I Wish Y’all Hated Us Enough to Leave Us Alone
Black People as Fixation, Avoidance, and Triangulation
One thing
that is guaranteed in these United States of America, and of her children… is that if there is Black people’s business… white people will be right there ready to disrupt it.
Not because you actually want to participate.
Not because you suddenly care about ethics.
Not because you are deeply invested in equality, or equity for that matter.
But because supremacy culture has conditioned whiteness to remain psychologically, emotionally, politically, and socially oriented around Blackness in ways many white-bodied people still refuse to confront honestly.
That is why a Black doctor directory becomes national outrage while countless identity-, religion-, language-, and culturally specific provider directories quietly exist without scrutiny.
That is why Black affinity spaces —intentional spaces created for Black people to gather, heal, organize, learn, connect, and exist in shared cultural understanding and safety without needing to explain or defend our experiences to whiteness— are treated as suspicious whilst every other form of communal self-preservation is framed as normal.
That is why Black boundaries are interpreted as hostility.
And that is why so many people remain more invested in monitoring Black people than examining the systems of domination operating inside themselves.
Because for too many white-bodied people, fixation on Blackness functions as avoidance of confronting whiteness.
And avoidance is far easier than interruption.
Take a breath before you continue.
Seriously. 🌬️
Because this article is going to ask you to sit with something uncomfortable:
Whiteness is not just an identity.
It is a socialized behavioral system.
A relational system.
A protective system.
A nervous system pattern.
A survival framework built inside institutions, communities, bodies, and beliefs.
And like all systems, it produces symptoms.
This article is going to pathologize whiteness in ways many people are unaccustomed to witnessing, not to dehumanize people, but to honestly examine the behaviors supremacy culture normalizes and rewards.
That discomfort you may feel while reading?
Stay with it.
Defensiveness is not reflection.
Avoidance is not healing.
And intellectual agreement alone is not transformation.
You can do hard things.
More importantly:
you can survive being decentered long enough to meet yourself honestly.
So take another breath. 🌬️
And keep reading.
In a recent Facebook post Dr Stacey Patton shared a response to the outrage surrounding FindABlackDoctor.org and the absurd claims that a directory centering Black physicians is somehow “segregationist.”
Since Dr. Travis Morrell wants to sue FindABlackDoctor.com, he might as well sue all the other identity-, religion-, culture-, and language-specific provider directories.
There’s lots of them out there. Some are for physicians broadly, some are for mental health clinicians, and some are membership directories or culturally specific health networks. But the basic concept is not unusual at all: people search for providers who understand their bodies, culture, language, faith, community, gender, sexuality, or lived experience.
Here are just a few:
JWiz Jewish Directory
Christian Medical & Dental Associations Member
MyCatholicDoctor
musDir Muslim Doctors & Healthcare Providers
Asian Medical Council – Find Doctors
Hispanic Physicians IPA / HPIPA Provider Directory
Latinx Therapy
Indian Health Service Physicians
So this stupid-ass argument that FindABlackDoctor.org is some bizarre, uniquely segregationist is boolshyt.
There are Christian doctor directories. Jewish doctor directories. Muslim doctor directories. Hispanic physician networks. Latinx therapist directories. Asian health provider networks. Native American doctor searches. LGBTQ-inclusive provider directories.
And nobody panics until Black folks build a tool that says we need doctors who know us.
FOH!
In this post, she pointed out something important:
There are countless identity-, faith-, culture-, and language-centered provider directories already in existence.
Jewish physician directories.
Christian physician directories.
Muslim physician directories.
Latinx therapist directories.
Asian provider networks.
Native physician searches.
LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare directories.
Nobody panics.
Nobody suddenly becomes deeply concerned about “division.”
But let Black people create something intended to help Black patients navigate systems with documented racial disparities, medical bias, dismissal of pain, and disproportionate mortality rates…
and suddenly people act like civilization itself is collapsing.
After reading her post I shared it with the following caption:
“I wish y’all hated us in the way of leaving us alone… but y’all hate us in the way you hate yourselves, so you need to bother us.”
And honestly?
The more I sat with it, the more I realized this is not just about racism.
It is about fixation.
It is about avoidance.
It is about triangulation.
It is about the psychological architecture of whiteness and the ways supremacy culture survives by keeping people externally oriented rather than internally accountable.
