Fucking Up Frontline Solidarity:

A White Woman's Stumbling Journey from Audri's Shadow

By: LaRinda Johnson

It was a really fucking hot day and still hot in the evening. This is a weird thing to say since we’ve also been talking about the chilly or frigid temperatures in my area because of the lackeys and lackey impersonators kidnapping children. Oh, and then there is the war. My country and even my county have been funding genocide, not to mention state legislation that is being presented to increase Zionist funding. We bombed Iran the other day, and that fucking guy in the House—the one so white white supremacists see him as a beacon of hope—said, as my friend put it, "No tag backs."

Photo by Connor McManus

The tension in the air is thicker than the humidity. And this isn’t just tension because of war and the economy and all the slashed funding impacting literally everyone at this point. The racial tension is seeping from our pores along with the sweat.

But this racial tension in my community didn’t start with ICE or with Gaza. It started a few hundred years ago when the first slave ships came. It might present a bit differently now, especially being in a northern state, but it’s here. Black men, women, and children are losing their lives to those supposedly sworn to serve and protect. Biweekly city council meetings are filled with Black men, women, children, and advocates pleading, literally pleading with city council members to stop killing their family and community members. Children who should be hanging out with their friends and thinking about their crush and avoiding chores are pleading with the city council to bring justice for their father and to stop murdering their family.

But there we were, in the next county over as community members continue to grieve for their loved ones, protesting a war supporting the genocide of Palestinians an entire ocean and sea away. I saw old friends and new comrades. Most importantly, for this account, I saw my new friends who have welcomed me into their community despite my many flaws. These new friends have been organizing, protesting, and being activists for a long time. They are teaching me, through their words and actions, what community looks like. There are many members in this community, but it is the friendship and love from possibly the strongest Black woman I’ve ever met, who happens to be almost half my age, that baffles me the most. I will refer to her here as Audri.

Let’s rewind a bit because backstory is needed here. I’ve watched Audri from a distance for about five years as she led BLM protests and marched her community into city hall to speak about the injustices and disparities Black folks are experiencing. I watched her speak out and learn and grow, and she inspired me. She inspired me so much that when I discovered my county was investing in Israeli bonds, I gathered my courage to go to a commissioners meeting and speak. I was only one of two people that first day. I went twice more and was the only one who spoke out at those meetings. I started asking people through social media to come and meet me in the square at lunch to break bread and then go to the meeting to speak together.

The first day I called for this, two people came. Someone local that walked there and someone who traveled nearly an hour. I will refer to them as Pax. Pax looks for people like me seeking community. They took me in. Little did I know that Pax and Audri go way back. Well, about five years back, but they’ve experienced a lifetime together filled with tear gas, arrests for speaking their truths, vehicles vandalized and targeted by government officials or workers, high-speed caravan chases, and love. My flailing about shouting for community brought the three of us into the same space, and I fucked that up royally.

I was suffering from what I have started referring to as ‘liberal white lady syndrome,’ which, as it turns out, is an actual documented name for a particular variety of mental illness associated with white supremacy. I was starting to see it at the time of our meeting but had no idea the depth and grip it had on me. This is because it’s not just liberal white lady syndrome; it’s white supremacy. While white supremacy is simply that, there are different strains, and I had the liberal white lady strain. I acknowledged I had privilege. I know I’m supposed to listen to marginalized people. I understand on an intellectual level the systemic injustices and have honestly been wanting to burn it all down, abolish the police and prisons and borders, for years. But I absolutely have a superiority complex that I was projecting onto other white-bodied people. And as much as I hate to admit it, I projected this onto everyone, even Black and Brown folks. While my projection onto other white people is, for me, a bit easier to identify, this projection onto Black and Brown folks is sneakier. Well, it’s sneakier for me; Black and Brown folks see it loud and clear. It comes as microaggressions, centering, white saviorism, and paternalism. There are more ways it manifests, but I am still learning and deconstructing. I’ll be healing from this for the rest of my life.

My new friends didn’t abandon me after I so negligently invited them into an unhealed home where I didn’t even consider that Audri, a Black woman, was not safe there. It didn’t matter that there were no bad intentions and that nothing physically occurred or was said that I think of as unsafe. I found out later that my new friend only came because Pax was there and she trusts them to look out for her. It never occurred to me that anyone would feel unsafe in my home. It never occurred to me that I was a white supremacist. I knew I was the colonizer and that I had racial bias. I had intellectualized this some time ago and knew I needed to deconstruct more. I just had no idea that it’s not just an intellectual thing; that it has been contaminating our nervous systems for generations and flows through us like a toxin that needs strong medicine to eradicate.

