Imagine that we, as white people, are in the caterpillar stage of comfortable whiteness. In her powerful poem “The Point. The Center. The Norm,” Kimberly James highlights who white people are used to being centered, being the norm, being in a place of power. Whiteness – and the status quo it’s created – has been comfortable for white people. But it also set in motion the slow erosion of our humanity. It is time to move into the cocoon of transformation where we wrestle for liberation for all, as well as for our full humanity.
In his book Falling Upward, Richard Rohr writes, “Transformation is often more about unlearning than learning.” There is much for us to unlearn – greed, theft, dominance, abusive power, fear, scarcity, exceptionalism, to name a few things. But if we commit to the process, we will become transformed.
The beautiful part is that with every small act of resistance, every step toward transformation, we are also contributing to the transformation of the whole. We are not doing this work only for ourselves; we are doing this for a more whole, beautiful, and just humanity.
From “Recovering Racists: Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity” by Idelette McVicker