When Love is Used as a Weapon of White Supremacy

Love is grasped fiercely in white, spiritual circles, and many white women, myself included, use love as a soothing balm when racial discomfort arises. I sense an urge inside myself to divert conversations on racism to a topic I am more comfortable with: love. When I engage in diversion I am not loving though, I am tone policing, silencing and losing an opportunity to unpack ways racial stress and whiteness live inside me by using love as a weapon of white supremacy.

What is love? “Love does not lead to an end of difficulties, it provides us with a means to cope with our difficulties in ways that enhance our growth,” bell hooks says in All About Love. When I use love to move away from difficulty and growth I am spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypass, a term created by John Welwood, is a tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks. The conditioning of white supremacy and other forms of supremacy (i.e. male, able-bodied, Christian, cisgender, etc) are unresolved emotional issues and psychological wounds that impact bodies, minds and hearts. Love for the sake of maintaining comfort and privilege will not heal those wounds. “Dreaming that love will save us, solve our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful…