Beyond White Supremacist Capitalistic Patriarchy

As I watch with horror the violence that is rooted in a history of apartheid and systems of oppression unfolding in Palestine and Israel, I am reminded of our capacity to oppress ourselves and one another as a people. It is disheartening and whatever of my heart is left, I send to those whose lives have been derailed by this turmoil. I do not have much to say on that particular instance of human violence because there is little my voice can add amongst the many voices commenting on the events. Instead, I draw my reflections to an instance of human violence that I know and understand a bit more intimately: white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy! 

In my last blog post, I retired the persona of Tumisang Ramarea, but as I am learning, the voice of Tumisang Ramarea cannot be easily silenced--even by myself. And so I find myself here again: using my lived experiences to attempt to make sense of the world and hopefully inspire more of us to reflect more upon these matters. I am a firm believer that as capable of violence as we are, we are also deeply capable of love. (By love, I mean something beyond the toxic joke the systems of oppression under which we live has led us to believe in and crave.) I am convinced that it is in understanding our deep capacity for both violence and love, that we can be empowered to choose the more nourishing and enriching option: love. 

Instead of defining exactly what I mean by "White Supremacist Capitalistic Patriarchy" as my academic training beacons me to, I will leave that as an assignment for the reader. There are resources out there, including writings by renowned author and love prophet bell hooks, that can elucidate the idea. In place of a definition, I will give examples of where white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy has shown up in my lived experiences. And my experiences are not even exceptional.

It is in the legacies of colonialism and slavery that are the backdrop of life in my community of upbringing and community of education, respectively. The colorism that subjected me to abusive comments about my sun-tanned black complexion in my youth, the maladaptive behaviors emulating what "real men" are supposed to be that have contributed to the oppression of the women in my life, and the deep rooted shame from being excluded by my designated low socioeconomic class, are just a few examples. There are even more ways in which this violence has shown up for others because of their gender, their religious faith tradition, their ethnicity, their vocation, and more. 

One question that I struggle to reconcile is if the systems of oppression that are the building blocks of white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy appear to oppress everyone---even those in positions of relative power and privilege---why then do they persist? One of the wise people I know recently explained it to me in a simple and retrospectively obvious way: "The oppressors are willing to oppress themselves in order to oppress others." Since I can only ever accurately reflect on my own actions and motivations, it got me wondering in what ways I was oppressing myself to "stay ahead" under this system. Dear reader, how are you complicit in the upholding of this oppressive orchestra? 

Of course I recognize that I write this from a point of many privileges and comforts. After all I am a college educated straight man from an elite university working (happily) in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Although my blackness, my Africanness, and my economic origins might render me a victim of the oppression, in some key areas I am a beneficiary of the oppression. Yet herein lies the core of the issue: I do not delight in this oppression because a deep conviction of mine is the principle and the philosophy of Ubuntu. (Ubuntu simply means I am because you are --- a person is a person because of the full presence of other persons.) The idea that our destiny and success is tied to our collective well-being. 

The question now becomes; how do we transcend this white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy when we are so well adapted to it? The simple answer---but not easy---is we stop trying to use the tools of the problem to build a solution. I hope you will join me on this journey of exploration to think through these questions. Feel free to send me a message to share your thoughts. On my next post, I will reflect a bit more on the philosophy of Ubuntu: its origins, how it has been choked by the systems of oppression, and how we can resuscitate it in the hopes of a life beyond white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy.