Unwrapping the Truth: Navigating Family Dynamics in the Season of Connection
How Courage, Boundaries, and Humanity Can Foster Liberation at Your Holiday Table
Navigating White Family Dynamics: A Holiday Reflection on Courage, Boundaries, and Humanity
The holidays bring us together—but not always in ways that feel easy or harmonious. For many white families, this season comes with unspoken rules, historical silences, and the weight of conformity. Beneath the warmth of shared meals and familiar traditions lies a deep tension: the construct of whiteness that binds families together also demands compliance—or, at its extremes, death. Death of truth. Death of self. Death of connection.
For me, this tension comes with a deep personal history. My favorite person in the world is my Aunt Deidre. Growing up, she was iconic to me—hardworking, fearless, and someone who could brawl with the best of them. She grew up as a first-generation Irish American alongside my mom and their sister, embodying all the stereotypes and truths of that identity. They went to Catholic school, took their sacraments, and followed the expected paths—until they didn’t. My aunt became a teen mom, and my mom broke expectations by choosing a Black partner.
While my mom lived on the Southside of the Bronx surrounded by predominantly Black and Puerto Rican communities, my aunt moved to the Northside, navigating life among the working poor Irish Americans. Both spaces represented my dual ethnic background, yet their experiences couldn’t have been more different. I have vivid memories of not being allowed to play in certain areas “because, you know, Dominicans,” or to hang out with people deemed “white trash.” Bias was equally doled out—red flags I didn’t understand as a child.
Despite these dynamics, my aunt was my favorite person. She was the one who fought for me when I became a ward of the state, the one who welcomed my firstborn, the one who’d talk with me for hours upon hours even after her daughter left for the Air Force. She is, to this day, someone who would do anything for me and my children. And yet, my Aunt Deidre—the one who called police officers "pigs" whilst spitting on them from the front stoop of our building in our youth—is now a “back the blue” Trump supporter.
Does this mean I’m not going home for the holidays? Does this erase a lifetime of connection with her? Does this reduce her multi-dimensional self to a single belief? It does not. To do so would be to fracture a family that I hold so dear. Are there boundaries? Absolutely. Does she know where I stand? Without question. But will we still sing, dance, and love on each other? Hell yes.
And yes, I will speak about anti-Blackness, homophobia, and the systems of oppression that shape our world—but with love and intention. Will that change her perspective? Probably not. But cutting people out of our lives does not build community; it fractures it further.
I want you to ask yourself: Where do all the white people you “cast away” go? I won’t keep you in suspense; Right back to the birth canal of whiteness: the conservative, narrow views shaped by Christian puritanical systems that harm even those within them. Many of her views became narrower as she grew more isolated—through age, location, and lack of community. Do I expect her, in her late 60s, living in a rural part of New York, to stand as the lone dissenting voice? If I do, am I prepared to meet the needs of connection she will lose if she does? The answer lies not in isolation, but in connection.
I’ll never forget a moment during a visit back home. As I sipped my Dunkin’, my aunt turned to me and said, “You know, Desi, anti-whiteness is a thing too.” BRUH. I hadn’t even washed my face yet! I took a deep breath and replied, “Aunt Deidre, I love you, so I need you to hear this.”
I asked her, “Grandma and Grandpa came from Ireland, right? And Grandma spoke Gaelic?” She nodded. “But you don’t speak Gaelic, nor do I or our cousins. Why is that?” She replied, “Because it wasn’t allowed!” I said, “Exactly. That’s forced assimilation to erase the Irish and make us ‘white’ which sounds pretty anti-Irish and Pro white to me” I continued, “Now think about this, your daughter, your nieces, and I all share Irish blood from the same bloodline, each of us born from a sister from the same mother and none of our fathers are Irish, yet I’m the only one not offered my Irishness unless I fight for it. Why is that?” She paused and thought about it before saying, “Because you’re Black.”
Bingo. “But does that make me any less Irish than your daughter?” She agreed that it did not and I was like, “good job, you just recognized racism” In that moment, she named the systems of oppression, and saw the intersections of a shared oppression. Now this isn’t a whole the Irish were slaves to trope. This simply shows that connecting one’s own experience to one's own oppression will aid one in seeing another.
I went on to tell her “that while she sees me as her niece the world sees me as Black first, race is the FIRST identity and all of the weight that comes with that marginalization.” She sat with that for a moment and agreed and then I asked if I can get back to my coffee now since she wasn’t paying me and she has me damn working over coffee. We laughed, carried on, and discussed her summer garden plans. We have since deepened the conversation at other times.
The point is: You can teach and guide from love. You can remain connected with boundaries, even when it’s uncomfortable. That is connection, that is the the path to shared liberation and community building.
The Pillars That Silence Us
How many can have that tense and uncomfortable conversation with love and jest whilst bearing witness to the others’ marginalized identity and still center the most marginalized in the room when you have not experienced it yourself? How do you offer another humanity when you haven’t offered it to yourself?
This tension isn’t accidental—it’s shaped by the very systems that underpin whiteness. Understanding these systems helps us name the barriers that keep us silent, divided, and complicit in upholding harm.
Why is it so hard to hold difficult conversations in white families? Supremacy culture’s 15 pillars provide a chilling roadmap. Here are three that often dominate holiday tables:
Defensiveness: The knee-jerk reaction to protect oneself from discomfort shuts down meaningful dialogue before it begins.
Either/Or Thinking: Complex issues are reduced to oversimplified binaries: loyalty versus betrayal, love versus critique, silence versus chaos.
Right to Comfort: Prioritizing comfort, especially for those upholding oppressive systems, perpetuates harm and leaves no space for growth.
These pillars are reinforced by whiteness itself, a system designed to strip humanity in exchange for power. Within families, this manifests as pressure to comply with traditions, avoid conflict, and maintain the illusion of harmony—even at the cost of individual and collective healing.
These pillars aren’t just abstract concepts—they play out in real-time at our holiday tables, shaping how we interact with those we love. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to look far to find the systems of oppression impacting your family. They’re often right in front of you, woven into the dynamics we rarely name.
Reflective Question: Which of these pillars do you recognize in your family? How do they shape your interactions?
Why This Election Feels Different
There’s a heaviness in the air this season—a feeling many of you may not be able to fully articulate but can deeply sense. For many white-bodied individuals, this election feels different because, for the first time, your body is recognizing the weight and grief of your own oppression.