As an Afro-descended woman living in North America, I speak for love and freedom. I speak from God’s gift of sensitivity to White Supremacy with the birthright of divine authority passed down through my enslaved African ancestors who continued to be free though exploited, and who did the hard work of healing so that they did not wreak vengeance on their enslavers.

I stand on their hope-filled shoulders with the clear power to see the evil which continues to shape shift in an effort to maintain the system of White Supremacy in order to keep us divided in fear and scarcity as enslaver and enslaved.

I am not casting stones, because I heard Jesus when He said, “Whomever is without sin, cast the first stone”.

I heard my mother deliver the message from my maternal ancestors that I must speak as they did for love and freedom even while I wrestle to love and be free.

I heard my father deliver the message from my paternal ancestors that I am a grace-full queen who must wrestle with God for my inheritance of forgiveness.

I chose to feel the pain of White Supremacy so that our world could have the opportunity to heal, so that we could choose to turn to our merciful Creator God who wishes to lift the evil one’s burden of shame in exchange for freedom in love for a thousand generations, through forgiveness.

And so today I speak these words for all and not against other.

The modern system of White Supremacy has been elevated among us from the 1400’s when Prince Henry of Portugal was influenced by forces that he did not understand to begin a war against freedom in order to feel significant.

The “explorers” brutality towards Indigenous people in the Caribbean, and African people in Africa is well documented. They stole land, enslaved natives for forced labour, and used them inhumanely for sport, with the blessing and encouragement of the country’s religious leaders.

Henry was deceived into believing that he would be more powerful if he could conquer and rule others. The deceiver devised a plan that would not just be restricted to geographic land squabbles. In order to divide and conquer all of humanity the deceiver planted seeds that would reap a harvest worldwide. If war on Earth was tied to survival by amassing riches, and if the enemy was identified not by geography but by the colour of skin, then humans would forever be at war. There would never be peace.

And there began the expansion of war to a global battle. No matter what geographic squabbles rose and fell, this global battle was created to last, through the deadly pandemic spread of the virus of White Supremacy. Religious Supremacy is a tool of White Supremacy.

It affects us all. It infects us all. Healing will only come when we acknowledge that we are all infected by this iteration of the original sin of supremacy, and its by-product shame, which propels us to run away to hide ourselves with whatever defensive leaves we can gather, and to blame each other.

There is no white, or black, or red, or yellow among us. We are humans.

The shame and division created by Supremacy robs us of vulnerability. It robs us of the freedom of being confidently naked with each other.

We crave the leaves of apologies and restitution instead of embracing the nakedness of forgiveness and vulnerability.

Arguing about the reality of the various strains of Supremacy is as foolish as arguing about whether or not COVID-19 is a real disease while millions die and others suffer varying long term effects of the virus.

As surely as all of us, and every child born hereafter will be exposed to COVID just so it is with White Supremacy.

It was a disease that first infected us in the 1400’s. The cure is love, compassion is the vaccine, and forgiveness is the oxygen used for healing.

We were not gifted with a sensitivity to Supremacy to feel superior to others. We were gifted with a sensitivity to Supremacy so that we could compassionately offer each other the opportunity to turn to love for the oxygen of forgiveness, so that we could return to the confident unmasked nakedness of vulnerability.

I hope that we choose love, forgiveness and the vaccine of compassion. None of these is passively received, all are freely available, and require action and commitment to the process of healing.

And so when we find ourselves clearly seeing Supremacy of any sort in the world, if we do not see our own struggle reflected therein may we recognize that this means that we are still actively infected, and need to turn to receive the cure of love, the oxygen of forgiveness, and regular boosters of compassion.

If we continue to deny the existence of Supremacy in us we are sentencing ourselves to death be it slow and steady or swift.

May we choose life.