Do Better

Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy

Rachel Ricketts

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781982151287
• eBook ISBN: 9781982151294
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Amélioration personnelle

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
San Francisco Chronicle’s 10 Books to Pick * HelloGiggles’ 10 Books to Pick Up for a Better 2021 * PopSugar’s 23 Exciting New Books * Book Riot’s 12 Essential Books About Black Identity and History * Harper’s Bazaar’s 60+ Books You Need to Read in 2021

“A clear, powerful, direct, wise, and extremely helpful treatise on how to combat and heal from the ubiquitous violence of white supremacy” (Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author) from thought leader, racial justice educator, and acclaimed spiritual activist Rachel Ricketts.

Do Better is a revolutionary offering that addresses racial justice from a comprehensive, intersectional, and spirit-based perspective. This actionable guidebook illustrates how to engage in the heart-centered and mindfulness-based practices that will help us all fight white supremacy from the inside out, in our personal lives and communities alike. It is a loving and assertive call to do the deep—and often uncomfortable—inner work that precipitates much-needed external and global change.

Filled with carefully curated soulcare activities—such as guided meditations and transformative breathwork—“Do Better answers prayers that many have prayed. Do Better offers a bold possibility for change and healing. Do Better offers a deeply sacred choice that we must all make at such a time as this” (Iyanla Vanzant, New York Times bestselling author).

PART ONE

GOIN’ IN FOR DA WIN

Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.

—REVEREND ANGEL KYODO WILLIAMS SENSEI

ONE

Me, Myself & I

I’m going to tell it like it is. I hope you can take it like it is.

—MALCOLM X

For most of my life my biggest fear about addressing white supremacy was being rejected and abandoned for naming the realities of my oppressed experience as a queer Black woman, which has come to fruition more times than I care to recall. I have personally spent a lifetime feeling alone and misunderstood. I struggle to find places that accept me as my whole Black womanly self and people willing to listen and engage with my truth—one steeped in navigating a white supremacist world as the pervasive “other.” From the tender age of four, I was aware of being treated differently due to my Blackness and girlhood. At day care, my white “caretakers” locked me outside in the pouring rain all alone. In kindergarten, my white teacher attempted to hold me back a year (from kindergarten!), explaining to my white-passing* mother, who the teacher erroneously assumed had adopted me, that my Black brain just wasn’t as large as my white classmates’. It was a sentiment derived from her teachers’ manual, and in the year 1989 this educator deemed it solid ground from which to assume I lacked the intellect required to, I dunno, play with friends or say my name?! It was fucking despicable. And racist. Luckily, my mother was having none of it, and I was placed in a first-grade class after she threatened to sue the school board. Though I only knew about this incident after my mother shared it with me in adulthood, I distinctly recall knowing that I had to prove my intellect to others from first grade onward. That those around me—be they teachers, administrators, or friends—would assume that I was slow because I was a Black girl. I would look around my mostly white classroom and feel myself caged within four walls void of safe spaces, tangible or otherwise. Nobody looked like me and no one cared to understand me or my experience. I felt entirely alone, like an ugly duckling—deemed visibly undesirable and socially unsavory. Often remaining silent for fear of saying or doing anything to garner my Black body unwanted criticism, I disconnected from myself and my surroundings. Internalizing my heartbreak at being subjected to an onslaught of stereotypes, I vowed to excel and exceed all expectations of me whenever and however I could. I thought I could accomplish my way out of the Black box I had been placed in and became completely committed to controlling the narrative my white community had created for and about me. To try to achieve my way out of a form of discrimination I did not and could not yet grasp was deeply entrenched in the hearts, minds, and institutions of all those in my midst. Needless to say, I was continuously disappointed by the impact of my efforts, and with few resources to make sense of it all at just five years old, I assumed the oppression I faced was of my own making. That I was treated and perceived differently by all those in my community, including people I loved, because I was the problem. Growing up in Western Canada also meant being constantly compared with Black Americans. I was referred to as African American by non-Black folx for most of my upbringing—another way of being othered. But the truth is, the only place I felt truly free to be myself was visiting my auntie, uncle, and cousins in Washington State. A mere two-hour drive south presented an alternate universe full of Black love, Black food, and Black pride. I didn’t know the extent at the time, but these glimmers of Black American joy were my salvation.

