We Need to Talk About Whiteness (because it's killing us)!

In this episode Dr Alex Iantaffi discusses why white supremacy culture is detrimental to everyone, including white people! They encourage us to dismantle white supremacy and pick 5 elements of white supremacy culture to illustrate how these are obstacles to our wellbeing and collective liberation.

Here are the websites and books mentioned in the episode:

Click here for the WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE website by Tema Okun

Click here for the SURJ's website

Books mentioned:

Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad

Me and White Supremacy: a guided journal by Layla F Saad

Me and White Supremacy Young Reader's Version by Layla F Saad

The Racial Healing Handbook by Anneliese A Sing

Feedback? Topics you would like me to discuss? Contact me through my website here! Thank you! Don't want to miss a thing? Subscribe to my newsletter here. Grazie!

Transcript

Alex Iantaffi (00:02)
Hello friends.

Welcome to another Warm Take Wednesdays with Dr. Alex. Thank you for your patience waiting for this second episode. Honestly, with everything going on in the world, some people are calling it the poly crisis. I've had a really hard time figuring out what did I really want to talk about? And then I thought we need to talk about whiteness. We really need to talk about whiteness because it's killing us all. And if that sounds like a strong statement and you're having a reaction to me saying that,

Take a moment to breathe. Here's our breath. Find it.

And I hope you'll stick with me so that I can explain to you what I mean by that strong statement that whiteness is killing us all. First of all, I'm not talking about individual white people. I know that sometimes white folks react to being called white people or talking about whiteness as if it's a personal insult. We're talking about systems here today. We're talking about the systems of whiteness and the system of white supremacy culture. That's really what we're going to be talking about.

today, right? So, and we know that that is not just about skin color. Sure, white people are light skinned, ⁓ you know, and the more I live in northern countries, the lighter my skin gets. Like we are definitely melanin deficient. But what I'm talking about is the construction of whiteness, both on a global level, but specifically in the context of North American culture in the so-called United States where I live. But I think this is relevant

I also think it's relevant to other Anglo countries like the UK or Australia or New Zealand. So as ever, take what you will from this video and leave the rest if it doesn't serve you. And of course, I'm very aware that whiteness is dependent on geosocial location. You know, the way we construct borders, the way we construct whiteness, it's really not based on a specific ethnicity. ⁓

construction that is deeply rooted in anti-blackness, right? Who gets to be white is something that is literally being discussed in courts of law, both in the so-called United States and in Australia, for example, as well.

⁓ So we're not going to go into all of that. There's so much more to say about that. But I really want to focus on whiteness and white supremacy culture. And what do I mean when I say that it's killing us all in that we really need to challenge it, dismantle it, and learn it, especially if we're white, especially if we have any proximity to whiteness, whether we are white, we're conditionally white, or we have some proximity to whiteness in different ways.

So especially where I currently live in the so-called United States on Turtle Island, why supremacy culture goes really deep?

And even though white folks are the ones who benefit the most from it and uphold it, white supremacy culture can be upheld by folks of any racialized identities really, because it runs so deep, it's almost baked into the culture here in the United States, if that makes sense.

White supremacy culture goes really deep in North America and really people of any racialized identity can uphold white supremacy culture. But of course it is mostly upheld by white people because it is so invisible to us if we are not paying attention. So what do I mean when I say we need to talk about it and why do we need to talk about it? I've already said that quite simply it's killing us all. And I mean it. Whether it's the ongoing genocides, nearly

everywhere, the racialized climate crisis, capitalism, it is really killing us. And so if we don't seriously look at challenging and dismantling white supremacy, we're all going to lose. And the folks who are looking at white supremacy culture  the least and who are questioning whiteness the least are white folks. And sometimes this might be even a little controversial, but I'm going to say even folks who proclaim themselves white folks, I should say,

who proclaim themselves to be anti-racist can still uphold white supremacy culture in their relationships, in their interactions, and I've seen it happen over and over again, quite frankly. And it's not just killing us on a physical level, but I truly believe that whiteness and white supremacy culture is killing us spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, as well as physically. And I'll give you some examples.

of what I mean by this. And so when I'm saying that we need to talk about whiteness because it's killing us all, I mean, we got skin in the game. This is not like about the liberation of Black and brown folks or land back for indigenous folks. Don't get me wrong. I want all of that. I want Black liberation. I want land back.

And we all have skin in the game. And if you're a white person who is not sure about what I mean, hopefully the examples I'm about to give are going to kind of give you some idea of that.

If you never heard about the work of Tema Okun on the characteristics of white supremacy culture, please check it out. The link is in the episode description and ⁓ please go look at it because there is such a wealth of information on that website.

And for this episode, I've picked just five characteristics of white supremacy culture. And I'm going to give you some example that hopefully will help you understand why it's killing us all spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, as well as physically, given all the ongoing genocides, including genocides on the land I'm on the so-called United States, because the ongoing settler colonial project has never ended here in the United States either.

So what do I mean when I talk about white supremacy culture characteristics? There are several and like I said, I've only picked five for this video because I'm trying to keep my videos a little bit shorter rather than to keep going and talking for a very long time. So let me know what you think about that if you like my videos to be a little shorter or a little longer.

So the first characteristic I've picked is progress is more, quantity over quality. And the reason I've picked that is because it's literally killing us physically, all of us. Because progress is more and this idea of quantity over quality is really about the extraction of resources. And what I mean by that is like things like fast fashion, for example, and the fact that there are children being exploited to make clothes that are very cheap ⁓ and often kind of progress.

is more on quantity over quality and the extraction of resources very much linked also to racialized capitalism, right? Who gets to benefit from fast fashion and who pays the cost of fast fashion, for example. But it's not just about fast fashion or the ongoing genocides to keep extracting more more resources to make our iPhones, our iPads, our computers, and all the comforts that we've gotten used to. And we'll talk about the right to comfort.

in a little while too. It's also internalized. When we treat our body minds as kind of literally minds that can be relentlessly extracted from, relentless productivity, no matter how we feel. you're not feeling well? Take this pill so you can go back to work as fast as possible. When we treat our body minds as commodities, we have internalized this idea of progress is more, right, constant productivity

quantity over quality. If I work hard enough, if I work more and more hours, my needs will be better met, right? But the reality is that it's very hard to meet our needs under racialized capitalism. And it is not an accident that who earns the least and who works the most. And in my experiences, those two things don't often go together. I'm sorry. But those CEOs who are getting billions and billions and billions, I doubt that they're working as hard

as some of the folks ⁓ who I know are kind of working on the ground every day, putting in at least 40 hours a week, if not 60, 70, 80 hours, having two or three jobs just to feed their families, right? And so this idea of progress is more or quantity over quality is really pervasive. So take a moment even to notice, do I think that more is better? Right? And why do I think that more is better?

And do I think that progress can be constant and linear, right? We can have more and more and more collectively as well as individually, right? How do we know when enough is enough, right? There is no knowing when enough is enough under the progress is more and this quantity over quality kind of narrative. So that's just one characteristic.

The next characteristic that I want to talk about is individualism. And now as ⁓ my good friend, beloved elder Donald Engstrom Reese would call it, rugged individualism. Rugged individualism is pervasive in every Anglo culture I've been in, whether it's North America, including the so-called United States or Canada ⁓ or Australia or the United Kingdom, to name just a few places.

that I have visited or lived in. And rugged individualism is killing us in a number of ways. We often hear that there is a crisis of loneliness, for example, and I'm pretty sure this idea of rugged individualism has something to do with it. Because when we are so...

individualized to the extreme degree relating becomes difficult. And why does it become difficult? Because we're placing self over everyone else. And so it becomes a hierarchy, right? I come first and I'm on top of like the hierarchy of collective needs, right? It's me first and then everybody else. And that is not conducive to healthy mutuality and relationality, right?

