting to become emotionally exhausting. This is going to be a difficult communication, not because I don’t know what I want to say but because of how it will be received. Six months before the 2026 mid-term elections, resistance to racial truth is at an all-time high. Too many white-bodied people feel called out, instead of called in!

The struggle for liberation is not a performance for the comfort of the comfortable; it is an exercise in rigorous, unsettling truth. In the current political landscape, where the MAGA movement has ascended to the highest seats of power, we must distinguish between the discomfort of the ego and the destruction of the body. To respond effectively to white supremacy, we must first dismantle the delusion that being "unpopular" is a form of victimization.

If you belong to the oppressor caste—those who have historically and systematically benefited from the social construction of "whiteness"—your unpopularity does not manifest as a 1) refusal to permit you access to resources, 2) state-sanctioned violence against your person, or 3) redlining to purposely deny you housing. Instead, it manifests as a loss of unearned deference.

Despite all their loud saber-rattling, for the average, ordinary white supremacist, the most terrifying reality is not physical harm, but the realization that they never truly know if Black, Brown or Indigenous people like them. Fakeness!

Because of the inherent threat of violence associated with whiteness, Trump and his supporters exist in a vacuum where agreement and politeness with them is often a survival tactic by the marginalized. MAGA is receiving a performance of respect, born of a fear that they might become emotionally or physically volatile. When that performance stops, they cry "oppression," confusing the loss of their pedestal with the loss of their humanity. History has a way of isolating the tyrant. This is a special kind of “unpopularity” that creates severe psychological pain.

Cottonbro Studio

To manage the white supremacist, one must understand the biological and psychological engines driving their behavior. A sociologist named Dr. Robin DiAngelo has identified specific "racial triggers"—such as a person of color in a position of authority—that cause white-bodied individuals to spiral into what she calls "white fragility." This is not a mere lack of emotional stamina; it is a defensive maneuver to regain the racial equilibrium and power dynamic.

Even more profoundly, Black psychologist Resmaa Menakem notes that white bodies have been conditioned to soothe their own nervous systems through the subjugation of Black, Brown, and Indigenous bodies. White racial violence is a historical coping strategy, a way to discharge internal tension by asserting dominance. Since the era of enslavement, this violence has been the "medicine" they use to maintain a sense of importance. As we see in the current events of injustice, when MAGA feels the societal norms becoming more inclusive, they reach for the old tools of insults, discrimination and violence to calm their racing hearts.

While it is tempting to meet their vitriol with reciprocity, we must recognize that insults are the currency of the insecure. Insulting a white supremacist gives them the conflict they crave to justify their perceived martyrdom. It is far more effective—and psychologically jarring to them—to treat them as a volatile element that must be managed. When you treat a grown woman, man or queer as a person who lacks emotional regulation and must be navigated so they don't "act out," you strip away the dignity of their feeling of "superiority."

Because public tolerance is at an all-time low, against the will of millions of us who reside within the United States of America, there is a profound weight in being viewed as someone who lacks the capacity (refuses) to grow out of whiteness. When it is accepted that you have chosen a path of psychopathy—a clinical detachment from the humanity of others—to cope with reality, you are no longer a peer or neighbor; you are a ward of the public’s collective patience.

We see the dizzying height of this “management” in the current iteration of MAGA absurdity. Consider the spectacle of the musician, Kid Rock, a rapper/singer who built a career on the aesthetic of "the ordinary/common white man" while enjoying the spoils of fame and wealth, addressing the Pentagon. Such is the ultimate display of white mediocrity being granted a stage it did not earn. When a figure of such shallow intellectual depth is invited to consult on national security, it is not a sign of upward mobility and opportunity; it is a sign that the Trump Administration is desperately trying to placate a base prone to violent tantrums. It is the political equivalent of giving a child a toy so they don't scream in the grocery store.

To minimize the impact of these racist personalities on our societal outcomes, we must stop taking MAGA as a serious intellectual and cultural movement. It is not a cult. No one is brainwashed. The members want to be white supremacists and their arguments/perspectives treated as legitimate. We must refuse them such ground.

Instead of entertaining them, in response to their delusion, we should treat MAGA as a publicly-sponsored management problem. Here are three alternatives to direct confrontation that increases the public consensus that this movement needs to become a relic of the past post-haste:

Enforce intellectual isolation: Publicly treat MAGA rhetoric as a "special interest" hobby rather than a valid political philosophy. When national media outlets and we rank-and-file citizens on social media treat their outbursts with the same weary exhaustion one has for a broken record, the "importance" of their dominance begins to wither.

Redirect the discussion to hard data, not personality: When Trump or his supporters perform a stunt, respond exclusively with the boring, technical data of how their policies harm their own base. By refusing to engage with the "theatre" of Kid Rock guest celebrity sport or an Erika Kirk rally, we deny MAGA the emotional "soothing" they get from conflict.

Focus on implementing solutions: Organize. Choose to invest energy into building systems—food co-ops, community schools, and local defense (yes, to this most of all!)—that operate as if white supremacy has already failed. When the "unpopular" oppressor sees a world moving on without them, their primary tool (the threat of exclusion) loses all its power.

We must remember: their violence is a strategy of the terrified. Our response must be the calm, firm hand of those who know they are already free.

What I am about to say is controversial to those who can (still) achieve white racial innocence. For those who can feel, it will be a relief that someone has the courage to talk about what they are experiencing in a way that the white mind can “intellectualize.” As I publish, the political, emotional and psychological “landscape” of the “American empire” is shaking. Not from the wind, but from a profound, psychic cold that has settled into the marrow of rural whiteness.

What is being documented in news articles is a collision between the mythology of “America First” and the jagged reality of a world that refuses to bow to a PR stunt. When Mr. Trump pivoted from the theatrical “Epic Fury” strikes, which began on February 28, 2026 to a tenuous, bumpy ceasefire with Iran on April 8, he didn’t just move the goalposts of foreign policy; he shattered the psychological mirror of his most loyal constituency.