I was confronted with my unhealed self. My new friend Audri told me I would have to build trust with her for her to feel safe with me, and for some reason, she is allowing me to be in her life and giving me a chance to build that trust. I am lucky that Pax is a white-bodied person who has been healing for quite some time. They’ve been where I am. They know it feels super gross and super dark, and they are there for me. They’ve introduced me to others who are healing and Black educators who, for some reason, have more hope in people like me than we deserve. And by ‘deserve,’ I just mean that white folks have done Black folks so dirty that it’s hard to comprehend the kindness and grace. But then again, their ancestors, as my travel friend once said, “didn’t eat people” and participated in community without hierarchies. The ‘eat people’ comment made me want to hurl my lunch, but it’s probably true.

I am a determined person, and when I set my mind to something, I go all in. I also love learning and crave knowledge. Deconstructing is heavy on education, so I now have a way to participate in education for the rest of my life. I’ve been working on myself, working on growing community, and working on building trust. And none of these things I can do alone. No one can do these things alone. Isolation is a tool of the oppressor and one of the toxins that allows white supremacy to continue spreading throughout generations into polite versions of itself that are more difficult to see with the naked white eye.

Let’s fast forward through more fuck-ups, hard conversations, lessons, deconstructing shame and guilt, and at times paralyzing fear that tempts me to isolate. I’m working on it, and I think I’m building trust with Audri. It’s hot as fuck in front of a federal building on a busy street corner in Akron, Ohio. We are protesting the bombing of Iran and chanting to free Palestine. The organizers are taking a moment to talk about upcoming protests and encouraging us to come to the next council meeting to speak out on Summit County divesting from Israeli bonds. Audri follows up on one of her five megaphones (protesting pro she is) to encourage protestors to also speak out in these meetings about one of the many Black folks murdered by police, 15-year-old Jazmir Tucker. Jazmir Tucker was shot in the back by police and dehumanized as they continuously shouted at him to put his hands up while he was bleeding out on the ground. The police handcuffed him and did not apply any first aid. Jazmir, this young Black teenager, died there on Thanksgiving night, leaving behind a devastated family and community who loved him very much.

Cue the Zionists. These motherfuckers appear wherever people are speaking out against the genocide in Gaza. I’ve seen them twice now at protests. This time they came in their car with a megaphone and kept going around the block to come back and disrupt again. Each time they came around, it was in the middle of my friend highlighting the injustice of Jazmir’s death and calling for community action. Each time they came around, the protesters engaged with them by shouting, going up to their car, activating megaphone sirens, etc. Each time they cut off my friend. Each time white-bodied people, both pro-genocide and anti-genocide, silenced a Black woman. Each time, well-intentioned white folks ignored a Black woman. Each time the impact was far greater than the intentions. Each time, white folks centered their feelings.

I saw all of this. I felt all of this. I am not sure if I would have experienced this in the way I did today three months ago. My healing journey has been eye-opening. I was saying to my new friends just the day before how I learn about something and then I see it everywhere, just like when you learn a new word and suddenly it’s in everyone’s vocabulary. Audri said that’s just the white supremacy smudge on my lenses being cleaned up a little.

In that moment of disruption, I felt the racial tension that I think many in that space were oblivious to (or chose not to see). I knew this was wrong. I knew something had to be addressed. I know this is where I am being tested. What should I do? How do I speak up but not speak for others? One thing I know for sure is not to cry. I can feel the emotion bubbling up in me. I tell myself, Do not cry; you can do that later. Do not attract any sympathy toward yourself. White woman tears are a tool of the oppressor, and I refuse to be a tool. What have I learned about soothing? I have learned to take deliberate breaths and move my body. I breathe; I shake my arms. The looming tears are driven back in.

I calmly approach an organizer who lives in my community and, in the last week, has been attending emergency meetings my friends have called for community action to combat ICE kidnappings. I express that my friend has been cut off twice and that it is not okay. I say that I know the Zionists were the initial disruptors, and I understand that it was no one’s intention to silence a Black woman. I do not think I said it that succinctly and may have fumbled a bit, but that’s it in a nutshell. Fortunately, he listens. He walks me over to the organizer, who I do think, on some level, noticed what was happening on the impact level. This organizer had asked the crowd not to engage after multiple disruptions so as not to give them power but also contributed to the response of the crowd.

Before I get much of a chance to say anything, Audri and Pax approach. I can feel their frustration. My friend, who was just silenced and who comes from a community constantly silenced, ignored, and misrepresented, calmly expresses her frustration. It’s amazing to watch. She doesn’t hide the fact that she is frustrated, but it’s not the reactionary response I am accustomed to seeing myself and other white-bodied folks project.

