My Unfinished Business of White Supremacy

In the news images of threat and harm done to Black bodies prevailed. The lynching of Ahmuad Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd were circulating. As white supremacy increased, well the images displayed on media increased, I became hypervigilant, on edge, and lost focus. I noticed the attention I gave to my dad’s treatment plan decreased. My dad’s leukemia had come back and he was, hospitalized, and was going through chemotherapy. Toni Morrison once said “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.” In this case racism was keeping me from doing the work of being a good son.

I have recently come to understand my emotional reactions to images of Black people being murdered because of white supremacy as a race-based trauma response.

When I was around 10, I helped my dad volunteer at the Cincinnati Black Family Reunion. As a kid of divorced parents, I spent weekends with him, which were always the best in the Summer. He would always take my sister and I to community festivals and county fairs. Though, this summer we were unsure about fun summer events because there were talks about boycotts and protests following the murder of a Black unarmed teen, Timothy Thomas. My dad had volunteer obligations, so we went. This time I was less enthused compared to past festivals since, we had to volunteer with my dad’s organization for some of the time. He had worked it out so that we could have fun during the day and we wouldn’t have to “work” until we were about to leave. Once we made the shift change the work wasn’t that bad. My little cousin and I really just handed out waters to people in-between the games we made out of boredom. We hadn’t been volunteering for long when, suddenly there was an instant commotion.

People turned into blurs. Our booth was stationed near the exit, so everyone had to run by, through, and over us to get away. I remember looking at my little cousin with terror on her face, which unfortunately was not met by a reassuring look on mine. I was terrified as well. My dad, in a sort of superhero fashion swooped up both of us, and basically started carrying us to the car. While I cannot recall all the fine details, I remember hoping that my older sister and other cousin were ok. Luckily, they were. I also remember not understanding.

Don’t get me wrong, I understood why people were upset and angry. I was too. I became aware of those feelings and my possible victimhood at the age of 7, foreshadowing. But, I didn’t understand why people were rioting. Days after this experience my sister took me to what now I can only assume was a Town Hall at a church in our neighborhood, now named New Friendship Baptist. I remember wanting my voice to be heard. I remember wanting to say something so bad, but at the age of 10, I did not possess the words to articulate the combination of anger, sadness, fear, hope, and distrust I felt.

It is no wonder I did not understand why people were rioting. My private-catholic school education had a Eurocentric curriculum where slavery was the only “Black” issue discussed. And even then, Nat Turner was seen as a groundless, barbarous villain. So, where would I learn?

The learning came from my parents and a mix of social and behavioral learning, from my own experience. Like, learning to code-switch and self-police my tone in order to not come across as stupid or aggressive. I learned that I wasn’t truthful or trustworthy, especially if my account was counter to a White person, like when a little league basketball game stopped for 15-minutes because I apparently threatened to kill a White opponent (everyone on the court was White except me) and I had to be sat down by the refs and coaches even though I didn’t say it. Or like when I had to learn not only how to cope with being called “nigger” and other racially insensitive things; but how to cope with the fact that no White teachers would believe me. So, I just stopped going to them and wouldn’t go to White people to help later in life. It was better to shrink myself and not be seen, than to be seen as a liar and troublemaker. I learned that Black was an ugly color; from crayon box jokes in first grade to the time I was better at something and the White kid who lost said “Well white is a prettier color than black”. I learned what neighborhoods to drive around and not through late at night. I learned that if I must drive through a certain neighborhood how to appear “less” threatening. Still, some will always weaponize my Black skin. I still have not learned the art of not getting pulled over for doing nothing. My crash course in surviving white supremacy helped me to realize why those people at the Black Family Reunion rioted, and why people across the United States were rioting. Desperation.

The opportunity arose for me to join friends going to protests, twice. The first time, I said no because I thought I might have to be a main caregiver to my dad upon his release from the hospital and going would put my immunosuppressed dad at risk of contracting COVID-19. The second time a friend asked me, I said yes, because my dad and many others lives were already at risk (including my own). My mom asked me, “Weren’t you scared [of COVID-19]?” I answered, “No, I was more scared of police brutality at the police brutality protest.” Are decisions for a Black person in a white supremacist society always this bleak?

Frankly, I was so excited to go to the protest that I hadn’t read that it was actually a march. By the time my friends and I got there, the march had already stepped-off. The route went from Boystown, a gayborhood in Chicago, north to Uptown, a neighborhood with a higher percentage of Black folks and an unsurprisingly perceived to be less safe area. Less safe for who, I wonder? While marching, I got separated from my friends but that wasn’t my focus. My focus was on change.

At our destination, the organizer, a Black femme, called for Black people to let their voices be heard and for White people to listen. Black folks as young as 14 years of age and as old as 55 spoke. At times, I initially thought “Somebody should take the mic,” or “They shouldn’t have let her speak.” I had to check myself, unfortunately some of the things I did learn from the latent curriculum of my private-catholic schooling included the respectability politics and the silencing of Black voices of white supremacy. As people started to share I could feel a combination of sadness and hope. I felt a yearning that I can only identify as an opportunity for me to resolve my unfinished business.

Unfinished business is a concept within a theoretical framework of counseling known as Gestalt therapy. Unfinished business can refer to the emotions and recollections surrounding past experiences that a person has avoided or repressed. In this instance, it was the experience I had at that town hall when I was ten-years old. I saw an opportunity, twenty years later, to provide myself with closure. That closure was threatened by riot police but in the end, I got to speak. I found the words that I did not have twenty years ago. While my voice was always there, I finally found an audience that wanted to listen. While this sounds like happy-ending story, it isn’t. What scares me is that I got the opportunity for the closure of this unfinished business. I’m terrified, by the fact that my closure did not come for another 20 years. I am devastated that I carried that for twenty years. I’m fearful that this curse is generational, and my seven-year old nephew doesn’t have much time left. I’m dismayed that nothing has really changed except for time.