Even if we hold ⁓ oppressed and minoritized identities where we might not feel that it's us over everybody else, right? We might be thinking, hang on a minute, I'm a trans person, I'm oppressed, or I'm a woman, I'm always putting other people's needs above my own. What the hell are you talking about, Alex, right? What I'm talking about is that at the end of the day, even those issues are often viewed through an individualized

lens rather than a systemic lens. So rather than thinking about why is it the gender plays a role in whose needs are met first in a family and how the needs are met in a family, we're still thinking about it through the individualized lens, right? Well, maybe I need to take care of myself more. Maybe I need to work out more. Maybe if I get up at 5 a.m., I can meet my needs before I take care of my family.

instead of going, ⁓ could this have something to do with patriarchy and the division of labor in our household? Probably, spoiler, the likelihood is yes. But as long as we see it as an individual issue, then pop psychology can thrive. And hey, don't get me wrong, I wrote a book with Meg- John Barker called Hell Yeah Self Care, a trauma-informed workbook.

But we look at self-care in a bit of a different way. And we really talk about how this cannot happen from an individualized lens, right? We need to have an ethics of care collectively for self-care to be possible, right? And of course, for a lot of us who are minoritized, as Black women have taught us, like bell hooks has taught us, example, self-care is absolutely a resistance in a world that wants people dead, right? Some people dead.

⁓ But it is still a collective issue. It is still a systemic issue. And as long as we're looking at it through the lens of rugged individualism alone, we're always going to lose, right? And as part of individualism, I'm also seeing kind of a loss of connection, right? There is no connection to culture often under white supremacy, right? ⁓ Sometimes.

you don't want to talk to people and somebody's white. I'm like, oh, well, what is your cultural background? And they're like, just white, you know, or just your average white person. And I was like, I don't know what that means. You know, for example, where I live on the

territories, currently known as Minnesota, does that mean you're Finnish? Does that mean you're Swedish? Does that mean you are German? Does that mean you're one of the few Italian folks that kind of got to

the

Iron Range, for example, or maybe a more recent immigrant like myself, you know, who has only come here.

15, 16 years ago now, right? What does it mean? Because whiteness doesn't tell me what your cultural framework is. And your cultural framework is where there is language, there is culture, there is food, there is connection, there are ancestors, there is spiritual meaning, there is ceremony, right? And what I've noticed, even with a lot of my clients in my clinical work, is that rugged individualism

and that disconnection from cultural roots which comes with whiteness causes a lot of anxiety. And that anxiety makes sense to me. And at the root, often, it's an existential anxiety. You know, we often try to treat it ⁓ in mental health as if it's a psychological condition. And sure, there are biomarkers of anxiety, right? Anxiety manifests in our body-mind for our nervous system. ⁓

But there are existential roots of anxiety as well.

And what I mean by existential roots is when we don't have a cultural framework, when we don't have ancestors, when we don't have ceremony, when we don't have community, when we don't have language, when we don't have culture anymore, how do we make sense of life? How do we make sense of death? How do we make sense of purpose? Right? All of those things are a root cause of anxiety. And they're also often then a cause of cultural appropriation.

right?

Because we go look at other cultures. Where can I make meaning of life? Where can I make meaning of death? How can I find purpose? What does it mean to be a spiritual being without a cultural home?

And so I would say that rugged individualism and white supremacy culture and whiteness is killing us spiritually in this way, but also psychologically, because those things really have a psychological impact as well. And ultimately we, you know, as a therapist, I really see the harm that white supremacy culture does every day and that whiteness does every day. We cannot heal or be well alone.