Because the truth is:
White-bodied people are so busy monitoring Blackness that they never notice whiteness operating inside themselves.
And that is the real crisis.
So sit back, take a breath, and let’s get into it.
I am Desireé B Stephens, and I pathologize the system of whiteness.
This Is Not About “Bad White People”
One of the greatest protections supremacy culture has is the belief that whiteness only exists in its most overt forms.
The racist slur.
The violent extremist.
The openly hateful person.
So many white-bodied people separate themselves from “those kinds of white people” without realizing whiteness is not merely about individual morality.
It is a socialized relational system.
Which means even deeply loving, politically conscious, queer, community-oriented white people can still enact the patterns of whiteness unconsciously.
Not because they are evil.
But because supremacy culture is ambient.
Inherited.
Normalized.
Embodied.
And if we only examine overt harm, we miss the far more common ways whiteness quietly reproduces itself through orientation, projection, emotional positioning, and relational dynamics.
The following is an example involving people I know personally, people I trust, love, and have welcomed into my home.
That matters.
Because this lens is not about punishment.
It is about seeing clearly.
A Real Life Example of Fixation, Avoidance, and Triangulation
The following was shared publicly by a white queer friend of mine:
“Like most people, I’m hanging on by a thread. Realized when we were driving Arie to work today in Marietta that we had a leak that was quickly dropping air even after stopping to put air in it. I dropped Arie off at work and honestly was stressed as a visibly queer person finding somewhere near her shop to go that would be kind and also everywhere near her shop within a mile or two seemed to be closed for the weekend.
Also having CPTSD and autism getting stranded is overwhelming on its own and requires emotional and executive function bandwidth I have struggled to find lately so my anxiety was through the roof.
I pulled into a Spanish speaking shop with tears running down my face because I was scared of getting stranded and figuring things out on my own and honestly my bandwidth is just really small right now thus the tears, he agreed to help me out.
After he patched it, he said they were actually closed today so I owe nothing.
In that moment of a Brown immigrant helping a scared and tired white queer person it reminded me there is goodness in this world and we all can be the healers.”
My response was:
“Helping a scared and tired WHITE queer person.
You named them as Brown and immigrant and admitted the people you would be scared to be seen by would be your own fellow white people.
Yet you were served by someone that you are a danger to simply because of whiteness.
When white people leave out white they cast themselves as the default and fail to see the inherent danger you pose by simply existing in a white supremacist society.
As an example what could’ve happened if one of the bigoted whites you were afraid of happened to see you in a space with a Brown immigrant man and crying.
They would see beyond queer and clock you as a white woman crying and this man must have caused that and now his life freedom and family are in danger…
Your whiteness will always come first and that’s what decentering whiteness looks like.”
And to her credit, she received that feedback with openness and accountability.
She responded:
“I agree with what you are saying and I have edited my post to name that I am a white person.
I deeply appreciate their help.
I didn’t choose to go there specifically but happened to pull in because my tire was going flat and I happened to see this shop and this turned out to be the dynamics.
I was trying to highlight the goodness of humans who are often mischaracterized and unfairly judged and feeling hope in that moment in what humanity truly can be.
I totally own I always have white privilege at play and appreciate you making sure that is clearly named here and challenging me to be sure to be specific about that component.”
And I responded:
“Thank you for always seeing my point.
It adds to the depth and richness of what you are saying when you name that because in spite of you being afraid of your own folks the one person in this story that can be harmed by both you and those you fear extended their kindness and that’s the global story and truth of the humanity Black and Brown people consistently extend…”
What Most People Missed
What fascinated me most was not the original post.
It was the comments.
Because nearly every response emotionally centered the white queer vulnerability being expressed while failing to interrogate the racial power dynamics operating underneath the interaction.
And this is exactly how supremacy culture reproduces itself relationally.
Not necessarily through overt violence.
But through unconscious orientation.
The Brown immigrant man was framed as evidence of humanity, kindness, and healing.
And he very well may have been all of those things.
But almost nobody stopped to examine the deeper truth:
He was the person in the story facing the greatest structural danger.
Not the crying white queer person.
Him.
Because whiteness remains structurally protected even when individual white people experience marginalization in other areas of identity.
And that is the part many white-bodied people struggle to hold simultaneously:
Whiteness does not guarantee safety from all oppression.
But it does fundamentally shape proximity to systemic danger.
