You Are Reneé Good

When the Trap of Whiteness Springs Shut

“What is it you wanted me to reconcile myself to? I was born here almost 60 years ago, I’m not gonna live another 60 years. You always told me it takes time. It’s taken my father’s time, my mother’s time. My uncle’s time. My brother’s and my sister’s time. My nieces’ and my nephews’ time. How much time do you want? For your progress.”

― James Baldwin

Sometimes, I wonder how those words resonated inside of the ears of their intended audience. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was President. Crack was ravaging the Black community. The beginning acts of mass incarceration were being implemented. All around him, Baldwin saw the functional mechanics of segregation being reinvented. And, true to their brand, the white people of this latest generation were acting brand new to what they had been psychologically swimming in all of their lives.

Photo by Atelier Kommpass

I ask: Do those who hear Baldwin talking to them know he is speaking as if they are oppressors, instead of human beings equal to him? Mind you, his audience, primarily, is during segregation, when a racial divide is actively being enforced. How is it possible for segregationists to not believe that people being treated as second-class citizens would eventually view white people as oppressors? Does that make sense? Yet, that is what was demanded of Baldwin, Dr. King and a host of other Black people. The white residents of heavily segregated towns affirmed the fact that they were clueless about racism and never saw it happen around them.

The reason white people under segregation did not know oppression was happening was because it was flowing off their hands.

Under this second Trump Administration, if you live in a white body, are you, too, having a difficult time accepting the idea that your behavior can be interpreted as oppressive?

What is whiteness? For millions of European Americans this is a completely unexplored topic. It is a taboo subject.

Inside workshop environments, many reveal a race-less childhood. Whenever the subject came up, due to national racial moments, it was minimized and dismissed as a potent factor in one’s life. The message was clear. For white bodies, race does not exist.

Unless, when in contrast to Black reaction to whiteness.

Yes, Black reaction.

“How much more time do you want for your progress?”

Progress. From what I can observe, white bodies associate civilization with technology. The proof of success is a life of luxury. In the white mind, equailty is happening because Black people are able to live in luxury, just like them.

Black people access technology - daily. Some use social media to provide racialized education outside the taboo enforced in white spaces. Exposure to the content causes a psychic distortion.

I agree that when it comes to race, the average European Americans (personality) does not receive an explicit handbook providing them details concerning their membership inside the oppressor caste. Many are stunned to learn their white skin afforded them any privileges. Suffering is universal to the hman experience. White people are bad to white people, just like white people are bad to Black, Brown and Indigenous people.

Such lateral trauma became a national racial on Wednesday, January 7, 2026 when an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross murdered a white woman and citizen named Renee Nicole Good.

How and why both became household name will be studied for generations. If we are lucky, so will the after math.

Question(s):

Do you live in a white body?

Are you confused, meaning feeling a lot of big emotions around how obsessed public opinion is about race right now?

Are you finding it hard to defend yourself as a good person amidst all this emotion, and chatter?

Does it feel like society is being manipulated to be mean to you because you are white and not because you did something wrong?

Are you scared ICE is going to treat you like Ms. Good?

Do you feel like you can protect yourself from white supremacy if it comes knocking on your door?

Please choose to email me at royalstar@gmail.com. Why? Upcoming class on Dr. King Holiday, January 19, 2026. 2 pm - 4 pm, EST.