Photo by Narmin Aslanli

To understand this, we must look through the lens of Black psychologist Dr. Janet Helms’ theory of “white racial identity.” Dr. Helms describes a process where the "contact" stage—a blissful, race-blind innocence produced by being raised in a segregated suburb or almost all white rural community—is eventually shattered by "disintegration." This is the moment when the white individual - leaves their lily white environment, encounters Black, Brown and Indigenous people on a college campus or workplace and - is forced to realize that the world they believed was universal and righteous is, in fact, built on shifting sands of privilege and power. For decades, rural white America was sold a narrative of inherent moral superiority and geopolitical invincibility. They were the "autonomy" of the nation, the heartbeat of the land.

But last Tuesday’s (April 7) Iranian "stunt"—a campaign of regime-change rhetoric followed by a messy, stalled exit facilitated by Mr. Trump on Truth Social—has functioned as a massive, involuntary encounter with the "disintegration" stage.

The POTUS promised total victory; the reality is a multi-billion dollar bill and a precarious peace that leaves the homeland feeling more vulnerable than ever. For many European Americans in these "red" zip codes, the cognitive dissonance is lethal. They are trapped between the "reintegration" urge—to double down on anger and blame—and a terrifying "immersion" into the reality that their identity was anchored to a myth that no longer provides shelter.

When you lose the myth, you lose the map. And when you are lost in rural white America, the silence is deafening.

The numbers tell a story that the evening news often sanitizes. According to the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, approximately 1.7 million adults in nonmetropolitan areas—roughly 5.5% of that population—reported serious thoughts of suicide within a single year. Recent data from 2025 and early 2026 indicates that suicide mortality in rural counties has surged to 28.69 per 100,000, compared to 20.20 in urban centers. In the West, that gap widens into a chasm, with rural rates hitting 38.23. This isn't just a "mental health crisis"; it is an identity crisis manifesting as a public health emergency.

Helms’ theory suggests that when the "white racial innocence" is stripped away, the individual feels a profound sense of "disintegration."

If they cannot move toward a "pseudo-independent" or "autonomous" identity—one that accepts a new, less-dominant role in the world, where they are a part of a community, instead of a self-contained, individual unit—they become "trapped." They feel the walls of whiteness, the weight and social burden of their own skin, closing in. The political theater in Tehran and Washington, D.C. has stripped away the illusion of the "protected" status. For white men, white women, white children and white queers in a small town who have been indoctrinated their whole life into the idea that they are the backbone of the world's only superpower, watching a "political stunt" crumble into uncertainty is psychic castration.

Photo by Ebahir

The isolation of rural life compounds this. As of 2025, 40% of people in isolated rural communities live more than 30 minutes from any mental health facility. When the "America First" promise of security and status fails to pay the bills, or stop the existential dread, these residents are left with a toolkit that only contains two options: externalized rage or internalized despair.

The trend of increasing suicide rates is the sound of the "disintegration" stage collapsing in on itself. It is the result of a population that was promised they would "win so much they’d get tired of winning," only to find themselves tired of waiting for a victory that was never designed to reach their kitchen tables.

As we look at the bumpy off-ramps of 2026, we must recognize that the crisis isn't just about missiles or ceasefires. It’s about a unique population of “white people” who have been trapped in a hall of mirrors, and the mirrors are finally starting to get kicked by the weight of reality, like Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon. If we do not address the foundational instability of this racial identity—this "white racial innocence" that anti-racism/pro-humanity educators such as myself warn about—the "certain death" threatened abroad will continue to find its way home to the quiet, desperate heart of the rural white American countryside.

It was a cold November night in 1837, a white minister and newspaper editor named Elijah Parish Lovejoy was shot five times while guarding his printing press from a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois (Tanner 12). History has often called him “the first martyr to the freedom of the press.”

That title is not accurate.

Elijah Lovejoy was the first white martyr whose death was covered relentlessly by mainstream newspapers and mourned by powerful politicians. But Black journalists were shedding blood for the same cause years earlier. Their deaths were not called martyrdom. They were “justified” by the society that killed them. And same same shit different day.

One hundred and eighty years after Lovejoy, on a warm October afternoon in 2017, a Maltese journalist named Daphne Caruana Galizia started her car and was instantly killed by a bomb planted by men who wanted her reporting to stop (“Daphne Caruana Galizia: Journalist Killed”).

Their weapons were different. A pamphlet, a printing press, a blog, but their cause was the same. The belief that a free press is the cornerstone of human rights. This is their story, told whole.

The Black Journalists Who Came First

David Walker (1796–1830)

David Walker was born free in North Carolina to an enslaved father. He moved to Boston and became a clothing retailer and undercover writer. In 1829, he published Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America (Walker).

The pamphlet was revolutionary. Walker did not ask for gradual emancipation. He demanded immediate abolition and argued that enslaved people had not only the right but the moral duty to fight for their freedom. He wrote: “They want us for their slaves, and think nothing of murdering us… therefore, if there is an attempt made by us, kill or be killed” (Walker, Article IV).

Southern states reacted with fury. Governors demanded Walker be arrested for sedition. A bounty was placed on his head. The pamphlet was banned, and anyone caught distributing it faced severe punishment or death (Hinks 124).

Frontispiece from David Walker's "Appeal."

In June 1830, David Walker was found dead in his Boston home. The official cause was listed as consumption (tuberculosis), but many abolitionists believed he had been poisoned. He was 33 years old (Aptheker 42).

Walker was not killed by a mob at a printing press. But he died because he wrote the truth, and the slaveholding class wanted him silenced. That makes him a martyr for press freedom, whether history books acknowledge it or not.

Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm (Freedom’s Journal, 1827)

On March 16, 1827, Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm published the first issue of Freedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned and operated newspaper in the United States (Freedom’s Journal 1:1). Its mission statement read: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us” (Freedom’s Journal 1:1).

