I love you, and… I know it’s hard to hear this. And it’s really important that we listen because we are all being harmed by this virus of supremacy. Or rather it’s really important to me to speak, and I hope that at some point we can listen and discuss together.

There has been a much publicized photo which shows a lone Afro-descended young woman seated on a train surrounded by White Supremacists. This is not courage. This is reality. This is not her choice. And this is not just an American problem this is the world.

In response to concern about the dynamics displayed in this photo the response has repeatedly been: did they kill her? No? Then all is well.

Is that truly how we measure our own experience of safety? Is the question did you survive? Or would it more correctly be: did you feel no threat, no fear, no concern that you might not survive?

In the American Civil War, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for the right to own Afro-descended people and use them as free labour.

The timeline of the nation indicates that it has been longer immersed in this ideology than it has not been.

People were freed, and then they were segregated so that there would still clearly be those who belonged above and those who belonged below. Dominance and subordination. Caste. Class.

In this era, racial supremacy still sits unexamined in the minds of most Americans. And not just Americans, but in most of us.

Unexamined in most. Present in all.

It is important that we do not exclude any of us from this examination of unconscious supremacy, because all of us sit in that position of dominance in some area in our lives:

•parental supremacy
•professional supremacy
•racial supremacy
•gender supremacy
•religious supremacy
•class supremacy
•educational supremacy
•intellectual supremacy
•body supremacy
•adult supremacy
•economic supremacy
•national supremacy
•cultural supremacy
•trauma supremacy
•coping supremacy

In this era, supremacy still sits largely unexamined within our collective consciousness because there has never been a peaceful national reckoning with racial supremacy or any other kind of supremacy. There has never been a conscious collective choice to restore and rebuild the nation on a foundation of equality.

Instead the nation has used war and then laws to criminalize supremacist behaviour without creating open forums to discuss and bear responsibility for, and work through the imbalance that maintains supremacy unconsciously.

We’ve swept supremacy under the rug instead of getting rid of it completely.

Supremacy continues to unconsciously exist because we do not become magically transformed from any state of being to another.

Transformation involves restorative action. It involves deliberate active growth from unconscious incompetence to awareness of incompetence to learning and practicing new skills which facilitates the transformation to skilled application of knowledge (unconscious competence).

If one finds themselves unable to even consider the idea that supremacy is still unconsciously harming those with whom they are in relationship, it means that supremacy is still present and attached to shame in the shadows of the mind. Bringing it to the light is where it will begin to become visible so that the process of weeding and pruning can begin.

Awareness is not the same as growth in competence. Knowing that supremacy is wrong does not mean we have learned how to recognize it within ourselves, receive correction when it is revealed, repair the harm it causes, or build relationships in which equality is actually practiced.

Prohibitive laws are intended to be guardrails, and if we depend on laws to suppress behaviour, we lean into Jung’s assertion that what we resist will persist and will come forth later in uglier ways. Until we create spaces for safe growth through accountability, apology, and new meetings of the mind, supremacy will continue to burn like a fire which is controlled but not extinguished.

We then over-burden our emergency response and public health services with cases that would never have existed if we had the skill to care for ourselves—if we had developed the ability to accept the discomfort that is a part of the process of settling disputes and creating ways to meet needs without devolving into oppression, suppression, and violence.

If our systems had not been driven by prohibitive laws which focused on punitive measures to ensure success we would not have shamefully hidden our supremacy, we would have moved through the struggle that it takes to become true friends.

I wrestled to understand what Aunty Maya Angelou meant when she said only equals can be friends. I wrestled to understand what my great-grandmother, Sarah-Ann, meant when she said that only equals should marry. I understand now that only equals can build effectively together, because only among equals can we tolerate examining faults. If we bristle and become defensive when someone suggests that our actions are causing them pain this is an indication that unconsciously we may not consider this person our equal.

This is deeply important therefore I repeat:

Only people who recognize each other as equals can truly be friends. Only among equals can we safely examine our faults. If we become defensive when someone tells us that we are causing them pain, we may need to ask whether, somewhere within us, we believe that our beliefs about their experience matters more than the pain associated with their experience.

Does our defensiveness matter more than their pain?

Do we matter more than they do? If we cannot listen, we cannot learn, and if we cannot learn how can we progress?

What have we lost to supremacy? I experience supremacy as the proverbial host of locusts which decimate crops in which the grower has invested much. The good thing is that our Creator has promised to restore what the locusts have stolen. This is a fully trustworthy promise. Recovery, restoration, reconciliation, and resplendent abundance become possible when the peace and safety of equality allows us to access all of our yet untapped and undiscovered regenerative resources.

I am grateful that these people were masked, because we cannot be distracted or derailed by using any one as a scapegoat. We have the opportunity to see ourselves. They are a mirror calling us to look at ourselves.

When we can face the discomfort of confronting these questions, we will know that we have begun the journey to transformation.

I am grateful to my grandmother, Dora, who reminded Daddy that people can only walk as quickly as they can walk. As much as supremacy hurts it is not all that we are. There is so much that is wonderful about us individually and collectively.

Our world—we—together—have begun the journey from supremacy to equality—which is the journey to true freedom and the ever-flowing stream of wealth and significance which is found therein.

#TheForgivenessFramework #NurturingKindred #TrueSafetyIsInEquality #Freedom