We don't heal alone. Healing is relational. And as humans, we are interdependent and we're part of an ecosystem. Like literally neuroscience has shown us that if we are isolated from others, if we're not around other people, if we don't have touch even, we shrivel, like our brain shrivels. Our capacity to be human is reduced. We are interdependent and part of an ecosystem. so

individualism truly is killing us in a number of ways and on a number of levels. The other thing is urgency, which maybe it's a little bit like, what is the word I'm looking for? Paradoxical, given that I love talking really fast and I come from the culture of fast talkers, Italians. But urgency is not about talking fast. Urgency is about constantly feeling that everything is a priority.

everything has to happen now, now, now, now, right? Capitalism loves urgency. I'm sick, I cannot wait to be well. I mean, I've even said, I can't be sick. And I'm like, well, that's funny because your body mind is gonna do whatever it wants, especially as a disabled person, as I'm aging, right? That is not how it works. But urgency is telling us, well, you can't because everything is now, now, now, right? And everything is a priority. You know, I need to make sure

that I earned enough under capitalism and that I'm a good parent and good partner and that I do self-care and I exercise enough and I eat well and I drink enough water and I take care of my emotional well-being and that I'm creative and playful and connected. It's exhausting, right? And everything has to happen now, right? And so urgency is one of the reasons why so many people are burned out, but we're all trying to pretend.

we're not, right? ⁓ And we'll talk about the fear of conflict and maybe not being as authentic because of it in a moment. But we're all exhausted because when everything is a priority.

It's overwhelming, right? It's just simply overwhelming. I don't even know how to better explain it than that. And urgency is also really counter to relationality. We cannot build relationships through urgency. Relationships require...

trust, the required time. And while the work of liberation is incredibly urgent, don't get me wrong, you know, the work of liberation is urgent. And Tema Okun talks about this on the website when talking about urgency. This is not about denying that the work of liberation is indeed urgent, but we cannot be driven by urgency. We need to be driven by importance. The work of liberation is urgent because it's important.

It's a priority for our collective survival. And yes, it may sound like a paradox to say that something is urgent, but we cannot be driven by urgency. Often I say to my clients, especially my trauma clients, if we do somatic work or any kind of work, the slower we go, the faster we get there. And I find that for myself, even in my daily life, if I'm feeling overwhelmed and I'm like, I have too much to do in my day,

and

I don't have the time. If I start rushing, I start making mistakes or I am short with the people around me who matter far more than any output I might ever produce. But if I take a breath and I connect back to my intention, my purpose, to what's important, then I can be present. I can be here.

you know, whereas with urgency when people often ask, you know, how are you doing? We're all fine, right? But none of us are fine. I remember one of my core memories when I first moved to the United Kingdom when I was 22 was being on campus and English people asking me, how are you? And then they kept talking and I didn't understand because they just asked me how I was and I was about to tell them, right? Authentically. And somebody had to explain to me when I said, I don't understand

why people I know are walking past on campus and saying, hey, how are you? And then they keep walking. I don't get it. And they said, ⁓ it's just, that's just what you say. And then you just say, fine. And then you keep walking. And I was like, but that's not authentic. That's not relational. So the slower we go, the faster we get there. But also the slower we go, the more we can connect to ourselves and to each other. And the relationality is gonna help us with the work of liberation, believe me.

I mentioned that we were going to talk about the right to comfort and fear of conflict, and here we are. We're about to talk about the right to comfort and fear of conflict.

There is so much to say about this and I'm gonna try not to say too much because I promise that I'm gonna try to keep this video a little shorter. So one of the things I wanna say is that we justify a lot of inequalities and a lot of inequity in the name of comfort. And this could be its own entire episode and maybe at some point I will make it its own entire episode. But the right to comfort is what makes us

for example, consume fast fashion. The right to comfort is what, you know, makes us not think about how all the things that we use in our everyday life are produced, The right to comfort is sometimes what makes us angry when protesters stop a highway because we need to get to work or to wherever we're going.

But in our right to comfort and what we want to do is more important that, for example, one of the ongoing genocides that those protesters might be protesting, for example. And the right to comfort is very closely linked with fear of conflict, right? And fear of conflict is a killer in relationships, relationship to self and relationship to each other. I'm sorry, but I truly believe that. I think the conflict intimacy

is incredibly needed in relationship and we cannot get there if we are afraid of conflict and if we want to feel comfortable at all times, right? It is uncomfortable to say to somebody, there's been a rupture or something you said or something you did hurt my feelings. It's uncomfortable to say it and it's uncomfortable to receive it. And I've been on both the saying end and the receiving end right? But we cannot grow deeper

to intimacy if we avoid conflict and we just stay in our comfort zone. Because when we avoid conflict and we stay in our comfort zone all the time, our relationships become very superficial, right? We're not going to rock the boat. We're just not going to say anything. Is it really worth it? You know, live and let live. And we get to the point where our relationships can feel not just superficial, but even hollow maybe at times. Maybe our life can even feel hollow because when

we just stay in that comfort zone and we don't take a risk to say authentically how we're feeling or what we mean, then what are we doing? What are we doing really? How are we going to feel connected? How are we going to feel like we belong to ourselves and each other, right? And so, you know, that fear of conflict, it's really high.

for a lot of white folks I know. But when we take the risk to name and repair the unavoidable ruptures that are going to come with being in community, being in relationship, I assure you that the gifts are worth it. So I really encourage you to look at that right to comfort and the fear of conflict and how it might be manifesting in your life. And the last characteristic of white supremacy, it's not the

last. This is the last for this video. I only picked five, like I said. It's either or binary thinking that is of course closely linked to one right way, which is another characteristic of white supremacy, which I'm not going to show example of, but it is very closely linked to either or or binary thinking. And binary thinking is the kind of stuff that makes us think it's my needs or your needs, right? Is my survival or your survival is prey and predator, right?

it's eat or get eaten. It's oppression olympic. By the way, a term that was first recorded being used by Chicana feminist Elizabeth Betita Martinez. And thank you to Ricardo Levins Morales for teaching me. We use that term oppression olympics, which I see play out a lot sometimes in community, right? ⁓

But it's my needs and your needs. It's my liberation and your liberation. It's my survival and your survival. As longer we're stuck in binary thinking, we're stuck in colonialism and we're stuck in this idea of power over an hierarchy. And life thrives when we move away from this binary thinking, when we move away from this colonial way of thinking. And also life is so much more nuanced than either or.

binary thinking, you know, and I feel so strongly about this. that Meg-John and I wrote an entire book, Life isn't Binary, on this topic where we start from sexuality and gender, but we really go into bodies, relationships, emotions and thinking and how binary ⁓

kind of binary thinking impacts all of those aspects of our life. So if you want to check it out, please do. My publisher is going to be so happy that I let you know there are books. I got seven of them. This is one of them. ⁓

But so Life isn't Binary and it is nuanced. is full of both and my needs and your needs as a couples therapist, as a family therapist, I can tell you a lot of the healing is moving from being in conflict. It's a tug of war. My needs or your needs to being on the same team. It's my needs and your needs. And this is the problem. How do we address it? Or my needs are competing with your needs. So how do we accommodate them

together? How do we find a solution together? In the both and rather than the either or.

So I promise I would keep those short. So I'm gonna kind of start wrapping up here. I've given you some examples of white supremacy characteristics and hopefully this is starting to ⁓ help you understand why at the beginning I said that white supremacy culture is killing us and whiteness is killing us.

So if you have not been doing this before or if you're still in the process of doing this, I mean, it's a lifelong process because we are bombarded and immersed in white supremacy culture, if we live in North America, for example, or in other Anglo dominated countries.

