Liberated to Love: Transforming Generations Through Collective Healing

WHITE SUPREMACY IS A FEAR-BASED IDEOLOGY

Historically, White Supremacy has employed violence as a means to instill fear and assert control. Whether consciously acknowledged or not, White-body supremacy instills a sense of fear and prevents the White body from being subject to regulation. White supremacists harbor anxieties about being surpassed by individuals of color, dreading that they might experience a reversal of the injustices they have perpetrated. Their apprehensions extend to concerns about losing control over land, wealth, job opportunities, and more. This ideology is rooted in the belief that resources are scarce, and if the "other" group attains them, there won't be enough for everyone.

This mindset has permeated our entire society giving rise to tendrils that have matured into toxic ivy bushes of scarcity, hoarding, deficiency, fear, and greed.

Daniel Sprately vividly captures the consequences of these poisonous plants, articulating how they provoke allergic reactions within the body. He poignantly states, “One thing that comes up for me is how fear lives in the body after trauma and how the (my) body feels uneasy in (relative) safety and love because it's waiting for the next trauma - and so, when it comes, it compounds on all the other trauma that lives there and still needs to be exorcised. And this turns safety and love into things to be feared, because they are distractions from the vigilance my body lives in. It is one way (my) fear makes the (my) body pliable to trauma and makes connection and belonging seem like danger.”

White supremacy culture's number one strategy has historically been to make us afraid. Afraid to stick up for ourselves. Afraid to tell the truth. Afraid to run in our neighborhoods. Afraid to sleep in our apartments. Afraid to walk to the gas station. Afraid to play with toys. Afraid to have a broken tail light. 

Fear distorts our perception, leading us to overlook our inherent power and relinquish agency in pursuit of a promise of safety, "even as we come to slowly learn that safety dependent on violence is not safe at all."

Ku Klux Klan members protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, on July 8, 2017.

White supremacy, white supremacy culture, and racism operate on fear, aiming to disconnect us in various ways—across racial lines, within racial groups, from ourselves, the environment, and our inner wisdom. And this disconnectedness cuts us off from our original life source – love. 

This fear-driven approach, prevalent in governing both large and small groups, seeks to divide and conquer, favoring the interests of a few over the well-being of many. White supremacy culture has subtly infiltrated every aspect of our society, influencing how we work, manage people, lead, parent, earn and spend money, engage online, express ourselves, and choose silence over speaking up.

White supremacy feeds this fear that we don't belong or that we're not measuring up and creates a messed-up cycle where people end up fearing and sometimes hating others, all to try and prove they're worth something. For things to change, it's crucial to confront and navigate our fears, preventing manipulation by those who exploit division to maintain power and control.

Civil Rights Movement Co-Founder Dr. Ralph David Abernathy and his wife Juanita Abernathy follow with Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King on the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. The children are Donzaleigh Abernathy in striped sweater, Ralph David Abernathy, 3rd and Juandalynn R. Abernathy in glasses.

WHEN WE HEAL FROM FEAR

But what could happen when we collectively decide to break free from fear? It's something those in power conveniently overlook. They're all about crushing the vulnerable when they're down, thinking that's the end of the story. But what they fail to grasp is the resilience of the generations that rise up after surviving the horrors of mass genocide, whether it's in Gaza, Cuba, Sudan, or right here in America—hidden beneath the facade of a justice system that was birthed out of the erasure of Black and Indigenous people. 

When we collectively begin to heal, whether we realize it or not, we're creating a movement. It's a movement where people are awakened to the ways oppression plays with our minds and infiltrates the human experience. When we heal, we are liberated…liberated and free! 

With that newfound freedom, we're handed the power to love again. This self-love and love for others morph into resilient courage—the kind that stares down our oppressors face-to-face. It's the courage to demand our reparations, to unabashedly share the truth of our lived experiences without it reopening old wounds. The courage to reclaim our land and resources. The courage to speak up loudly and live authentically. The courage to unveil the reality of capitalism and its lingering influence on our pursuit of justice. The courage to remove ties with anything and any system that harms humanity. 

When you are liberated to love you are no longer afraid and you become courageous enough to liberate others!

An image from a working-class area of Atlanta where white and black children played together, 1970.

More Black Americans are engaging in therapy and pursuing healing, marking a significant shift with 25% actively seeking mental health treatment across the nation. Put 10 years on a generation of people who are no longer afraid and you will see a generation unburdened by fear, one acutely attuned to social and political realities, empowered with agency, voice, and courage to change.

“If we want to transgress white supremacy, we have to get good at belonging - belonging to ourselves and welcoming each other into belonging. This requires emotional maturity and responsibility, mutual accountability, and support, and knowing ourselves well enough to know when we can step up to belonging and when we need to step back and take care of ourselves. This is not easy. This is necessary. And the prize is belonging - belonging to beloved community.” - Tema Okun, White Supremacy Culture article from 1999.

Imagine a Black community enriched by a decade of healing, transforming how they parent, work, contribute, and live. We're amid a cultural awakening, and every personal step toward healing, no matter how small, contributes to this movement – a resurgence of a generation liberated to love! Partner with us in this movement and become a financial partner of BLK South. 

Jonathan Daniels was killed aged 26 when he stepped in to protect a teenage black woman from a shotgun-wielding construction worker.