“Why Are You So Insistent?”
A Season of Self Reckoning
Here is a comment left on my Facebook, and I want to start with it verbatim because it captures exactly where so many white women are right now:
Why are you so insistent that we use that phrase, though? I’m not Renee Good. That’s her name and it’s sacred to her. It’s western colonizer mindset to use someone’s name like that, folding ourselves into it.
Furthermore, it doesn’t take back from the MAGA idiots, it makes us look like we’re copying them. It does nothing to identify our POSITION in society, as white women. It doesn’t unify is. It’s forced.
I agree with you about why we shouldn’t use “say her name”, but I can’t get in board with this prescribed “I am Renee Good” thing.
I want to start here, not to rebut, but to stay with what this reaction reveals.
Because this isn’t really about a phrase.
It’s about emotional honesty, safety, and attunement — the theme of this month’s Season of Self.
And the collective work we are being asked to practice right now is this:
Resisting urgency and emotional suppression as survival strategies.
That means we do not rush to “fix” the discomfort.
We do not hurry to a conclusion so we can get back to feeling clean.
We don’t shut down what’s arising in the body just because it’s inconvenient.
We stay.
Somatic Principles for This Conversation
Before we go any further, I want to slow the body down, because if you read this with a tight jaw and shallow breath, you’ll only hear threat.
This month’s somatic principles are:
Interoception (listening inward)
Resourcing (establishing safety)
Self-Regulation (staying with what’s felt)
So pause.
Take a breath.
Loosen your jaw.
Drop your shoulders.
Take another breath.
Now ask yourself, without explaining, without defending:
What did that comment protect?
What did it fear?
What did it avoid feeling?
That’s not an accusation.
That’s Season of Self work.
Which means we do not rush to resolve discomfort.
We do not shut down what’s arising.
We stay with it.
And January —Season of Self— is precisely the time to sit with that.
Reading the Comment Through the 15 Pillars of Supremacy Culture
I want to pause here and do something intentional.
Not to argue with the comment.
Not to shame it.
But to read it through the lens of the 15 Pillars of Supremacy Culture, because this is exactly how these patterns show up in real time, especially in moments where proximity to harm feels too close for comfort.
Here is the comment again, in part:
“Why are you so insistent that we use that phrase, though? I’m not Renee Good. That’s her name and it’s sacred to her… It doesn’t identify our POSITION in society, as white women. It doesn’t unify us. It’s forced.”
Let’s slow this down and name what’s being activated, not as an accusation, but as awareness.
1. Individualism
“I’m not Renee Good.”
On the surface, this is a factual statement.
Underneath, it functions as distance-as-safety.
Individualism trains us to believe that if harm happened to her and not me, then I am protected by separation. It keeps the focus on personal identity instead of shared systems.
2. Defensiveness
“Why are you so insistent…?”
This framing arrives armored. It assumes pressure where there was invitation, coercion where there was conversation. Defensiveness often shows up before listening has even finished.
3. Objectivity
“It’s western colonizer mindset…”
The concern about co-opting is valid.
What makes this supremacy culture is how the statement is delivered, as a final moral conclusion rather than an opening for inquiry. Objectivity gets used as a shield that ends dialogue instead of deepening it.
4. Only One Right Way
The subtext becomes: there is a correct form of solidarity, and this isn’t it.
Supremacy culture struggles with complexity. It prefers rules over relationships.
5. Worship of the Written Word
The entire debate becomes about the phrase rather than the embodied work of positionality, accountability, and risk.
Language matters, but supremacy culture loves to trap us at the level of wording while avoiding material truth.
“It makes us look like we’re copying them.”
6. Right to Comfort
This centers optics and reputation —how white women are perceived— over the reality that state violence is expanding.
Comfort gets prioritized over confrontation.
7. Quantity Over Quality
The concern shifts to traction, optics, and public effectiveness rather than relational integrity and truth.
Bigger reach becomes more important than deeper honesty.
8. Perfectionism
If a practice can be critiqued, it must be rejected.
Perfectionism says: If it’s not flawless, it’s harmful—instead of allowing refinement, context, and accountability.
9. Sense of Urgency
There is pressure to resolve the discomfort quickly, to land on the “right” message now, because things feel dire.
Urgency often replaces discernment when fear is driving.
“It doesn’t identify our POSITION in society, as white women.”
10. Power Hoarding
This frames unity around what serves white women’s cohesion first.
Power hoarding shows up when the primary concern is maintaining group comfort and control rather than allowing critique to transform the group.
11. Fear of Open Conflict
Discomfort gets labeled as “forced” instead of as information.
Supremacy culture teaches us that tension equals danger, rather than seeing conflict as necessary data.
12. Paternalism
There is an implied authority over what “will work,” what “should be used,” and what is acceptable.
Paternalism often masquerades as protection.
“I can’t get on board with this prescribed ‘I am Renee Good’ thing.”
13. Either / Or Thinking
The stance becomes: I agree with one boundary, therefore I must reject the next.
Liberation requires both/and thinking:
We don’t co-opt other movements and
We don’t use separation as a shield from accountability.
14. “I’m the Only One”
Personal discomfort becomes the deciding factor.
Supremacy culture centers individual buy-in over collective responsibility.
15. Progress Is Bigger / More
The emphasis on “unifying us” risks flattening difference for mass appeal.
Bigger isn’t always better. Sometimes bigger just means blurrier.
What’s Important to Name
There is truth in the comment:
Lineage matters.
Co-optation is real.
Positionality should be named, not borrowed.
What supremacy culture adds is how those truths are used:
to create distance instead of proximity
to prioritize comfort over honesty
to shut down conversation instead of staying with it
This is why January’s Season of Self matters so much.
Because this month asks us to practice:
Emotional honesty instead of defensiveness
Safety through regulation, not avoidance
Attunement instead of urgency
And the collective work we’re being called into right now is explicitly:
Resisting urgency and emotional suppression as survival strategies.
This breakdown isn’t about being “right.”
It’s about being aware.
Because we cannot dismantle what we refuse to see, especially when it shows up politely, reasonably, and with good intentions.
And this is exactly where deeper solidarity begins.
If you would like to read my thoughts or listen to my belief of why I am Renee Good is the next level of movement work for white women, you can do so here:
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