Right to Comfort

For the next series, I decided to focus on the White Supremacy Charateristic, Right to Comfort. Typically I start off by sharing the definition and my self reflection on the relationship I have with the White Supremacy Characteristic. For the last week, I’ve found myself challenged with that approach for this characteristic. I thought sharing my struggle would be a helpful way to start.

Right to Comfort definition

What might this look like?

● the belief that those with power have a right to emotional and psychological comfort (another aspect of valuing ‘logic’ over emotion)

● scapegoating those who cause discomfort

● equating individual acts of unfairness against white people with systemic racism, which daily targets people of color

As I read the way the right to comfort can show up, I kept having immediate reflections of how this has been used against me in a lot of my life especially at work. I thought about times when I brought up acts of hypocrisy, discrimination, and the negative impact on people and heard all about the good intent of those causing the harm. I relived the amount of defensiveness that I faced and how that quickly turned to me being the one that was causing harm by bringing it up. I was the problem for not understanding the good intent of others. I brought up racism and therefore was the cause of racism by naming it. I used the term white supremacy and blamed all white people for something that happened hundreds of years ago.

How can I write about the right to comfort for me when I constantly feel uncomfortable living and trying to address the truth of my experiences?