By Kejhonti Neloms
There aren’t too many spaces where niggas can come together and safely fellowship about burning down everything white. We still do it though. Aunties do it over spades games. Niggas do it in barbershops. Butch Queens do it at balls. Children do it on playgrounds. We don’t do it enough, of course, because it’s dangerous—for everybody. No one wants to be singled out at as crazy. We bundle our dreams of revolutionary suicide and drift to sleep with them held terribly close, but not too close.
I have always wished that I could be as sensitive as I ought to be to all humans, but I find myself more than falling short. I’ve been too stressed out about keeping up appearances: Water cooler talk, grocery shopping, replying to emails. I can’t tell which is more stressful: existing, or signifying to other people that I exist (and am “getting ahead”). Quite frankly, it’s becoming exhausting to not set fire to everything that makes it hard to exist.
It’s easy to be written off as a lunatic for saying such things. I think we’ve all seen it. It’s kind of a dark (yes, dark) trope in the culture of colonizers. It’s psychological warfare: A person (nigga) is wronged, they pursue justice despite the disbelief of their peers. The harder they pursue, the crazier they are made to look. The more they’re gaslit. They’re told to give it up. To forgive. To pray, even. It’s too easy to not be believed.
Whiteness has the ultimate vested interest in making you waste your time ignoring the fact that everything white simply has to be burned. They know it. We know it. We been knew.
When you say these words too loudly, white supremacist media writes you off as someone who is mentally unstable. Terrorist. Enemy of the State. Suspect. Crazy. Dangerous. They drum up any language to gaslight you. They make examples out of us so to say, “Do you see what happens when you challenge the State?” They make it as if our demands for human dignity are unreasonable and unrighteous. They do everything they can to make us appear crazy. It’s ironic that white supremacy is the reason why so many of us have mental health issues, and also the reason why so many of us can’t get access to psychological assistance.
White supremacy has certainly damaged my mental health—and, subsequently, my ability to enjoy life. The more I daydream about burning down everything white, the more I feel unable to continue living on in this anti-Black world. It’s a confusing feeling that has a mixed impact. Sometimes, I am so heavy with the legacy of racism that I can’t leave my bed. Other times I am so full of righteous indignation about the crimes committed against us that I can barely sleep. I can never anticipate how my brain will react to the next #hashtag.
I’ve started to become obsessed with tiny, racist details. I wonder if this is a symptom of deteriorating mental health. I’ve compulsively started to look for the anti-blackness in music, technology, sex, language, food, money, love. I’ve begun to expect it. I’m becoming less light hearted, and more skeptical. I’m becoming more critical and much less forgiving.
I spend too much time thinking about tiny racist details. I spend a lot of time thinking about the prefix “poli.” Like, an inordinate amount of time thinking about just that little prefix and where it rears its ugly head. I’m not a linguist nigga. I don’t be studying words for real, for real. I barely read. But recently I’ve begun paying attention to how deeply entrenched white supremacist language is in our realities.
Though I know oppression thrives in isolation, I haven’t really talked to anyone about how often I think about “poli.” I haven’t talked to anyone about how much tiny, racist prefixes bother me. This incidental isolation has caused me some bit of worry and I’m excited to share it with you all here in this notebook. It’s a relief to share because sharing is important. It helps make the unclear more clear and more tangible.
“Poli” makes me think of the verb “to polish,” And I wonder why the subject in question has to be polished in the first place. Yes, I know it’s trivial, and “polish” feels that way when it’s written alone. But intrusive thoughts don’t allow me to just stop at “polish.”
I think of “Indianapolis” because I’ve been there, and because “polis” means city in Greek. The Greeks used to make the poor live in squalor in the countryside while the rich (politicians) occupied the cities. This is how a lot of American cities were originally designed.
It makes me think of that miserable chore called being “polite.” I think about how often I was disciplined for not being polite in public. Now I know I was just being tone policed. I’m still quite indignant about these punishments, too. They were either meted out by some white supremacist institution, or by my young mother who knew nothing better. I was only saying the truth very loudly and very clearly. This is what Black children are good at. I was cheated.
It makes me think about the “poli” in “Police.” I think about slave catchers. I overthink about the ways that I have policed myself. I think about the ways that I have policed people that I love. I think about the “Political” and how it’s always been a white ass lie. I spend too much time overthinking Policy and Monopolies. Metropolises and Spoliation.
As of late, I’m starting to feel this way about many other white words, white ideas, places, habits, sayings and white times. I’m starting to become hypercritical of white clothes, white relationships, technology, medicine and white body language. I feel unable to escape the symbols that bind me to this white supremacist reality. I’m having trouble accessing my usual routes of escape.
It’s becoming harder for me to be less bitter. It’s becoming harder for me to be polite with white people. At all. Even your white father or your white best friend. What’s worse is that I’m starting to have a hard time being civil with my white friends. That’s another word that I overthink a lot: “civil.”
I deserve to be able to be sensitive (with my non-Black friends and myself). I deserve to be able to believe that all lives matter. I deserve to be able to trust all people. I deserve to be able to feel safe. I deserve these things and I feel cheated that I don’t have them. I know that I’ve been cheated.
I’m in such an unfortunate position. I am charged with this knowledge that I’ve been cheated (and will continue to be cheated) while global warming and its impending calamity ushers us all into the end of the world. Calamitous indeed. And it’s every white person’s fault.
I saw headlines that read, “Humanity has killed over 60% of wildlife on the Earth”, and I couldn’t help but to continue minding my Black ass business because I know for a fact that’s a bold-face lie. “Humanity” almost always means “White People.” We are not taking responsibility for this mess that white people created. I’ll be damned.
Regardless of who destroyed the Earth, (and we know who did it) I’m still expected to clock in on time, not steal from white people, not lie to authorities, not kill Daniel Hortzclaw. Not torture George Zimmerman. Not rob a bank. Not kill the rich. It’s an enormous task that weighs on my mental health like a noose.
We all fantasize about overcoming our oppressors through violence but I will never forget how some of us reacted to Korryn Gaines’ murder. I will never forget about how she was called “crazy.” I won’t ever forget about the young, Black host at my first job who would silently allow the white manager to fetishize him. He didn’t want to be seen as crazy if he stopped her. I won’t forget. I was 16. I will never forget how my partner(s) didn’t want to come forward about their rape because they didn’t want to be trivialized or further isolated from their family. I won’t ever forget. I won’t forget how my mother lamented that she couldn’t protect me from truly hating all white people. She said hating white people would destroy my mental health. I can’t forget.
The burning of everything white is the first thought of wronged children and the last word spoken by Black martyrs. It’s a truth that we’ve been quiet and loud about for 400 years. From Port-au-Prince to North Philly. From Bissau to Bahia. It’s the final resort. It’s irrefutable. It’s long overdue. It’s been that way from the start and we’re not crazy for calling it. The burning of everything white is the “hope” that some of us wished Obama was delivering. We won’t be so foolish again. The burning of everything white is the delivery.
Suggested Readings:
Huey Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, 1973
Nefertari Sloan, “Your perfect work record won’t protect you if you’re Black and don’t stay in your place“, Black Youth Project, 2018
Kejhonti Neloms is a queer student/teacher. He has dreams of starting a community center for black queer kids.
