I mention my whiteness a lot. I'm certainly not proud of it.

I mention it because occasionally I get misidentified as someone w/Indigenous heritage.

It speaks volumes of how many white people are only --at best-- performative towards other Peoples and their experiences.

I don't hate myself for my ancestry. I do hate the whiteness of my existence. I am not responsible for creating whiteness. I must, on the other hand, fight to dismantle it. That's a multi-generational battle. Because it's cellular.

Whiteness is a virus that's infected the world. It is literally a virus that just keeps replicating, and actively tries to destroy anything not white.

It hurt my ancestors, yet some turned around and became colonizers and settlers. They contributed to whiteness.

Anything that made them unique, with their own cultural, was destroyed by "the melting pot." But it began earlier.

Imperialism and Capitalism beget Colonialism, and all want to worship money and abstract power. Not real power.

Whiteness was created by charismatic bullies who control others by turning them against each other, and convince them that being white is good. That whiteness is power, and influence, and riches.

It's literally the opposite.

I can't help the color of my skin. But I still benefit from it.

And I do grieve for what was lost because my peoples caved to whiteness. I don't give in to DNA testing or Family trees, because that's still whiteness; it's about clout, not connection.

I am white. I identify as white, because I benefit from it. Even if DNA testing and family trees could connect me to the land and the remaining People of my ancestry, the connection to the land is gone. Maybe a few have past down traditions and languages. Maybe.

But the places my people came from, they were industrialized, and capitalism and imperialism disintegrated most if not all of those origins. We let it happen. We can't go back. And no matter how much we try, we can't and never should use our origins for clout.

It just perpetuates whiteness. And we are so removed from those connections, it would be invasive to try to go back. People still there moved on. They had to in order to survive Imperialism and Capitalism.

Some day we white people will have to wrestle with finding our place in the world, after benefiting from, and often perpetuating whiteness.

But first we have to dismantle it. To stop the spread. To destroy it. It starts with me.

And as much as ally with BIPOC, I am not. I never will be. I can never assume I'm welcome, because that's a white conceit. I must respect boundaries. Not everything is for me to know. I am not entitled to it.

I must accept my discomfort at living on stolen land.

And I must give my support to Indigenous Peoples. And do that respectfully. Without ever making it about me.

So I must, when it appears to happen, make sure people know that I'm not simply white coded, I am white. Can't help it. Working to overcome it.

That means figuring out in the moment if it's okay to ask a question. If I should retweet. Or even like a tweet.

It's exhausting. It has to be. Because that's how invasive whiteness is.

It's nowhere near as exhausting as it is for BIPOC suffering whiteness. Ever.

It also means I have to make sure people are aware of whom they are sharing with.

Just because I talk as an ally doesn't mean I'm privy to certain things. I don't normally have a face pic because I hate my face (and I know my work stalks ppl). So I need to communicate.