Freedom’s Journal covered international news, local events, lynchings and anti-Black violence that white newspapers refused to report. Covering lynching was the most dangerous of all. The paper also railed against the American Colonization Society, which proposed sending free Black people to Africa, arguing that Black Americans had earned their place in the United States (Bacon 67).

The newspaper faced constant threats. White mobs destroyed copies. Subscribers were harassed. Cornish was forced to resign after just six months due to the stress and danger. Russwurm continued alone until 1829, when he shockingly reversed his position and endorsed colonization. A decision that devastated the Black community (Russwurm).

John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish

No one killed Cornish or Russwurm. But they lived under the constant threat of violence for the crime of publishing while Black. Their crime was not what they wrote. Their crime was existing as free Black men with a printing press.

The Pattern of Erasure

Why is Lovejoy called the “first martyr” while Walker is called a “radical pamphleteer” and Freedom’s Journal is called a “historic footnote”?

The answer is white supremacy. Lovejoy’s death was covered by white newspapers read by white politicians. They saw themselves in him. He was a white minister, a Princeton-educated man, a husband and father. His death could be mourned without challenging the viewer’s own complicity in slavery (Ellingwood 245).

Walker, by contrast, was dangerous. His death was convenient for the slaveholding class. Calling him a martyr would mean acknowledging that a Black man’s words were powerful enough to threaten the entire Southern economy. That was too frightening to admit (Hinks 189).

Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802–1837)

Early Life and Calling

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was born on November 9, 1802, near Albion, Maine, the first of nine children of a Congregational preacher (Dillon). After graduating at the top of his class from Waterville College (now Colby College) in 1826, he followed a calling west, settling in St. Louis, Missouri (“Elijah Parish Lovejoy”). There, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and, in 1833, began publishing the St. Louis Observer (Lovejoy and Lovejoy 89).

The Slavery Question

Initially, Lovejoy supported gradual emancipation, a position considered dangerously radical in slaveholding Missouri (Ellingwood 112). But when a mob burned a Black boatman named Francis McIntosh alive in 1836 and a judge refused to convict anyone. He insinuated that Lovejoy’s writings had incited the violence. Lovejoy erupted. He called the judge “a Papist; and in his charge we see the cloven foot of Jesuitism” (St. Louis Observer qtd. in Dillon 87).

The night that article appeared, a mob damaged his press. Lovejoy moved his family across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois, a free state, determined to continue (Tanner 34).

Four Presses, Four Destructions

Before Lovejoy could even unload his press in Alton, a mob destroyed it (Ellingwood 156). Over the next eighteen months, pro-slavery mobs destroyed three more. Each time, Lovejoy resolved to continue.

At a public meeting, prominent Alton citizens asked him to leave. He refused, delivering an eloquent defense of civil rights:

“But gentlemen, as long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject” (Lovejoy and Lovejoy 178).

Elijah Parish Lovejoy

The Final Stand

On November 7, 1837, a mob gathered outside a warehouse where Lovejoy’s fourth press was stored. They demanded its surrender. Inside, Lovejoy and a small band of supporters waited, armed to defend it (Tanner 56).

When someone from the mob attempted to set the warehouse roof on fire, Lovejoy stepped outside to stop him. He was shot five times and died almost instantly. The mob then threw the press out the window and dragged it to the Mississippi River, where it was destroyed (Ellingwood 212).

Legacy

Abraham Lincoln later called Lovejoy’s death “the most important single event that ever happened in the new world” (qtd. in Ellingwood 280). His brother, Owen Lovejoy, took up the cause and became a leading abolitionist congressman (“Owen Lovejoy”).

But we must say this plainly: Elijah Lovejoy was not the first person to die for freedom of the press. He was the first white person whose death was recorded as such. David Walker died seven years before Lovejoy, and his crime was the same: publishing words the powerful did not want printed. A complete history places Lovejoy in a line that includes Walker, Cornish, Russwurm, and countless unnamed Black journalists who were beaten, jailed, and killed for telling the truth.

Daphne Caruana Galizia (1964–2017)

The Blogger Who Took on a Nation

Daphne Caruana Galizia was born in Sliema, Malta, in 1964. She studied archaeology at the University of Malta but found her true calling in journalism (“Daphne Caruana Galizia” Committee to Protect Journalists). By the 2010s, she had become the island nation’s most feared investigative reporter, publishing a popular blog called Running Commentary.

Her specialty was corruption. Using public records and leaked documents, she exposed how politically connected businessmen were profiting from government contracts, secret offshore accounts, and money laundering schemes (Garside).

The Panama Papers

In 2016, Caruana Galizia’s reporting reached a global audience. She was one of the journalists who broke the Panama Papers. This massive leak of 11.5 million documents revealed how the world’s wealthy hid their assets in offshore shell companies (“The Panama Papers”).

Her specific target was Malta’s Energy Minister, Konrad Mizzi, and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri. She revealed that both had opened secret Panama companies just as the government awarded lucrative oil exploration contracts (Caruana Galizia, “The Secret Panama Companies”).

Daphne Caruana Galizia

She wrote on her blog: “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate” (Caruana Galizia, Running Commentary).

The Murder

On October 16, 2017, Caruana Galizia left her home in Bidnija, Malta, and drove her Peugeot 108. A bomb attached to the underside of the car detonated, killing her instantly. She was 53 years old (“Daphne Caruana Galizia: How the Murder Unfolded”).

The murder sent shockwaves across Europe. Tens of thousands of Maltese citizens poured into the streets of Valletta, demanding justice. The European Parliament condemned the killing as “an attack on the freedom of the press” (European Parliament Resolution).

The Aftermath

In 2019, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was forced to resign after it emerged that his chief of staff was connected to the murder plot (“Malta’s PM Joseph Muscat to Resign”). In 2021, three men were convicted for carrying out the bombing: brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vince Muscat. They were sentenced to 40 years in prison (“Three Men Convicted”). The alleged mastermind, businessman Yorgen Fenech, remains on trial as of 2025 (“Yorgen Fenech Trial”).

