What does it mean, the zombie apocalypse is already here? What does it have to do with white supremacy or being a traitor to whiteness?
Let me ask you this. What are some of your biggest fears?
Do you fear getting too fat?
Ever worry about becoming so poor that you end up homeless?
Do you fear that people will ignore you?
Are you anxious that you can never do enough?
If so, you’re not alone.
I have a lot of these fears too. And they come from outside of us. Of course our government should make sure that no one ever ends up homeless. But for the rest, our culture implanted these fears.
What if I told you that whiteness makes you act like a zombie?
Can you imagine that you have a series of conditioned opinions, biases and responses that are not yours?
Would you believe me?
Whiteness defines itself as the absence of something. It defines itself as the absence of Blackness, which often includes obesity, poverty and being ignored.
So if you have anxieties about these things as a white person what you may not have realized is that part of your anxiety is your proximity to Blackness. (See Belly of the Beast by Da’Shaun Harrison).
What if how fat you are, how much money you have in the bank, or how much attention you get meant nothing about you?
What if you existed beyond that?
To disconnect from this value system is to be a traitor to whiteness.
What if you became everything you feared?
Would you stop being you?
Or would it mean your life was over?
Whiteness, like toxic masculinity defines itself as the absence of something. The absence of Blackness or the absence of femininity.
When you start to understand this you start seeing it everywhere.
In magazine ads, on TV, on billboards. In who gets attention and who does not.
Our culture pays the most attention to those who have the most proximity to whiteness. And that means for oppressed people, or people of the global majority, there’s a lot of pressure to assimilate, if you want power and safety.
This is why we need anti-discrimination laws like the crown act, or laws preventing discrimination against people who are LGBTQIA+.
The fact that there are so many initiatives right now making it illegal to say the word gay, or banning critical race theory, or even banning the right to get an abortion and have body sovereignty for women, shows us how important it is to WAKE UP FROM ZOMBIEHOOD.
When you see it…
You slowly start to see how our culture is built on white supremacy and making you afraid of being the powerless person. It makes you afraid to give up your own power. Under capitalism for every anxiety there is a product. This is why the diet industry and the plastic surgery industry is so big.
In much of the media we consume we hold up people who are white cisgender male and rich. We hold them up as people to emulate no matter how they got their money and what they’re doing to their workers.
When you start to realize that your insecurities have been implanted, you can start to disconnect from the zombie culture; the culture that says turn off your feelings, grind harder and you’ll get your million someday.
You might be worried about what you will lose if you turn your back on what society says is important.
Let’s face it, you might be afraid of disappointing people.
But I ask you this. How much of your personality or your values is really you? And how much is what society says to do?
How much of you is zombie?
Have you been trained to be obedient?
Did they tell you to not make waves?
Do they say do it like we’ve always done it?
Have you been trained to never question why it’s important for you to never get fat, always look young, and have your work define your value?
During this endless pandemic we’ve seen that how we’ve always done it is no longer working. In fact it wasn’t working before, but we just distracted ourselves.
The difference between the zombie apocalypse in the movies and the Zombie apocalypse now is that in the movies once you’re a zombie There’s No Going Back.
But right here and right now you can wake up.
My question to you is this. Now that you’re awake, what will you do?
How will you be a traitor to whiteness?
So now that you see that how we were working wasn’t working how will you reshape work?
Now that you see that what you’re afraid of is something that’s been implanted how will you work against that?
You can continue to be awake to the inequities that covid exposed. you can be awake to the inequities in our structures.
Furthermore, you can be awake to an environment that is suffering. the people that are suffering and you can choose differently.
You can come to the Party at the End of the Patriarchy in November. We will have a panel about how to be a traitor to whiteness. Join us.
Further Resources:
Belly of the Beast by Da’Shaun Harrison
Towards Braiding by Elwood Jimmy
DismantlingRacism.org antidotes to white supremacy culture inside organizations