Whiteness Is Ruining My Life.

My white friends, I need to be honest about something—whiteness is trying to ruin my life. I think it might be trying to ruin yours too.

Image White on White from Wix

What I mean by whiteness isn’t the color of our skin. I’m not talking about biology. It’s not something fixed in our DNA.

The thing I’m talking about is a system. Something invented by humans hundreds of years ago. It didn’t just show up out of nowhere—it was designed.

Whiteness was deliberately created to divide people. To make it seem natural, even moral, that land could be stolen, that humans deemed not white could be enslaved for the entirety of their lives, and that power and wealth produced from all of that violence should stay in the hands of a few—mostly white, Christian men and the white women connected to them.

Once it was invented, became something much bigger. It grew into laws, traditions, church teachings, school systems, and family stories. It expanded to the air we breathe, the water we swim in. Whiteness grew to surround and touch every part of life in the U.S.

And, it’s important to say—whiteness didn’t grow on its own. It wasn’t some invisible force just floating through history. White people—both men and women—fed it, watered it, kept it alive.

White men often build and enforced the laws, policies, and institutions that gave whiteness its teeth. White women, in different ways, reinforced it too—sometimes by living out ideas of whiteness as “goodness” and “respectability,” sometimes by turning a blind eye, sometimes by benefitting from the protections offered while ignoring then violence it required. Together, generation after generation, white folks have kept this system in place. And if we’re not careful and intentional, we’ll keep doing the same today.

Here’s what I’m realizing more and more—whiteness doesn’t only harm black and brown people, it also harms us white folks. It keeps us stuck in its particular logic and worldview. It limits what’s possible for who we can be. Whiteness has become so normal, so unquestioned, that most of us don’t see it. Even when sticking with it works against our very lives.

For me, I hear whiteness whisper that silence is safer than truth. It tells me that momentary comfort matters more than justice. It has me measuring my worth against someone else’s lack—trying to convince me that belonging is about fitting in instead of being fully human. Whiteness tries to fool me into believing that others won’t notice how I show up—how I give up parts of myself so that I fit within it.

And I see whiteness impacting white folks around me too. I see how whiteness teaches us to disconnect from our own bodies, our own tenderness, our own humanity. How it traps us in shame, anger, or defensiveness whenever race is mentioned. How it convinces us that being “good” is enough, while whiteness destroys the world around us.

This system we inherited—this thing called whiteness—it’s not just out there in policies and politics. It’s with us. In the way we make choices, the way we make meaning and tell stories, the way we imagine what’s possible for our lives and for the world.

And if I’m honest, I can feel the ways it’s ruining my life. Keeping me smaller than I was meant to be. Keeping me from the kind of love, connection, and freedom I deeply long for.

But here’s what I hold onto—whiteness was invented. Which means it can be undone. If humans created this system, humans can create something new—something that values every life as sacred and worth protecting. Something that actually sets us free.