Make no mistake that many racialized people who are sensitive to the reality of White Supremacy are in deep pain today, consciously or unconsciously.

For those of us who are unconsciously in pain, I pray for an awakening to the pain, so that the necessary treatment can begin.

For those of us who are consciously in pain I pray for support through the pain and sadness, and hope that treatment is close at hand.

Today, some people will be celebrating and others will be sitting in disappointed disbelief.

And I guarantee that we think that here in Canada, and wherever you read from in this world today we are better, or you may think that we are doing just fine.

And in the midst of all of that I just want to say that I can so clearly see that we are not okay.

We are not okay.

White supremacy and its pillars patriarchy, racism, and xenophobia are being given new life because we are choosing to pretend that it is not a virus which is deeply embedded in us. We keep blaming “those people” without stopping to look at ourselves. If we could see the disease in ourselves, we would work towards healing, and then we would be more compassionate and less contemptuous, and there would be change as we worked together to build a better world NOW on Earth as it is in heaven.

In 2020, we watched the horrific personification of White Supremacy as Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck refusing to believe that he was robbing a human being of life.

We blamed the police as if the police were not living by the same policies which run the whole world. I did too. Until I recognized that I was blaming and scapegoating which meant that I was not really looking at the truth.

We flocked together to create scapegoats of police, and Derek Chauvin. We othered and othered instead of looking at ourselves to try to understand how this injustice could continue to be perpetuated.

We continue to turn our faces away in shame from the traumatic core injuries that allow the every day racist abuses that deplete our mental and emotional health and rob us all of healthy neighbourly connection.

I know that what we really want is to be in kind loving neighbourly connection with each other.

I wish that when we saw an ill in others we would pause to check in to see if that ill is also present in us. I wish that we would get curious about why.

I am still hopeful as I observe exactly what I expected to be. I am also sad that what I expected to happen has happened.

Contempt has never elevated our world.

I hope that this time around we will humanize and analyze, instead of demonize so that we can get to the path of healing which we so deeply need, so that we can have the energy and focus to be a part of the power that smashes the poisonous thrones of supremacy to bits, to create a new and loving world together.