Legacy

The Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism is now awarded annually by the European Parliament (“Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize”). UNESCO has called her murder “a stark reminder of the price journalists pay for exposing wrongdoing” (UNESCO).

What Connects Them

David Walker (1830)

• Slavery Pamphlet

• Bounty on his head

• Likely poisoned

• No one charged

Samuel Cornish & John Russwurm (1827–1829)

• Racism, colonization

• Newspaper Constant threats, mob destruction

• Lived under threat

• N/A (survived)

Elijah Lovejoy (1837)

• Pro-slavery mobs

• Printing press

• Four presses destroyed

• Shot by mob

• No one convicted

Daphne Caruana Galizia (2017)

• Government corruption

• Blog Multiple libel suits

• Car bomb

• Three convicted; mastermind on trial

All were warned. All refused to stop. And in each case, the powerful people who wanted them silenced were either never brought to justice or were brought to justice only after public outrage forced action.

Conclusion

UNESCO reports that more than 85% of journalist murders go unpunished worldwide (UNESCO 8). That statistic would not surprise David Walker. It would not surprise Elijah Lovejoy. And it would not surprise Daphne Caruana Galizia.

They all knew that those who kill reporters often believe they will never face consequences. But they also knew something else: that a single voice, printed on a page, can outlast any mob. That a free press is not a luxury. It is the only weapon the powerless have against the powerful.

As the editors of Freedom’s Journal wrote in their very first issue: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us” (Freedom’s Journal 1:1).

It is past time we let them.

Works Cited

• Aptheker, Herbert. One Continual Cry: David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Humanities Press, 1965.

• Bacon, Jacqueline. Freedom’s Journal: The First Black Newspaper. Lexington Books, 2007.

• Caruana Galizia, Daphne. “The Secret Panama Companies of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri.” Running Commentary, 3 Apr. 2016.

• Running Commentary. 15 Sept. 2017.

• “Daphne Caruana Galizia.” Committee to Protect Journalists, 2017, cpj.org/data/people/daphne-caruana-galizia/.

• “Daphne Caruana Galizia: How the Murder Unfolded.” Times of Malta, 16 Oct. 2018, timesofmalta.com/articles/view/daphne-caruana-galizia-how-the-murder-unfolded.691865.

• “Daphne Caruana Galizia: Journalist Killed by Car Bomb in Malta.” BBC News, 17 Oct. 2017, bbc.com/news/world-europe-41648547.

• “Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism.” European Parliament, 2021, europarl.europa.eu/daphne-prize.

• Dillon, Merton L. “Lovejoy, Elijah Parish (1802-1837).” American National Biography, Oxford University Press, 1999.

• “Elijah Parish Lovejoy.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Parish_Lovejoy. Accessed 8 Apr. 2026.

• Ellingwood, Ken. First to Fall: Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery. Pegasus Books, 2021.

• European Parliament. Resolution on the Murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. 15 Nov. 2017.

• Freedom’s Journal. Vol. 1, no. 1, 16 Mar. 1827.

• Garside, Juliette. “Malta Car Bomb Kills Panama Papers Journalist.” The Guardian, 16 Oct. 2017, theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills-panama-papers-journalist.

• Hinks, Peter P. To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance. Penn State Press, 1997.

• Lincoln, Abraham. Speech at Springfield, Illinois. 1857. Quoted in Ellingwood, First to Fall, p. 280.

• Lovejoy, Joseph C., and Owen Lovejoy. Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy. J.S. Taylor, 1838.

• “Malta’s PM Joseph Muscat to Resign over Caruana Galizia Case.” Al Jazeera, 1 Dec. 2019, aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/1/maltas-pm-joseph-muscat-to-resign-over-caruana-galizia-case.

• “Owen Lovejoy.” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000469. Accessed 8 Apr. 2026.

• “The Panama Papers.” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2016, icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/.

• Russwurm, John. “To the Public.” Freedom’s Journal, 28 Mar. 1829.

• Tanner, Henry. The Martyrdom of Lovejoy. Fergus Printing Company, 1881.

• “Three Men Convicted of Murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia.” Reuters, 24 Nov. 2021, reuters.com/world/europe/three-men-convicted-murdering-maltese-journalist-daphne-caruana-galizia-2021-11-24/.

• UNESCO. “Director-General Condemns Murder of Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.” 17 Oct. 2017, unesco.org/en/articles/director-general-condemns-murder-journalist-daphne-caruana-galizia.

• “Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.” 2024 Report.

• Walker, David. Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America. Boston, 1829.

• “Yorgen Fenech Trial: What You Need to Know.” Malta Today, 15 Jan. 2025, maltatoday.com.mt/news/court-and-police/129322/yorgen_fenech_trial_what_you_need_to_know.

Let’s meet Craig.

Craig posted on Facebook the other night. He’s a poor white man. Grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. The most multicultural city in the nation. His best friend is Black. He gets along with Native people. He isn’t trying to hurt anybody. He goes to work every day in construction. Works hard. Comes home tired.

And Craig is terrified.

Not of violence. Not of poverty. He’s terrified of “anti-racism work.”

Here’s what he said, in his own words: “Oh so you want me to just give up all my belongings to Black people for reparations and act like a whipped dog around people of color because I'm so sad. Fuck off dude. I got to get laid.”

What Craig is actually saying is “I feel like anti-racism means revenge on me. It means limiting my personal opportunities.”

I want to pause right there.

Because if you only listen to the loudest voices online, you might think Craig is a bigot. He’s not. He’s a human being who has real relationships across race. He’s not a monster. He’s not even mean.

So why is he afraid?

Here’s the hard truth that pro-humanity anti-racism has to be brave enough to say:

Craig’s fear did not come from Black people. It did not come from Native people. It came from his socialization with white people.

Let me explain.