As Audri is expressing how she feels to this organizer, a fellow white woman, the defensiveness begins. I am choosing not to give the organizer an alternate name because she represents collective whiteness, and this is not a personal attack on her. This is personal in a way that the organizer represents me and others living in white bodies. That tiny bit of white supremacy I previously mentioned being cleaned from my very dirty lens allowed me to see myself in her. I saw myself responding to my friend with defensiveness rather than pausing to see if she had more to express. I saw myself defending myself and others over and over again. I didn’t like it. It’s a bit of a blur, but I think at one point I asked the organizer to let her finish. I am not sure, at this moment, if I should have said anything since I know my friend is more than capable of standing up for herself. I am still trying to figure out that balance. It’s nuanced and messy. But I can’t be afraid of the mess. Messy is where we learn and heal.

My friends were done. Audri, who was disrespected, said she was leaving but would see them tomorrow at another protest. Pax said something like, “I’m done with these people.” They have watched our friend disrespected so much that I don’t think they have much patience left for it, and I am grateful our friend has Pax to continuously watch her back and express a little more outwardly the frustrations that are felt. I’m new to this friendship. I’m not new to the movement per se, but I am new to being on the front lines. This was a moment where I could test what I think my role might be and add depth to that role.

In a community, we all have different roles. We all have different strengths. I have determined one of my roles is as a networker/connector. I can talk to literally anyone, and I am starting to see the value in that. I think another version of myself that wants so badly to fit in (a symptom of white supremacy, y’all) would have thrown my hands up too and walked off because that’s how I saw someone else support my friend. But there is no one right way, and the value of that tenet is I can use what I have to offer. I also speak, in this instance, as a "leftist white lady." I started looking around for the organizer. I know she was probably feeling that interaction. I spotted her.

The organizer sat down by a retaining wall. I asked if I could sit with her. She said yes. I knew not to jump right in. What I have learned is we need to soothe and talk from a calm place on both ends. She was tense. I said, Let’s breathe. I am pretty sure I was fumbling and probably went about this part in a way that needs refinement and may have fucked it up a bit. I asked if she knew Audri. She said they have spoken a few times. I am not sure if that means she knows any of her history, like my friend leading marches in our town and across the country. So I mentioned that she has been incredibly active in advocating for the community and leading BLM marches back in the early 2020s. I mentioned that her advocacy has made her so recognizable in the community that there are those who deliberately make her life difficult and attempt to silence her. I then tried to lighten the mood a bit because I knew it wasn’t the right time—given that the chanting was still loud and we weren’t at that calm place yet. I knew I needed to stay to the end.

Fortunately, because it was so hot and probably because of the tension, they ended the demonstration early. I wanted to call this organizer in and just give a little feedback that has lovingly been given to me. I do not know this organizer well. We’ve had a few conversations and plan on working together on something we are both passionate about. I wanted to confront and have a conversation from a place of love and compassion. I am her, and she is me. It’s a mirror, y’all. Less than a week ago, Pax called me out in a conversation between Audri, Pax, and me when I began to center myself rather than listen. It’s fresh and will most likely continue to be fresh. And I’m okay with that. I have to be okay with that if I want to build trust and grow and be the safest version of myself that I can be with my new friend Audri. And I must remember that in a white supremacy system, I will never be 100% safe. However, I can use my privilege to be in spaces and have conversations that might contribute to collective healing.

The organizer was up on a ledge of the retaining wall and needed to walk all the way around to get back to the gathering. I met her halfway. I think it scared her just a bit because she was tense. I feel like she thought a lecture was coming. But lectures and arguments aren’t medicine. However, relatability and education are. I don’t have the best memory, but I think it went something like this: So I just asked her if she's heard of impact over intention. She had. So I just said to her that I know that she didn't have bad intentions, but when we get defensive when a Black person is trying to tell us how they feel, it’s not a good impact. It disregards Black voices and silences them. I told her it’s better to just listen and take it and apologize. This has a much better impact. I told her she is a human just like all of us, and life is messy. She actually looked a little relieved and relaxed a bit. I told her I have been called out many times, and Audri is very gracious. I know she is gracious because I’ve fucked up a ton, and she is still my friend. Audri has told me that doing the work means something, and even in our fuck-ups, actively doing the work is what builds trust. We walked back to the gathering, and as I was headed out, I mentioned that a simple apology the next time she sees her will go a very long way.

I am sure I made mistakes tonight. But I know that I did my best to utilize the tools I have learned. I drew from my experiences of being that liberal white lady to relate to rather than talk down, lecture, or argue. I drew from what I have learned from my friend Pax and other anti-racist/pro-humanity educators. I am healing. I handled that much better than I would have three months ago or even a week ago. Next time, I’ll handle it even better because this is what community looks like, and community is how we heal and grow. And in the words of Sansa Stark, ‘I may be a slow learner, but I do learn.’