Letting Go Is How We Divest from Whiteness

Control is not care. It’s performance. And it’s time we stop performing for the white gaze.

In order for me to divest from whiteness,
I had to break my addiction to whiteness.

And in breaking that addiction which you can read more about in my earlier writings I came face to face with one of its most seductive tools: control.

Control was never neutral. It was a survival strategy.
But for me, it was also a form of self-oppression the kind that disguised itself as excellence, responsibility, and even healing.

Holding On as a Performance for the White Gaze

I’ve come to understand that my tight grip on control was deeply tied to my need to be seen, validated, and protected by whiteness. Toni Morrison told us to stop performing for the white gaze, and I knew that intellectually. But in my body, in my nervous system, I was still trying to be good, to be healed, to be acceptable on their terms.

I thought healing had to be done through that same gaze.
Even when working with therapists who hadn’t decolonized their practice who unknowingly used therapy as a tool to reinforce whiteness and control—I found myself feeling more policed than supported. My pain wasn’t pathology. It was a response to systems that were never built for me.