This is not an opinion…I am racist by default. We are all inherently racist. And that is OKAY. Sit in it. I’m not calling myself or whoever is reading this a “bad person.” If you don’t begin the lifetime ~active~ process to unweave your internalized biases… well, then that’s a different kind of racism. You are being complicit. You are dangerous.
This is a white people problem.
The things that have gone on in DC the last few days are horrific. It is embarrassing to be white and to be an american, but that doesn’t help anything. That fragility and inaction is what continues this cycle. When our ego’s are attached to being white, to our “country”, and “being worthy of pain, too!!” it defeats the point, purpose, and everything in between. It is not your time. Listen to those who look different than you. They have valuable, life changing, world structuring things you and I don’t know. And that’s OKAY.
Side note… the world is a “country.” All that shit is made up in scarcity. We’re all neighbors.
Lately I’ve thought a lot about high school Ally. She called herself a “staunch, opinionated republican.”
Pause for regurgitation.
She wrestled with being a daddy’s girl and with an intuitive, empathic soul that she couldn’t express to her fullest extent (given to by mom). My dad’s untimely death, in a way, set me free. Never to come back to republicans or conservatism. Thank God. I honestly think he’d be proud of me for following my own truth. And I thank him for being a stepping stone for our family’s personal journey to enlightenment.
I was walking this path and would’ve eventually gotten to where I am now but that familial loyalty, especially to the dying centerpiece of my family and my own personal world, kept me clouded. My dad was the smartest person I knew… everything he said made total sense especially within the political world, economics, money, and all that. I remember the days when I would think “Wow this just makes so much sense how can liberals not see it?”
On the flip side, my dad wasn’t always able to understand other perspectives let alone value them. How could he? white men can only see so far in a world that puts them at the “top” yet disguised as the bottom of a ladder in front of a wall. Molded into “toughness” from an early age. And the cycle goes on and on with generational trauma.
He would always give when young Black men would come knocking to raise money for their sport’s programs. When asked “why” one time he said, “My white guilt.” This glimpse shows me my evolution and the potential that was always within him. I am him. Complicity stops with me and my sister as his direct line and legacy.
If you don’t push yourself for influence by people different than you, you can never see above that wall. We have beat down and shattered our men. But that’s another conversation.
General life stress and hardship + more perspectives of oppression = the deepest truths and enlightenment through suffering. Aka the top of the ladder. Aka the Black Transgender Womxn. Raise them up. They have so much to teach us.
Find the strength it takes to be soft in a society that tells you the opposite.
And because suffering recognizes suffering, grief saved my life. My life as a womxn, an ally, a lover, a friend, a white person… it saved me.
I remember being a sixth grader and speaking the words, “a woman isn’t ready to be the President of the United States.” It brings me to tears to type those words, admit to myself, and all of you.
This is how I heal.
My dad didn’t teach me that. My mom also definitely* didn’t teach me that. It is extremely strategic on white women. But it shows how deep rooted and subconscious those ideals are to our most influential future- our children. The only people who can save us at this point as we round the corner to only 59 harvests of food left. People who are 18 and below are the last generation who are going to live out a full lifetime if we cannot get a handle on our consumption and processes. Read that again.
This is a white person problem.
Things have only begun to get ugly. Listen to the younger generations. Listen to Black, Indigenous, Latinx, People of Color. Listen and believe Womxn. It’s their/ our turn. We may be on to something… And if not, you’ll be able to laugh at us in your graves as you reincarnate to learn lessons of empathy that you could’ve learned in this life- right now. Your time has passed. You will not be living to see the “america” you wish so badly to stay the same. This shit ain’t great…
I’d like to meet myself with grace and practice forgiveness. White guilt and being disgusted with my past will not bring me to allyship just as much as white fragility won’t bring you to allyship. Our past is important. My past shaped me. It is my unique journey. Going through oblivion and being a republican was a part of that.
