I’ll admit that the headlines have buckled me at the knees, from inexorable White supremacy to catastrophic climate change. I simply don’t imagine how this math can work out. Improving the climate doesn’t exist as long as consumerism exists, and White supremacy is fortified by too many deeply entrenched bigotries of “well meaning” folk.
Of course, one doesn’t need to be a Confederate flag flying member of a hate group in order to be a White supremacist. One need only operate from the assumption that White people are supreme. Whether you’re an elector who shrugs off your responsibility because you minimize misogyny, racism, Islamophobia (etc. – ‘isms) or someone who simply never moves over on the sidewalk for Black women, the many faces of supremacy are why we haven’t come as far as some hope and imagine.
There are many people who don’t care about their contributions to oppression, though they might speak the “right” words. They applaud the notion that one should challenge White supremacy wherever it exists, but they resent anyone doing so in their workplace or community. They claim to value women as equals, but they aren’t readily open to female leaders. And they do not remotely want to consider their hypocrisy.
But if you do care, are thankful for implicit bias workshops but still wondering what you can actually effectuate and further how you can identify what precise oppressions you are inflicting on your brethren, casting the movie of your life can illuminate the person you have been as well as the evolutions you need to make.
There are many roles on a set, on-camera and behind. While in casting your motion picture, you won’t much be considering those people who prepare the shot, direct the art, and otherwise develop and maintain the infrastructure, it’s important to acknowledge how essential they are. In real life, these are the people who place your roads, landscape your parks, erect your buildings, and clean up your trash, thus granting you a set – an environment – in which you can perform in the first place. The first step in dismantling your supremacy is to actually begin considering these essential contributors, how much you take them for granted, and how poorly you would fare without them.
Now, the on-camera roles: Lead, Co-Lead, Supporting, and Background. There are more and with deeper nuances, but let’s begin here.
LEAD
In the movie “Get Out”, Daniel Kaluuya plays the Lead character Chris Washington. Chris is the protagonist, the anchor of the film. As you consider the story of your life, I’m sure you will notice that most of the time, you are the Lead character, the one whose emotions and behaviors matter most, the one your entire story pivots around.
While the reality is that the only person whose experiences and feelings you can know profoundly are your own, sometimes you may not think of yourself or treat yourself as the Lead. Perhaps you are abused and thus elevate your abuser to that role, or you discount your worth for other reasons. Simply reflecting upon how you cast yourself will be helpful in illuminating how you operate and the perspectives you bring to your day-to-day as well as your power to create change, for others as well as yourself.
CO-LEAD
In any given moment, there may be someone else you consider on equal footing, of equal importance to the story as you are. In “Get Out”, for a while anyway, Allison Williams’s character Rose Armitage – Chris Washington’s girlfriend – fulfills that role. In your own life, perhaps it’s a business partner, a spouse, a teacher. Whatever your age or circumstances (unless you’re a sociopath) there are, have been, and will be people with whom you intentionally share the spotlight.
Now to examine your supremacy. Do those Co-Leads preference or exclude a particular race? Gender? Sexual orientation? Have there been people of marginalized demographics who could have played that role at various times in your life, but they didn’t? In a company meeting, for example, if every member of your team is supposed to be of equal standing, do you nevertheless tune out when some people speak and not others?
Are there some teachers you consider experts on their subjects but not others, like the Latina who teaches Spanish but not the Black professor of aerospace engineering? Did you think of your spouse as your Co-Lead while you were dating, but now that you’re married, do you expect a lesser role? Whom do you truly consider an equal and whom do you not? You may be able to perform giving space and time to others, but it is your attitude that demonstrates your supremacist tendencies.
SUPPORTING
A Supporting character exists in order to prop up the Leads. In “Get Out” there are several: the Armitages, Chris’s TSA agent friend Rod Williams (LilRel Howery), Lakeith Stanfield’s characters Andre Hayworth and Andrew Logan King. The question you must ask yourself is, “Whom do I treat as though they are only there to support me?” It could be that spouse you regard as essential to your story but nevertheless take for granted. It could be a colleague whose tales around the water cooler interest you so long as they’re amusing. It could be your child, or it could be a neighbor. Again, as you notice patterns in your behavior, take a microscopic look at the demographics of the people you place in one role or another.
It isn’t that you should never consider others to be anything but Co-Leads. Your secretary’s job description includes supporting your work. But if you, say, always consider the darker skinned people in the room to be there only to prop you up, then your girding of supremacy is toxic. Take a hard, long look at your patterns, examine the trends. You can do it in private; no one but you has to know. But you can’t change what you can’t see … and what you can’t be honest about. … and truthfully, the people you oppress already know, so you’re simply awakening yourself to what they may or may not have been trying to tell you.
BACKGROUND
If you’re really being completely honest with yourself, the truth is, most of the people and certainly non-humans in your day-to-day are not that important to you. You do not care about their lives, their feelings, their struggles. Sure, you would notice if, say, the streets of New York City were suddenly empty, but when pedestrian traffic is as expected, you bustle amongst the tourists and the bridge-and-tunnel commuters without even looking at their faces.
Maybe you litter while you walk, demonstrating zero commitment to the environment and the person who has to clean up after you. Maybe you cut to the front of lines or push past people you think are walking too slowly. Don’t walk? You can really get a sense of how you generally regard others by also considering honestly how you drive. Do you try to shorten your morning commute by lingering in the carpool lane until you think highway patrol might catch you? Do you rarely signal? Do you intentionally fail to merge one-for-one believing where you have to go to be paramount to anyone else on the road? If so, then how much you prioritize your own story over that of others is already problematic. Are there deeper issues?
Is the Background to your life movie distinguished by their demographics as well? Are you a cashier who only changes your drawer when a person of color is next in line? Do you hold the door open for White people but not others? Do you never seem to hear those great ideas your female co-workers voice during meetings? You should conclude that you consider females, POC, and women at the intersections as mere background to your story of the Leads and Supporting characters. If Background weren’t there – just as if the streets of NYC weren’t full – you would notice. But you don’t actually have any investment in their being. That supremacist brain of yours no doubt registers them subconsciously, which is why you might assert the idea they just expressed as your own. But you may honestly believe the notion just came to you.
Because who cares about the background? Some “extra” blurred behind the action of countless movie scenes is of little consequence to you. In “Get Out”, you would notice if Rod’s airport didn’t have other TSA agents or passengers scurrying to and fro. But it is only the absence of people that would give you pause. You don’t care what they’re talking about or to whom, where they’re going or why. Of course, they do have thoughts and feelings and individual concerns and considerations. Your examination is not about the role they play in the world. It’s about the role you cast them to play in your world. People of color, females, disabled, and LGBT are well documented to be relegated to the lower castes. Chances are, your cast(e)ing choices reflect society’s as a whole.
"It is not a racial problem. It's a problem of whether or not you're willing to look at your life and be responsible for it, and then begin to change it."
~ James Baldwin
Your own demographics don’t matter. Women have been known to create hostile work environments only for other women. People of Asian descent have been known to oppress each other by ethnic group. With all of the important talk in the U.S. about race-based police violence against civilians, we neglect in our conversations that Native Americans are the most frequent fatalities per capita. Acts of omission are equally important topics of introspection although obviously harder to identify.
If you truly want to eliminate supremacy, its reduction begins with you. The first step is considering the movie of your life. The next is changing your perspective, casting more marginalized Background as Supporting and more Supporting as Co-Leads. Seems like a lot of work? It is.
Get to it.