“Once you know who you are, you don’t have to worry anymore” — Nikki Giovanni
When one, with a very limited understanding of oneself, and even more so, a constricted view of how they operate in and through community, gets into the ring of freedom work, they often don’t want liberation, instead seek to make oppression work for, not against, them. For centuries, we’ve been named by the white bourgeois, determined that we not notice the brilliance and divine that is and works through all. To distract us from our collective revolution and maintain their unjust dominion, they create boxes of race, class, gender, sexuality among many others. We then, generation after generation, make those boxes even smaller amongst our own. We cast out those of our same skin — to sacrifice those at the margins of margins, so that oppression may work for some of us before it destroys all of us. Naming, then, becomes the most important factor to our self-work and therefore our community work — a work that requires, as poet Audre Lorde suggested, for us to live from within outward. To name yourself, as I name myself as a Black non-binary writer, means to be fully you in public and private. In knowing, who one is, in direct opposition to white supremacy, is to know ourselves as the creator intended. I mean to fully know oneself — not only who you are and how you love and who you pray to, if any being at all — is to know everything that is and was and whatever will come.
I fear, in the midst of our current endeavors, we refuse to name ourselves, because that would mean naming and eradicating the white supremacist inside our own bodies. That thing, which tells us to shrink, to fake our proximity to hegemony. We all have done it, sadly, agreed to be named by something else, simply because it was easier to accept than to challenge. As we get caught up the frivolity of being seen, if we aren’t careful it will name our children. How, then, can we outwardly fight what we inwardly refuse to acknowledge?
Our fight doesn’t stop — or even begin — with anti-Black racism. The demon we face, as our ancestors have, is a multi-dimensional force who has infiltrated everywhere. No need to check under the bed — simply, check your reflection to see a manifestation of this demon. This isn’t, of course, to say that you yourself, or me myself, are demons — but it is to say, we have the ability to be one. From our dereliction of naming ourselves outside of — to use and add to, a phrase coined by womanist and academic, bell hooks — the cis-heteronormative imperialist white supremacist capitalist xenophobic, ableist patriarchy.
In order to destroy we must know the enemy, especially the manifestations in our homes and lives. Our commitment to constant self-interrogation — asking how we navigate space, and if we cause harm (hint: we all do), how do we reconcile this to make more sustainable community — is our only way progressively and radically forward. As Black, brown, third world, working and working poor folx, and yes, even white people, our main commitment should be naming ourselves, outside of oppression. To fully know freedom, one must know oneself, and to know this, is to know all the ways you’re shackled.
Then, as we learn of our shackles, we have to know the interconnectedness of these chains. To know that, racism and homophobia, sexism and transphobia, ableism and classism, all stem from the same chain; we just wear some — or all of them simultaneously — in various ways. As Black people who live under the constant threat of racial violence by the state, white vigilantes, and each other, I fear we don’t know — or won’t acknowledge — how we are both the oppressed externally and oppressors internally. That thing, the manifestation of white supremacy we all know overtly exists in our house, for which the majority of us refuse to destroy, will be our destruction if not addressed.
The deadliest person to me, as a non-binary femme person, doesn’t live outside my house, rather, it comes from the inside, with my same skin and hair, color and face. It is true, to say and acknowledge, our Black brothers across gender and sexuality, fail us in protection, activism, and simple understanding. Our sisters too, but not in the same numbers as mxn-folx. Though, I can’t solely blame my brothers for believing in the power of their manhood. This is their worth as a man, contrived by their ability to dominate, control, and exercise power over those they find weaker. For white supremacy, since enslavement, has shown all of us that freedom is the ability to dominate & control the rest of us with no power, at least in the same way.
I do, and will forever, hold my brothers accountable for the harms they cause us and each other. The reality we often neglect to share, because of what it might reveal about us, is we as community are to blame for the murders of our own. From our refusal to protect each other — to learn about and see one another for all of our beautiful differences — we have let our own be swept away into the tide. We don’t see each other, in a real agape love way. Too many of us wear masks of illusion that shield and protect our truths from the horrors outside (and inside) the house, but the distance it creates between us, to me, isn’t worth it. These masks of illusion, which offers protection in some places, creates distance and discord in every place. It is easy, then, to destroy what you don’t know — what you have lied and said there is no connection to.
I really do believe the violence free people — trans, non-binary, GNC, femme, womxn folx — face has everything to do with their assailants’ masks, and not our freedom. It is the very idea, that one can live and thrive, without a mask, without being named by white supremacy and patriarchy, that is the threat to freedom. To do self-work, then, one needs to accept all the ways they hate freedom and give answers as to why. Why does my transness offend you? Why does my sisters sex work for survival disgust you? Why does my brothers husband preclude him from safety? Why does same-gendered love infuriate you? Why does femininity, outwardly and courageously expressed, dispel your soul? These are only some of the starting questions we must ask if we want to truly remake a world. Not to mention the ways we all hinder the freedom of our siblings with disabilities. Accessibility is freedom, too.
Stepping outside of pre-named and pre-determined boxes created by white supremacy is our only chance to taste what lays beyond it. To queer our analysis and existence, to challenge our actions and thoughts, because, they too, can lead to violence. There is no greater commitment to community then to selflessly pursue the highest level of self-love, awareness, and accountability.
Aren’t we worthy of unshackling and transgressing beyond this taught hatred? I truly hope we are. I’ve seen those with power lay it all down, to selflessly choose themselves, and therefore all of us. They knew, as I’m learning, their choice wasn’t about them at all, but about our revolution, about our future, about us. So, there is hope, after all.