Craig grew up poor and white in a diverse city. But the white people around him (family, coworkers, neighbors, the media made for people like him) taught him a quiet, constant lesson. The lesson wasn’t “hate Black people.” The lesson was: “There’s only so much room at the table. If someone else gets a turn, you lose your seat.”

That’s not racism as hatred. That’s racism as scarcity.

And for a poor white man? Scarcity is real. Craig has lost opportunities. He has been passed over. He has watched wealth flow past him to people who looked like him but had better connections, cleaner boots, a safer address.

So when he hears “anti-racism,” he doesn’t hear “justice.” He hears: “They’re coming for what little I have left.”

But here’s what Craig doesn’t see because no one has shown him differently:

Photo by RDNE Stock project

That voice whispering “they’re coming for you” is not the voice of Black neighbors or Native coworkers. That voice is the voice of a white social world that has always used fear to keep poor and working-class white people from making common cause with everyone else.

Think about it.

Craig’s best friend is Black. They work side by side. They watch each other’s backs. That friendship didn’t produce fear. That friendship produced trust.

So where did the fear come from? It came from white-dominated news cycles. It came from white family members who said, “Just wait, they’ll turn on you.” It came from a culture that told Craig his whiteness was his only real asset. If you start talking about race honestly, you’re threatening that asset.

That’s not anti-racism’s fault. That’s white supremacy’s oldest trick.

Divide poor people by race so they never unite by class. Make a white construction worker believe a Black job seeker is his enemy, instead of the boss who underpays them both.

Craig doesn’t want revenge on anyone. He wants to work. He wants to be left alone. He wants a fair shot.

And here’s the part that breaks my heart: anti-racism, done right, is on Craig’s side.

Real anti-racism is not about revenge. It’s not about quotas as punishment. It’s not about making Craig smaller.

Real anti-racism is about noticing that the system that hurt Craig. The one that made him poor, invisible, exhausted is the same system that hurts his Black best friend and his Native coworkers. Just in different ways.

Real anti-racism says: What if there was enough? What if we stopped fighting over scraps? What if we actually looked at who keeps us fighting?

But Craig has never heard that version. Because that version doesn’t sell ads. That version doesn’t go viral. That version requires trust, patience, and the kind of relationship Craig already has with his best friend. Craig hasn’t yet learned to scale to the whole community.

So here’s what I want to say to Craig, if he ever reads this:

I see you. I believe you’re not trying to hurt anyone. I believe you work hard. And I believe your fear is real.

But please, just for a moment, ask yourself: Who told you that justice for others means less for you? Was it a person of color? Or was it a white person, or a white-led institution, or a white-centered news story?

Because the people who actually want revenge? They’re not the ones asking for a seat at the table. They’re the ones who’ve had all the seats for centuries and are now telling you to guard the door.

You don’t have to guard the door. You could pull up a chair. And there would still be enough.

—A European American building a pro-humanity, anti-racist community

(EAGER: European Americans Growing & Engaging in Reconditioning)

P.S. EAGER stands for European Americans Growing and Engaging in Reconditioning. We’re not here to shame. We’re here to deconstruct white supremacy from the inside, fund pro-humanity education, and build a community where people like Craig don’t have to be afraid anymore. Because fear is learned. And what’s learned can be unlearned, together.

I swear I do not feel like I can write, or publish, fast enough.

On Monday, March 30, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down and was interviewed by Al Jazeera. I imagine he did so for his ideas to be spread, not among residents of the United States, but Iranians. Here is the link to the full interview.

Sometimes, when it comes to addressing an act of overt white supremacy, which is completely glossed over by the masses of European Americans, I have to ask myself, where do I begin?

Here is a quote from Secretary Rubio’s first answer which stood out to me. “I mean, imagine an Iranian regime who, instead of spending billions of dollars supporting terrorist groups and building up all of these weapons, had invested that money into Iran, for the people of Iran, so they wouldn’t have water shortages, so their economies would provide opportunities for an incredible people. The people of Iran are incredible people, very resourceful, very entrepreneurial, but it’s their regime that’s been a problem.”

Let’s get clear. Secretary Marco Rubio is not ignorant. He is very well educated. Nor is he dissociating when making any statement before an Arab reporter. Whatever protective lens used to watch Mr. Trump practice white supremacy in front of us can not (properly) be applied to Mr. Rubio. Even more dangerous and frightening: unlike Mr. Trump, he DOES know what he is saying and he (still) doesn't give a fuck.

Is he a white supremacist? Yes, he is. The issue is: Rubio’s demeanor neatly avoids the David Duke model of what a white supremacists looks like through European American eyes.

Next question: Does he have to officially confess to being a white supremacist for me, a Black man, to perceive his actions as supporting white supremacy? No.

And, it is here that we reach a boundary that millions of European Americans can not cross because they, individually, sincerely believe that Black, Brown and Indigenous people can be "racist" towards their personality. Why? Because white bodies are approaching us like we are "white like them" with no racial power dynamics are in play.

In contrast, Mr. Rubio has power, due to his “position,” and not “them” on the ground, outside of the “Trump regime.”

Personally, do they accept that racism exists? Yes.

Is racism anything more than skin-toned based "bullying" in their minds? No.

So, Rubio can make this statement with a level of sincerity that defies the logic of national headlines. Our European American friends and family are completely confused as to how and why he is able to do so. How can he talk as if he is not one of those causing the problems happening in Iran right now?

Simone Biles can not match this level of mental gymnastics.

Photo by Ivan S

So, what is the solution?

Please choose to go on your healing journey and acknowledge that what you see is exactly what you are seeing.

Please do not engage in dissociation and create a story in your head that Rubio is not presenting himself as a threat to Iran and is trying to make a valid argument. To do so is to actively participate in practicing PITS with Rubio.

Allow those around you, who do not wish to face the reality of Rubio consciously choosing to practice white supremacy, to remain in their delusion. Please do not argue with them. All that does is inspire them to defend themselves.

