Commentary: How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin
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From Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin’s Introduction:
“How We Fight White Supremacy is a curated, multidisciplinary collection that serves as a showcase for some of our most powerful thinkers and doers. It starts in the middle of a Black-ass conversation; you won't find any explanatory commas about our cultural mores here... Each chapter starts with our take on why a particular category of resistance is integral to the fight and ends with our (very) personal reflections on the matter. Seriously, this collection has everything: thoughtful interviews, 'am I really crying right now?' essays, ridiculously relatable fine art, unexpected profiles, crying laughing emoji face funny fiction, reflections from everyday people on their everyday resistance, get hype playlists, and more... But most of all, this is a book about freedom dreams."
If this description doesn't sell you on this book's brilliance, then I don't know what will!
Alongside Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin, the collection includes 69 Black contributors who are artists, writers, leaders, activists, entrepreneurs, medical professionals, and more, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Tracy M. Adams/DJ Monday Blue, Tai Allen, Michael Arceneaux, Gina Belefonte, Harry Belefonte, Haylin Belay, Mia Birdsong, Ta-Nehisi Coates, adrienne maree brown, Margari Aziza Hill, Wazi Maret, Asali Solomon, and more.
As the authors/editors say in their opening pages, this book does not represent a magic fix-all approach to ending White Supremacy. What it is depends on who you are. I'm a White, Jewish, trans writer, working within my community to dismantle White supremacy. This book isn't for me, but, regardless, what this book was (to me) was a space for imagining a liberated future for all people. How We Fight White Supremacy is full of solutions and ideas, large and small, personal and cultural, real and not-yet-real. It is the not-yet-real that I would like to focus on here.
In community organizing work, especially when working with White people like myself, I have found that there is a supreme lacking in imagination.
How we talk about ending racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and, ultimately, White supremacy, feels so stale, academic, and detached. Our ideas always seem to link back to a system of oppression. Or they depend on capitalism to succeed. Or they other someone else, pushing marginalization around the chessboard, rather than eliminating it. The spaces where we pour so much energy, effort, time, and resources to fight against all that tries to kill us and those we love feel draining rather than restorative. But if our fights are not sustainable, then we will burn out quickly, make mistakes, and turn inwards, away from our communities who need us. That not only hurts the individual who turns away, but it also hurts their friends and community members. Cycles like this break trust, cultivate anger and resentment, and result in spaces that make us hate the work and ourselves. How is this liberatory?
Our spaces of resistance and liberation should be centered around us-- built upon foundations that are rooted in values and beliefs that sustain us, and decorated with ideas, innovations, and growth spurts that electrify us with purpose and hope. To create such spaces, we have to work together to imagine a future where all people are liberated. What would that look like? Feel like? Sound like? How would we see that liberation manifested in our homes, our neighborhoods, on the sidewalk or in the market? How would that liberation look in educational spaces? In medicine? In recreation?
I believe in movements that are based in the seemingly-impossible. When white supremacist society leans in to inspect us, and they say, "What you want-- that's impossible to achieve," that's when I know we are on the right path. White Supremacy can't imagine its own downfall. It can't imagine a reality based on equity and freedom for all. Therefore, the extent of its imagination-- the boundary-line between what is and what isn't-- that's where I want to exist. That's where I want to live and love. That's where I want to build community with others and build the future together.
Can you even imagine such a thing? I know it isn't easy. And I'm not there yet. But I'm starting to form an image.
To me, a liberated future looks like a world without prisons, without borders, without diet culture, and without corporations. A liberated future looks like Black and Brown people living and thriving in ways that make them unique and magical, outside of a white gaze that seeks to diminish them. A liberated future looks like Trans and Queer folks living and loving openly, without worry, without stares. A liberated future looks like students learning the things they actually want and need to learn, from teachers that look like them and who don't, based on curricula that are just, decolonized, and enable children to build the future they want. A liberated future looks like personal relationships to food based on equal access to clean water, air, and farming practices. A liberated future looks accessible-- where disabled folks don't ask permission to live and thrive and where all spaces are available to them as they are. A liberated future looks like wealth-sharing, non-hierarchal community, decision-making power by and for all.
A liberated future sounds like the voices of youth speaking loudest, while elders share their wisdom openly and honestly. A liberated future sounds melodic-- music pouring from our celebrations. A liberated future rings with the Adhan-- the Muslim call to prayer. A liberated future dances in the sounding of the Shofar-- the Jewish horn sounded on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. A liberated future sounds like a loving, heartfelt discussion, as people from all faiths and religions celebrate one another, ask questions, and find ways to build spaces that honor all.
A liberated future feels restful and rejuvenating, where work comes second to health and happiness, and where work does not fill the pockets of the 1%, rather work enriches our personal and collective selves. A liberated future feels like a deep breath of clean air in your lungs. A liberated future feels like waking with the sunshine. A liberated future feels natural and comforting.
Daring to imagine that future is how I fight White Supremacy. Listening to and working for non-White liberation leaders towards that future is the path I choose.