I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you for revealing myself to me.
My dad setting me free through his death is further proof that everything is connected and our soul contracts run deep with the lessons we’re here to learn on Earth. A massive web of exchanges.
I look at the balance my father’s death has caused. I’ve gone one way and a lot of the family has gone the other. Maybe if he was alive he could’ve been a bridge. He was good at that…Who knows. I know in my heart he wouldn’t have stood for what happened earlier this week or the last four years. He told me before he died he would never “fight” for what this country is today… that was four years ago and he did not like Donald Trump. But I’d also like to mention that the country that this place “is” has not changed. It is the same country that him and my mom did serve all those years ago. It was quiet. It was complicit. It was toxic. Oppressive. And here we are now. Because of all that. There was no world where this didn’t happen when this place has been founded in hate, rape, murder, scarcity, conquering, claiming, destroying, mocking, grossness. A predictable karmic circle we’re witnessing in front of our very eyes.
Just the beginning.
Honestly, this post is more for me than anyone else. But I do hope that by posting this publicly along with my own acceptance, healing, and forgiveness some other white people will be able to sit in some space I’ve created and pondor. There is power to naming and owning your mistakes. No matter how shameful, racist, and tone deaf they may have been.
I hope BIPOC of my past can see my growth and begin to forgive me for any unsettling or terrifying things I’ve said, posted, or enforced in my younger years. However, I am not owed anything and do not expect forgiveness. I am with you now. Which may be too late or irreparable for some of you and that is okay. I am not fragile.
I’m so sorry and will work to untangle what is so deeply rooted within me, forever. I am open to call-outs. I am open. I am not fragile.
“Some of you need to sit with why you expect marginalized people to only educate in ways that make you feel safe and unchallenged when we’ve had to live under your oppression feeling unsafe our whole lives.” – Demi Colleen
White people. We are not fragile.
When everything was imploding a few days ago I found some old columns I wrote for my high school newspaper, The Northwood Omniscient.
If you wish to take a cringe look into my past: here they are… Social Issues & Government and Why Mitt Romney.
Pause again for regurgitation. Oh Ally… I’m so glad you remembered who you really are. A source of creation, boundless love and Abundance. I love you. I’m sorry. I forgive you. Thank you.
When you read these it’s almost as if you’re reading me wrestling with myself. Taking a completely libertarian standpoint. Knowing what’s right in the soul for life and equality but staying stuck in the “economy”. In the shadow of idolizing my father. Wanting his love and acceptance. Envying his intelligent, logical, and financially minded brain.
Also, the economy. What is that thing anyway? (rhetorical) The national debt counter just makes me giggle at this point. Your tangible money is a “note” representation of which you do not* have. And it says so ON your dollar bills. Mocking you in your face. Your physical money is a representation of a debt being paid and owed. Fragile. Like forreal. It is based on nothing. We’re all one major operation away from the financial crisis. We’ve made basic necessities like food, shelter, and water commodities to buy and sell… Come on. Whack. People aren’t getting what they work for. They’re hoarding. It is not about the economy and has never been about the economy. Look within. Imagine what it could be. Because it can.
The irony in all this is that I credit being the Editor-in-Chief of my highschool newspaper for opening my personal floodgates to empathy. I did features on a girl who was 16 and pregnant, a closeted christian gay student, a student battling bulimia, a transgener student, and other taboo, touchy, yet timeless pieces. I was called to be a medium for those stories at a young age.
A white, young Ally looking into the eyes of soul journeys and life experiences so different than her own.
And the most insane one… a girl who’s father died on Thanksgiving. I did that interview for my future self and think about it all the time. In 2012… almost exactly four years before my dad died.
Family is our first teacher. I will become a mother one day with that in mind.
Dad, thank you for setting me free. I miss you endlessly and forever.
I love you. I’m sorry. I forgive you. Thank you.
Allison Leigh DeJong 
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