Choose to post on social media that you expect Mr. Rubio, and his supporters, to implement their agenda, regardless of what opposition exists. In fact, direct opposition assists them in achieving their goals; it does not harm them.

Begin describing how Rubio makes you feel by using racial terms. “As a white woman, Rubio’s open display of disregard for how the United States military is being deployed to create chaos in Iran, instead of inside of the United States to produce positive results for the ‘American’ people, is the hypocrisy that makes Black, Brown and Indigenous people say: that’s some white people shit!”

Be emotionally strong enough to allow a European American to meltdown on your social media platform or in person. Unless this space is created among white bodied people, the burden of soothing the racist nervous system falls on the oppressed.

Read Paulo Freire's “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This time, view yourself and other European Americans as the oppressors, not the oppressed.

www.joineager.com

I have read history books. That is all. I am not a scholar. I am not an expert on suffragists. I have just read books that had their names in them, and sometimes I would stop on a page and think: That one is interesting. I also acknowledge that many of the suffragettes were very problematic.

Mary Newbury Adams was one of those names I have read about in history books. A 19th-century suffragist from Iowa. Raised by abolitionists. She founded conversation clubs. She called them "nurseries for power." She believed that people needed a place to grow their minds and their voices before they could do the work of changing the world.¹

She fought for all women to have the right to vote. Not just white women. That mattered to her.

The phrase "nurseries for power" stayed in my head the way some things do without you knowing why.

I did not know she was my cousin.

That came yesterday at my aunt's house. Carolyn Jean Burgett, my father’s sister, who I haven't seen in a long time reached out to me about ancestry. I went over to her house, and when I entered the information she had gathered into AncestryDNA, Mary Newbury Adams popped up as a relative.

Fifth cousin, six times removed, on my father's side.

I have not spent much time with that side of the family. There was abuse there. I don't have warm memories of family stories passed down. What I have is the work I have done to heal from what happened, and the work I have chosen to do in the world.

So when Mary Newbury Adams appeared on that screen, I didn't feel the pull of nostalgia. I felt something stranger. A name I had noticed in books was suddenly connected to me. Not through anything I had earned or chosen. Just through blood.

Nurseries for Power

Here is what I know about Mary Newbury Adams: she was not famous in the way Susan B. Anthony is famous. She hosted Ralph Waldo Emerson in her home. Emerson called her "the most inspiring woman I ever met."² But her real work was smaller and slower. She started conversation clubs in Dubuque, Iowa—study groups where women learned to think, to speak, to form opinions. She called them "nurseries for power" because she understood that power has to be grown. It doesn't arrive overnight. It comes from people who have done their work.

She was raised by abolitionists. She carried that into her suffragist work. A belief that the fight for women's rights was not a fight for some women, but for all women.³

A Force to Be Reckoned With

She did not do it alone. Her husband, Austin Adams, was a force in his own right. A lawyer who became Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court, he was known for his sharp mind and his willingness to take unpopular stands. When Mary was banned from speaking at a college commencement simply because she was a woman, Austin did not stay quiet. He spoke out publicly against the decision.⁴

Together, they turned their home into a gathering place for reformers. Ralph Waldo Emerson stayed with them. Bronson Alcott, the philosopher and father of Louisa May Alcott, was a guest. Their home was a hub for the kind of people who were trying to imagine a more just world.⁵

What strikes me about their partnership is that Austin did not overshadow her. He did not take credit for her work. He used his position, his power, his platform to make space for her and for the cause she believed in. He was a force to be reckoned with, but he reckoned in her direction. He had her back.

That is the kind of partnership that changes things. Not one person doing the work alone. Not one person sacrificing while the other stands idle. But two people, each with their own power, using it to push the same boulder up the same hill.

Why EAGER

Two years ago, I started an organization called EAGER. It stands for European Americans Growing, Engaging, and Reconditioning.

The premise is simple: European American white-bodied people who want to be part of the solution to white supremacy need dedicated spaces to do the work of unlearning. Not performative allyship. Not guilt. Not saviorism. Real education. Real reconditioning. Real accountability.

We fund and promote anti-racism and pro-humanity education. We build community for European Americans who are willing to do the uncomfortable work of examining what we were taught, who we benefit from, and what we owe.

I started it because I kept seeing the same pattern: European Americans who genuinely wanted to help, but who had no infrastructure for doing their own work. They needed a place to do that examination, not in isolation, but in community with other European Americans who were committed to the same process.

That is what EAGER is. A nursery for power. A conversation club for the 21st century.

The Work, Not the Blood

I don't believe that ancestry is destiny. I know too well that blood can carry harm as easily as it carries anything else. The people I come from on my father's side, the side where Mary Newbury Adams sits, five generations back and six times removed, are not people I have chosen to claim in any simple way. There was abuse there. There were patterns I have spent my adult life naming and breaking.

So when I say Mary Newbury Adams is my cousin, I am not saying that her virtue flows in my veins. I am saying that the work I chose before I knew she existed turns out to be the same work she chose. We are kin not because blood made us so, but because we looked at the world and arrived at the same conclusion: that people need places to grow their capacity for justice.

She built nurseries for power for women who had been denied education and the vote. She fought for all women, across the lines that others tried to draw. And she had a partner who used his own power to make that work possible.

I am building nurseries for power for European Americans who are ready to do the work of deconstructing the white supremacy we were raised inside of, so that we can show up for the collective fight. I am building in community, because no one does this work alone.

Same work. Different century.

Full Circle

Yesterday, I walked into my aunt Jean's house and watched a name I had noticed in books become a relative. I don't know what to do with that except to say it out loud. I don't claim her as proof that I am good or that my family is good. I claim her as proof that the work I am doing has been done before, by people who had their own complicated families, their own reasons for choosing something different than what they were handed.

Mary Newbury Adams died in 1901, nineteen years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.⁶ She never saw the vote she worked for. But she saw the nurseries. She saw the women who would carry the work forward. And she had Austin beside her, a force who made sure she was not doing it alone.

I am carrying a different piece of the work. The fight for women's suffrage, in her hands, was a fight for all women. The work now is to finish what that fight began: to dismantle the white supremacy that was baked into the structures of this country from the start.

That is the reconditioning. That is the growing and engaging.

This is my moment. This is my nursery.

Citations

1. Mary Newbury Adams, Address to the Northern Iowa Woman Suffrage Association, 1871.

2. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, quoted in The Palimpsest, vol. 56, Iowa State Historical Society, 1975, p. 112.

3. The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, University of Iowa Press, 2008. s.v. "Adams, Mary Newbury."

4. Austin Adams, "Commencement Controversy," Dubuque Times, July 3, 1871.

5. The Palimpsest, vol. 56, Iowa State Historical Society, 1975, p. 110-115.

6. Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, August 6, 1901.

I have had a deep admiration and respect for the genius of Albert Einstein since I was a small child. At first, it was just because I was always regarded as an exceptionally intelligent child and I was a little bit ostracized because of it. So I kind of identified with the weird old genius persona.

But in my adolescence, having learned considerably more about him, I grew to respect him even more. Eventually I began to regard him as the most intelligent of all the famous geniuses of history, but not for the same reasons that most people who held that belief did.

I regarded Einstein as the most intelligent genius of his time specifically because he chose to be incorrect in his research and calculations regarding nuclear fission. According to sources close to him, he knew that nuclear fission was not only possible, but absolutely feasible within Earth’s atmosphere and with the technology available at the time, but he declared that it wasn’t, that it would never work. And this quote is his reason why.

This quote came after a series of events that etched Oppenheimer’s name into the history books. It could have easily been Einstein’s glory, years prior, and Oppenheimer would never have been a name anyone even remembered, much less accredited. But he chose humanity above immortality. He understood that no government on the planet was worthy to carry the responsibility that comes with wielding such a potentially destructive power. He knew what they would do with it. Time proved him right.

I sometimes wonder what Albert Einstein would say about these choices being a hidden catalyst for the deconstruction of a boy who was born decades after he was already gone. One the boy would not even recognize until decades after his exposure to it. I wonder if he’d be proud that his defiance to empower murderers inspired a single child to act accordingly; to be, not just unwilling, but absolutely incapable of following evil orders.

I hope that he would be proudest of that accomplishment above all others. Because that child is me, and I can think of no accomplishment in my life that would be as profound as inspiring even a single child to grow out of bigotry, hate, and the desperation for violence those things bring with them.

Photo by Engin Akyurt

When I ended my last essay with the words, “Now—I belong to no one but the Spiral,” I imagined

something steady.

Something sovereign.

Something solid beneath my feet.

But the truth is, I wrote that sentence with shaking hands.

My chest was tight.

My jaw was clenched.

My body did not feel liberated.

Because belonging to the Spiral does not feel like freedom most days.

It feels like exposure.

It feels like watching yourself in real time and realizing you still flinch when someone challenges you.

Still crave reassurance.

Still feel the old urge to be the “good one.”

The agreeable one.

The enlightened one.

Awareness did not dissolve my conditioning.

It made it visible.

And visibility is uncomfortable.

I thought once I saw white supremacy culture clearly—once I could name perfectionism,

defensiveness, urgency, fear of conflict—that I would somehow rise above it.

Instead, I started seeing it in my body.

In the way my heart races when a conversation shifts tone.

In the pit that opens in my stomach when conflict rises.

In the way my hands begin to shake even if my voice sounds calm.

Sometimes what I call “communication” in my marriage is actually control dressed up as vulnerability.

There are nights when tension builds and my nervous system locks onto one goal: resolve this now.

My husband might still be activated.

Still processing.

Still trying to come down in his own way.

And I feel urgency flood my body.

Not just to talk.

To fix.

Photo by Stas Knop

To land somewhere stable.

I start explaining carefully.

Choosing my words with precision.

Trying to be understood.

I tell myself I am fighting for connection.

But underneath it, I am fighting panic.

Sometimes my urgency for resolution isn’t about mutual understanding.

It’s about soothing the fear that something is slipping out of my control.

White supremacy culture taught me that safety comes from managing outcomes.

From restoring order quickly.

From being perceived as reasonable, regulated, right.

So when I push for clarity, when I press for immediate resolution, when I insist on being heard right

now—sometimes I am not dismantling domination culture.

I am reenacting it.

That realization humbles me more than any theory ever could.

It doesn’t stop at marriage.

I see it in activist spaces too.

There are moments I want to be seen as “far along.”

As self-aware.

As someone who has done the work.

And when I receive feedback—even gentle feedback—I feel heat rise in my face.

A flicker of shame.

A quiet panic at being exposed.

White supremacy culture loves hierarchy.

Even in liberation spaces.

Especially in liberation spaces.

I don’t want to admit that I sometimes measure myself against others.

But if I’m honest, I do.

And that measurement is the system whispering again.

The scariest place I see it is in motherhood.

The other morning, my daughter was overwhelmed before school.

Tears. Frustration. Big feelings.

And I felt the reflex rise in me—

“Calm down.”

“Let’s fix this.”

“Why is this such a big deal?”

Not because I don’t love her.

But because dysregulation makes me anxious.

Because part of me still believes good families are composed, contained, controlled.

She doesn’t need a perfect mother.

She needs a regulated one.

She needs a mother who can kneel down, breathe, and say, “It’s okay to feel this.”

I cannot pass down perfection as protection.

I cannot teach her that being “good” is safer than being honest.

If I do, the cycle continues—just with softer language.

Belonging to the Spiral, I’m learning, is not a declaration of arrival.

It is a commitment to return.

Return to my body.

Return to humility.

Return to repair.

Return to curiosity when shame rises.

I am awake.

But I am not steady.

And maybe steadiness isn’t the goal.

Maybe the goal is willingness.

Willingness to see myself clearly.

Willingness to name the control hiding inside vulnerability.

Willingness to let love be mutual instead of managed.