Please learn and reflect on whiteness, you know, especially if you're actively benefiting from it, like I am. And if you're white or in proximity to it, ⁓ you know, like I am, I use the term conditionally white. And that's maybe another video ⁓ because whiteness is so fragile. ⁓ Right. And also whiteness is so conditional ⁓ on many things, including my accent. I know that when I open my mouth here,

and in any other Anglo countries, people are like, no, where are from? But where are you really from? Right? And so many other micro and macroaggressions. But like I said, that's for another video. But please learn and reflect on whiteness, especially if you think of yourself as somebody who is committed to social justice or liberation. But even if you don't, start thinking about, even if you're just thinking about your survival, think about how whiteness is killing all of us, ultimately, even you.

if you don't believe in social justice. I promise you, if you start looking into it, you might start realizing how it impacts your life. And here are some of the ways in which you can do that. Start to notice whiteness. Start to notice it. Notice it, name it.

and eventually challenge it. It's going to be uncomfortable, but we need to resist and undo it. Because if we don't resist and undo it, it's going to be bad for all of us. And Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks have been saying this for a really long time. So I want to be clear that I'm not saying anything new or unique or original. This is just what's been on my heart. When I think about talking about anything else, at the moment, I can't. All I want to talk about is whiteness and colonialism and racialized capitalism and how it's

killing us all and how this is so vital for me as somebody who's disabled, as somebody who's trans, as somebody who's an immigrant. ⁓

As somebody who's queer, you know, all of the things. Anyway, so notice it, name it, challenge it, get ready to get uncomfortable, and learn, resist, undo You're not sure how to do that? Start connecting with your own ancestral roots. Learn more about who you are, who you come from, not just where you come from, but who do you come from? Who are your people?

What language do they speak? What is the culture? What is the food? But that is not enough. Especially if you're brought up in an Anglo country, there's a lot of unlearning and unraveling that has to go beyond place and ancestors alone because that whiteness is kind of assimilated into our seniors, right? If we're brought up in kind of Anglo countries.

So resources, to wrap it up, I wanna share some resources for you if you want to work on your whiteness, naming it, challenging it, there are tons of resources. Please start with the white supremacy culture characteristics

website that's in the link, but there are also some fantastic books.

One of my favorite is Me and White Supremacy by Leila Saad. She's also wonderful to follow on social media, but Me and White Supremacy is available as a book, as an audiobook. There's also a young readers version and a journal version. So Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad. I'll pop that link in the episode description as well. Another, if you like handbooks better, The Racial Healing

Handbook by Anneliese Singh is another great resource. I'll put the link in the episode description as well. But most importantly...

take time to be in deeper relationship with yourself and other people in your own communities. And now I'm not just talking about being in deeper relationship with Black, brown and indigenous folks in a tokenizing way. If you're white, I'm talking about really investing in relationality and in building relational skills. And if you don't know what I mean by that, I am trying to plan to put some more resources together. but also I already have.

resource. I have a book that came out this year called How to Understand Your Relationships and I hadn't even thought about it when prepping this episode, so much so that I don't have it near me to show you, but pretend that I'm showing you. How to Understand Your Relationships is a great book I co-authored with Meg-John Barker. There are some ideas in there too how to be in deeper relationship with yourself and others in your own communities and remember...

learn to notice whiteness, name it, challenge it, get uncomfortable. And if you're in the US, there's also Showing Up for Racial Justice, almost forgot. ⁓ But make sure that search Showing Up for Racial Justice has lots of local chapters. Make sure your local chapters has some form of accountability to Black, Brown, and or Indigenous communities and folks, and not just white people, because sometimes I've also seen it, I'm sorry if this is a little offensive,

I've also seen folks involved in SURJ being a lot of white people reinforcing whiteness with each other. And we don't want that, right? Whiteness is killing us. We don't want to reinforce it. We want to challenge it, which is really what SURJ is all about. So I know the intention are good. I just want to make sure that you don't get into an echo chamber of whiteness because that's not gonna help you name it and challenge it. And if you found this video to be helpful, useful,

⁓ please feel free to share it. Please let me know what you think of the shorter format rather than the longer format that I tend to traditionally do more of. until next time, I hope you can slow down, take some deep breaths, and get comfortable getting uncomfortable with yourselves and each other. Bye.