Especially in relation to Black and Brown people.
The white queer person in this story feared other white people.
That fear was real.
Valid even.
But the Brown immigrant man was navigating danger from both directions simultaneously:
from overt white supremacy…
and from the structural vulnerability that proximity to whiteness itself creates.
Including proximity to well-meaning white people.
That is not accusation.
That is structural reality.
And that is why naming whiteness matters.
Because when white-bodied people leave whiteness unnamed, they unconsciously cast themselves as universal, neutral, default, or simply “human.”
Meanwhile Black and Brown people remain racialized in the narrative.
Described.
Observed.
Positioned.
Interpreted.
That imbalance is not accidental.
It is one of the primary ways whiteness maintains invisibility while still operating socially.
The Private Conversation That Deepened the Lesson
Later, another white queer person messaged me privately about the situation and said:
“That post. I’m bothered.
Not just by her lack of naming herself white but also seeking safety with more marginalized people.
When will white people understand that part of liberation work as a white person is standing 10 toes down on who you are and facing the potential harm that comes from being a race traitor.
Maybe it’s just my mood this morning.
But I don’t like it.”
I responded:
“She’s still learning and that’s a lifetime and I know she’s living the work daily.”
They replied:
“I wasn’t saying it makes her a bad person.
I think it has more to do with the fact that I am super visibly queer whether I dress in pride or not.
And I don’t get to hide myself that way.
Also I had a experience with a group of fem queers yesterday that was gross and problematic.”
And I said:
“Then your issue is a white one where you can’t hide queerness inside of whiteness and she could.
The Brown guy plays no part but triangulation.”
They replied:
“I mean I have no desire to hide inside of whiteness.
And I know folks are on a journey and others don’t have my ‘I don’t give a fuck’ but it gets tiring.”
And I responded:
“Of course it does.
I was just pointing out that is an internal issue that would exist with or without us existing.”
This Is The Part White People Avoid
So many dynamics projected onto Black and Brown people are actually unresolved internal fractures within whiteness itself.
And instead of confronting those fractures directly, supremacy culture triangulates Blackness into the conversation.
Black people become the mirror.
The distraction.
The emotional site where unresolved white tensions get displaced.
This is why fixation, avoidance, and triangulation matter so deeply.
Because none of them require overt hatred to function.
Only unconscious orientation.
And that is far more common.
And this is precisely where most conversations stop.
At recognition.
At intellectual understanding.
At the moment someone says:
“Wow. I never thought about it like that before.” (can’t you actually hear that)
But awareness without interruption changes very little.
Because supremacy culture is not just ideological.
It is embodied.
Relational.
Somatic.
Behavioral.
Spiritual.
Which means this work cannot live solely at the level of information consumption.
You cannot read your way out of domination patterns you still enact relationally.
You cannot “good person” your way out of conditioning your nervous system still defaults toward under pressure.
And you cannot heal what you are unwilling to sit beside long enough to honestly witness.
That is why I created The Liberation Journey™.
Not as a performative anti-racism course.
Not as shame-based punishment.
Not as a place to memorize the “correct” language.
But as a 9-month relational and somatic container where people willing to do the deeper work can begin confronting the architecture of supremacy culture within:
the body
relationships
parenting
conflict
leadership
community
emotional regulation
power
fragility
avoidance
urgency
projection
and selfhood itself
This is not fast work.
It is not aesthetic work.
It is not work for people seeking proximity to liberation language without relational accountability.
It is work for people willing to practice interruption.
Willing to sit in discomfort long enough to become honest.
Willing to move beyond performance and into embodiment.
If while reading this article you felt something shifting…
tightening…
cracking open…
or confronting you…
that may be the invitation.
The rest of this article — including the deeper analysis of fixation, triangulation, supremacy culture as nervous system conditioning, and what embodied interruption actually looks like in practice — is for paid subscribers.
You can support this work and gain access to the full Liberation Education archive by becoming a subscriber:
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Scholarships are also available because liberation work should remain accessible to people called into it.
For scholarship inquiries:
scholarships@desireebstephens.com
And if you are ready to do this work relationally, somatically, and in community…
I invite you to join The Liberation Journey™. Join Here
Not to become perfect.
But to become accountable to your own becoming.
In solidarity and liberation,
Desireé B. Stephens
Educator | Counselor | Community Builder
Founder, Make Shi(f)t Happen