Awareness did not make me better.

It made me responsible.

And responsibility is heavier—and holier—than certainty.

I don’t belong to the Spiral because I am finished.

I belong because I am willing to keep returning.

The following is written by a human being and not artificial intelligence.

I raise my hand to be counted by this Second Trump Administration as one of its enemies. I abhor the current events of injustice and would love the opportunity to conduct an “What Does It Mean to be an American” survey through all 50 states.

In the meantime, as a historian, I implore all of us to start a diary. Our descendants will have endless questions about our intentions and inner psychology, individually and collectively, during these current events just like we do today about events from previous generations. The more information we leave them in the form of diaries and editorials, the better their understanding of our humanity will be.

Let me submit this entry as my first in the practice that I suggest:

Contrary to the thousands of combative social media exchanges I have experienced over the past 15 years, I do not enjoy being a trigger for racial stress within white bodies nor do I hate white people.

Because of the taboo within white communities/spaces about discussing race and racism, millions of European Americans are socialized to believe that because it is not being discussed, race is not happening. The force behind “race” is not personal. The individual white bodied person can be poor, disabled, marginalized by sexual preference and still be able to weaponize themselves in the minds of “other” white bodies and become a threat to any Black, Brown or Indigenous person encountered.

White racial violence is pervasive. Yet, millions of European Americans walk around as if they have to become a threat, not are already a threat. It is a necessary illusion to maintain.

When I first began anti-racism work, during that memorable “Interrupting Whiteness” weekend, in 2020, I did not fully appreciate the attachment the average white bodied personality has to whiteness. Peggy MacIntosh should be mandatory reading. Millions of European Americans seriously do not associate any personal achievement, nor positive relationship with national organizations, to their race. They experience society through the lens of personality alone.

The concept that what they are experiencing is the “White racial experience” and not universal to humanity is the first glitch I observe. It is what those who seriously go on their healing journeys out of white supremacy stumble against.

Photo by Alexey Demidov

“How is that possible?”

How is what possible? How is it possible to be human in a way that white bodied people can not share in? Easy. The entire multiculturalism experiment was based on the idea that cultural immersion would teach white children that there was more than one way to be human.

It is not the cultural immersion that was the problem. It was the realization within the European American that they were the focus of the experiment. They imagined, innocently, that everyone was participating in the same activity and having a shared experience. The idea that many of the non-white students around them knew themselves to be in white space and were integrating it with their presence and cultural disciplines, as decentering whiteness generates psychological stress.

Being associated with the behavior of other white bodied people is a devastating blow to the white personality, a fundamental loss of control. Nothing they can say or do, in the presence of the Black, Brown or Indigenous person changes the conditions that Black, Brown or Indigenous people face when non-white people encounter a more racist European American, which is going to happen. Indirectly, racism gives white people power in ways they do not want, yet, ironically, need, in order to survive inside of a racial caste system.

As disgusting as it is, the average European American is dependent upon white supremacists viewing them as a human being. Stephen Miller can see you - if you live in a white body. Until you physically demonstrate that you disagree with him and will prevent the completion of his evil orders, you are safe from him. You have the choice to hide in whiteness. The Trump supporters around you never have to know how you really feel.

It is with a level of anxiety that perplexes the rest of the world that white bodied persons come to Black, Brown and Indigenous persons and ask to be educated about the racial caste system - for free!

It’s almost as if European Americans do not believe that Black, Brown or Indigenous people are oppressed!

Their ignorance is legitimate. Millions have deluded themselves into believing that racism is a form of extreme bullying. In their mind, this definition provides common ground. This belief is steeped in the individualism and right-to-comfort characteristics of white supremacy culture. It allows a white person to think: "Since the personality living in this white body, the one now pleading for connection, has a story about being mistreated by other white people, common ground must exist between us." When this logic is refuted, the white body feels abandoned. Projecting onto the oppressed before them, they claim there is no safe space for them because they reject white supremacy, yet cannot find community among the oppressed. Where is the place for them?

Thousands of videos on previous iterations of TikTok and years of Instagram have taught me that the only solution millions of European Americans reached to deal with the racists in their families was to go no contact.

Yes, this is good.

Now, think with me, “What do we do with your more racist family members?”

This generates the second glitch. “I don’t know. I have done everything I can think of and nothing worked.” Yes, that is the problem.

“I believe you, which means nothing, because I do not live in a white body. I have no effective power to harm your white body without risking grave harm to my Black body,” I say.

When Black, Brown and Indigenous people pointed out that such a strategy was selfish, because the threat posed by your family members is not neutralized by your absence, the common response was to feign the capacity to address them. None of them wish to detach from whiteness. Few want to even discuss it.

The only thing the individual white bodied person can do is not be racist themselves, which they don’t know how to do because everything they did think was going to work did not work on their own family members, so, where is the proof that said methods worked on themselves?!

My concern 397 days into this second Trump Administration is not Pam Bondi and other staffers. The news reports their behavior 24 hours a day. It is the behavior of my white bodied neighbors that concerns me. How many are walking around like nothing malicious is happening? How is the capacity to compartmentalize the cost of “normal life” away from the immediate consequences of white racial violence not evidence of an individual’s attachment to white supremacy?

Why is it imagined that only violence can solve the problem of white supremacy culture?

Why do so many white bodied people believe other white bodied people are evil?

This is the third glitch which occurs. The white bodied person I am working with enters the epiphany, “I am being treated like a white person. Not because the Black, Brown and Indigenous people want to treat me differently, but because the white people around me treat me like a white person. In order to free myself of whiteness, I have to free them of whiteness!”

Yes, and that process begins with you believing such a thing is possible.

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EAGER supports Pro-Humanity Educators and works to establish Racial Trauma Centers, spaces where EAs can work through their racial stress together. EAGER provides partial and total tuition coverage for antiracism classes, direct aid to community members and underserved populations, and stipends and digital marketing to educators.

Visit www.joineager.com to learn more.

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