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Pulling on the Strings of Our Internalized White Supremacy, Interrupting Our Epigenetic Trauma Patterns, and Healing Our Inner Child
When I first started becoming aware of my attachment to whiteness I was furious, sad, confused, lost, stressed, sleepless, panicked, terrified, disgusted, my skin broke out in the most horrible acne break out of all time, I unknowingly went into a depression (didn’t realize this until my newly appointed therapist told me to fill out a questionnaire), and it makes sense because confronting our internalized white supremacy means recognizing how much we have been living a life of lies. And I was wondering why hadn’t my schools or parents prepared me for this?
Maybe you’re feeling resentment. I was. And I still am a little bit. I’m working on healing this resentment and fury because I know it’s partly my inner child feeling abandoned. The other parts are white-centered fragility. Are these things separate? Now, as a 30-year-old woman, it’s just in the last year that I have learned how crucial re-parenting and inner child work is to the ability to genuinely show up and practice anti-racism. It’s hard to show up for others’ pain if, as white people, we are constantly trying to center our own. This entitlement, this constant centering of ourselves, is a result of generations of divorcing ourselves from our humanity — something…