As a Black girl from a financially insecure, single-mom-led home, the culmination of my stereotypical existence with the racist rhetoric of white supremacist status quo* left me feeling incapable, unworthy, and undeserving. My Blackness made whiteness* uncomfortable, and I was treated as the culprit for white folx’ discomfort—continuously made to feel too loud, too emotional, too boisterous. I learned to tone myself down. To keep quiet, play it safe, and never, ever speak my truth or prioritize my comfort or well-being above that of my white counterparts. In the rare moments I veered off course I was met with racialized harm in the form of emotional violence*, which rocked me like a kick to the head. Sticks and stones have never broken my bones, but words have really, really hurt me. I shrunk into the sliver of space deemed acceptable for a Black girl+* in a white world. It’s a survival skill that stuck with me in all facets of my personal and professional life, and one I continue to process and unlearn three decades later. One of the many privileges afforded to white people by white supremacy is the ability to simply be who they are without preconceived negative stereotypes regarding intellect, ability, class, criminal history, language, origin, or otherwise thrust upon them strictly due to the color of their skin. From as far back as I can remember I have longed to walk into a room and be acknowledged for who, rather than what, I am. To simply be “Rachel” before being “a Black woman.” But that is not my reality.

Reflecting on this now fills me with unimaginable anguish. I yearn to reach out to that little girl who felt alienated and isolated for nothing more than breathing while Black and femme. I want to hold her and let her know she is not wrong, but the system sure AF is. I want to shake my white teachers, friends, and friends’ parents and demand that they address their misogynoir* and stop causing this Black child so much harm. Mostly, I want to tell my younger self that though she deserves better, this is how white supremacy works. It breaks young BI&WoC* down so early and efficiently that we often spend a lifetime swimming in a cesspool of trauma, self-hate, and internalized oppression*.

The racist assumptions and stereotypes like those I endured from toddlerdom are not abnormal, quite the opposite. They are, as white supremacy is, entirely run of the mill. White supremacy is not merely white men running around in white hoods in the woods. No, it is the air we all breathe, and more of us—more white people in particular—are finally taking note of its stench. It is intentional and, often, unintentional. Individual and collective, permeating every institution the world over, from health and education to military and politics, and the impact begins from youth. The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality’s 2017 report contains data showing that “adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, especially in the age range of 5–14.”¹ Black girls receive harsher punishment at school compared with their white peers and are further perceived as needing less nurturing, less protection, less support, and less comforting and as being more independent and knowledgeable of adult topics than white girls of the same age.² In sum, Black girls are not viewed as girls by society at all. In Canada, young Indigenous girls are twenty-one times more likely to die by suicide than their white counterparts, with several Indigenous communities declaring states of emergencies as a result of the ongoing suicide epidemic.³

Clearly, I’m not alone in enduring the pain of white supremacy from early childhood. Black and Indigenous girls+ are not getting the support they desperately need and deserve, and this is due in part, if not entirely, to systems of colonialism* and patriarchy* that have stripped us of our childhood and deemed us less worthy of care. Millions of melanated girls+ like myself have grown up ostracized and oppressed because of the color of our skin, and millions more still will unless we, as a collective, do something to change the oppressive systems as they currently exist.

The truth is that to be Black or Indigenous and a woman+ is to be in a state of constant grief* and rage. As James Baldwin said, “To be a [Black person] in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time.”⁴ Consciously and unconsciously, I’m infuriated over the reduced pay I earn for doing the same work as my male and white women and femme counterparts. I mourn the ability to express myself without being automatically discounted for being angry, to simply have my words received. I am traumatized by the frequent accusation of being overly dramatic when I name misogynoir. I’m enraged by a culture that still purports “all lives matter,” and I grieve over the racist shit my well-intentioned white friends spew out all too often. This is not a pity party, for the record, it’s just the facts of my life and the lives of so many other Black women+. Facts that are too often dismissed. Stop telling BI&PoC our experience is a damn illusion. It’s not.

If I sound angry, rest assured it’s because I am. As therapist and healer Dr. Jennifer Mullan stated, “When the exhausted, abused, traumatized, & the exploited are denied access after access; RAGE and all that goes with her energy are acceptable responses.”⁵ As they say, if you’re not angered by the injustices in the world, you’re not paying attention. Or perhaps you just don’t care. But Black and Indigenous folx, young and old, are dying—emotionally, spiritually, and physically—every single day at the hands of white supremacy and all those perpetuating it. Not caring is a privilege we simply cannot afford.

