Hello Friends,

Once again I would like to congratulate each and every one of you for joining me on this journey of personal and spiritual awakening. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in life is that if you want to change the world, you must start by changing yourself.

When I first took on that objective, I aspired to change myself quickly so that I could get to the “real” work. Today, I understand that fixing myself will be a lifelong process, and I’m content with that.

The first thing I want everyone to do is have grace with themselves. Remember that we are brought into this world without any knowledge, and we must rely on the instruction of our mentors. Our mentors did the same stretching back to the beginning of history. This mechanism is effective, but it also allows cycles of cruelty to endure.

In 2001, I made a deliberate effort to reprogram myself. I recognized that I’d been taught many hostile beliefs that were driving away the people I most cared about. Some people find themselves at rock bottom and they go to therapy. I went to Peru where I immersed myself in a new culture and completely broke down my identity.

From the moment I first stepped off the plane, I found myself in an atmosphere that was much more accepting and tolerant. The people there adopted me like a long lost son, and I felt more loved than at any other point in my life.

I didn’t know it then, but what I was experiencing was a society that hasn’t been corrupted by the toxic ideology of white supremacy.

Today, I feel I have come a long way in my understanding of basic humanity, but it wasn’t always easy. I still remember bringing my daughter home from the hospital with no plan other than to treat her the opposite of the way I was treated.

I often comment that the only way Americans know anything about empathy is by looking at the empty space in their worldview where it’s been deliberately ripped away.

My wife has been a wonderful mentor to me in the process of self-examination. We’ve raised two children together. We’ve nursed each other through difficult times. We’ve grown in our appreciation of our partnership. But even after all these years, I’m still learning new ways to be a better partner, husband, father, and friend.

I want to assure you all that it’s not always easy. There have been many times along the way that I’ve seized onto a contorted worldview like an addict. We have been conditioned to tell ourselves many lies. When you are groomed to believe a structure of lies, you’ll find that it requires a complex network to keep them all standing. Part of our conditioning is a reflex to look away when we’re subjected to a truth that’s too harsh for our conscious minds to recognize.

A little over a year ago, I met Will Fullwood for a discussion about race. Immediately I sensed in him a resource for better understanding some of the abuses I’ve been subjected to which I’d been deceived to interpret as identity.

Will was the first person to give me permission to understand that the toxic ideology of white supremacy harms me as much as it harms the people around me. That was a critical piece of information, because it provided me with a mechanism for having productive conversations with other white people.

A few months ago, during our yearly wrap-up, Will complimented me on my growth. He emphasized that he often felt frustrated when people didn’t listen to him and he was grateful for me just for listening.

As I reflected on this comment, I remembered various times early in our conversations where Will wore an expression that signaled I was not listening to him. He’s a compassionate and kind teacher, but we have been exploring a challenging subject and it’s natural that we’ll make encroachments upon our feelings.

All of this is part of the mechanism of deceit. We’ve been tricked into fusing white supremacy with our sense of identity. That’s why it’s a cancer. That’s how it survives even though it’s the most odious form of evil I can imagine.

In the time between meetings, I often reflected on those moments where I sensed Will felt I wasn’t listening to him. I was deliberate about creating mental models that were based on my own experiences until I could better understand what Will was saying. During our meetings, I’d bring up these models like a student dutifully showing his homework. Will would give me more ideas and we’d move forward.

Today, I have a much better understanding of the structure of deceit that plagues our society. I understand how it’s handed down. I can identify false assumptions about humanity which are common to Americans and serve no purpose other than to justify and protect white supremacy.

It’s important to recognize that even Will, a racialized Black man, admits that his thinking, too, was tainted by the toxic influence of white supremacy. He’s gone on to combat this grooming and indoctrination through having conversations. I have taken up this battle in my writing.

I’ve been battling this all my life. In the early days I resisted without knowing exactly what I was fighting. I went to Peru because I knew there was something wrong with the world and I was willing to venture forth into the unknown rather than continue with intolerable misery.

Today I’m empowered because I understand the enemy. But friends, this enemy, like all forms of evil, is complex and deceptive.

Evil lies to you. It makes you distrust your friends. It makes you reluctant to even see evidence that exposes it.

Again, I want to congratulate everyone who regularly reads my posts. I often engage tough concepts and I say things that encroach upon sensitive areas of the psyche. We don’t like to think of ourselves as “bad.” The truth is we’re not bad, but we’ve been deceived to adopt a worldview that leads to pain.

White supremacy is learned, it can be unlearned. But the first step is recognizing it’s controlling us. We have to recognize it was put there against our will, and we have to work to obliterate it.

Sometimes I’ll have conversations with people and they’ll begin to answer my comments with the phrases and assumptions they’ve been taught to believe. They cling to these phrases because that’s what they were taught by parents, teachers, professors and employers.

That’s the network of deceit. That’s how widespread white supremacy is. I’ll say it again, this toxic hate ideology has been fused with our cultural identity. That means that many of the things we believe were taught to us for no other purpose than to keep white supremacy alive.

Will always asks the question, “When did you decide that was true?”

Often, people find they believe things that they just heard, or were told, or were pressured to assume. But if you examine these assumptions, it’s astonishing how frequently you’ll discover that there’s little evidence to support them.

People say, “Walter, you’re speaking in generalizations.” That’s a convenient rhetorical trick because it implies I’m wrong without ever indicating exactly what I’m wrong about. People do this without thinking whenever the pain of cognitive dissonance tells them we’re venturing into areas of discussion that are uncomfortable for the ego.

Our task is to separate ourselves from the ideology of white supremacy. Let’s keep the good and cut out the bad. But, as with any surgery, this process can be painful.

So again, everyone, I salute you. This process is complex. This process is painful. We are forging a path into new territory. Unfortunately, this is something we must do if we are to become better partners, spouses, friends, and parents.

Once you get started it gets easier, I promise. Once you get to the point where you can assist others, you’ll become a champion laboring for the promise of a better world.

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I’m so happy you’re here, and I’m looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.

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