ALONE ON AN ISLAND…

“White people [are] hypocrites. They’re barbaric…”⁶

My guess is that you may have been met by a host of big emotions as you read that—am I right? I was too. It was August 2017 when I first watched the clip of a young Black man make this statement during a TV interview. I had just returned from a weekend away with my then (mostly white) friends. The same weekend of the now notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. When I reviewed the news coverage of that fateful day, my heart was thrust into a state of all-consuming ache, and as I heard him utter “barbaric,” I was met with a wave of wide-sweeping and conflicting emotions. First came affirmation. The Black Lives Matter protester had just called out the same group of people who, over the course of my lifetime and the lifetimes of my ancestors, treated us as less than solely for being Black. And he’d done so on live television. To a white person’s face for all to witness. Then came the pang of deep and penetrating grief. Grief and loss from the omnipotent trauma of BI&PoC, specifically Black and Indigenous folx, who have been murdered, lynched, imprisoned, enslaved, assaulted, discriminated against, and spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically abused at the hands of white people for centuries. My face felt flush with righteous rage as I reflected on the pervasiveness of the problem. The widely held but frequently disguised racist beliefs held by those with power* and privilege* and their collective unwillingness to do a damn thing to truly change it. The very reason the events of Charlottesville were taking place to begin with. And then there was the fear. Fear for this young person’s life and livelihood in that moment and for his foreseeable future. As well as the shame, anger, and emotional violence I knew would undoubtedly arise as a result of speaking his truth without apology and defiantly calling white supremacy out.

As I sat back in my chair, I released a long and labored exhale. I recounted all the times in which I had brought my truth to white people, when I had spoken up about the ways in which systems of white supremacy have hurt me and those like me, and all the times I was consequently rejected, ignored, and insulted—often by the white people closest to me. I found myself overcome with emotion—because of both the horrendously violent events that had taken place that weekend as well as the bravery of this young Black humxn and the way his words resonated so deeply within every bone of my being. Still, I was confused. I had just spent an entire weekend with white people. I was raised in a predominantly white community, most of my friends at that time were white, and I have white family members. Hell, 25 percent of my ancestry is white! Was it fair to name all white folx hypocrites and barbarians?!

As the Black uprising advocate in the news clip attempted to finish his first sentence, more grief ensued. The news anchor, through his white lens, lied and said the Black man wished to “kill all white people.”⁷ As commonly occurs, this dignified Black soul was made out to be a murderous enemy of the state. An angry thug on a mission to cause white people harm. But that’s not what he said. He called white people barbaric, but he did not say they are all bad people, nor did he assert to wish any of them harm. Without so much as a thought, white supremacy translated this man’s expression of pain—the collective pain shared by myself and many Black folx—as criminal, deviant, and dangerous. Just as enslavers the world over had done centuries before and just as American Jim Crow had upheld for decades afterward. It’s an intentional, albeit often unconscious, defense mechanism white folx wield to guard against having to actually listen to or do anything about the truth: that no matter their intentions, all white people perpetuate a collective and institutionalized system of white supremacy created by white people, which benefits all white people to the detriment and oppression of all BI&PoC (particularly Black and Indigenous women+). And that is fucking barbaric. Periodt. In the same way cis men have a history of acting barbarically toward women, femmes, and feminine folx, hetero folx have behaved barbarically toward the LGBTTQIA+* community, non-disabled folx behave barbarically toward disabled folx, etc. We are all barbaric in some fashion, and part of our spiritual journey is being with that reality, processing the shitty feelings that arise when we confront the harm we’ve caused ourselves and others, and doing the work required to do and demand better.

What I believe this bereaved activist was saying, what Black folx are constantly having to say, is that, on the whole, white people hang us out to dry. Which, in fairness, is an improvement from when they hang us from trees… and they still do. White folx continuously demand we beg, pl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction: My Love Includes Anger
• A Note from Me to You
• Part I: Goin’ in for da Win
• Part II: Ring the Alarm
• What Now?
• Acknowledgments
• Reading Group Guide
• About the Author
• Glossary
• Notes
• Copyright