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1) Family history today has been a deep dive into white American Protestant community life, all about Methodism, the Eastern Star, and how could there possibly have been this many ladies’ aid societies. I’m white and this is...a whole lot of white people business to digest 
2) It’s been interesting and at times the stories are charming, but it’s also a clear picture of how white social power has been maintained in America. My family wasn’t just participating, they were community leaders in a system that intentionally oppressed others.
3) They enjoyed participating in their communities, but I know my family and I know they also understood clearly how power works. And that by assuming these roles, they held social power. They owned land. They voted. They legislated. They created/maintained social connections.
4) They were also smart people. Very smart. And they owned, and legislated, and networked for the purpose of maintaining their wealth and social standing. Their activities are conspicuously reported in local newspapers and social columns for the purpose of maintaining status.
5) There were in-groups and out/groups and they knew who was who. They did charity work for those less fortunate, while maintaining social structures which kept others below them. I’m sure some of their intent was genuine. I know some did kind things.
6) But the structure. They maintained it. They were comfortable. Yes, they worked, but so does everyone else. They had the luxury of working to maintain something that was handed to them. Social status. Financial comfort. Whiteness.
7) My ancestor teacher said to me once, it’s not the organization that matters it’s the power. She was a “president of everything” type. Eastern Star. She’s right and wrong. She’s wrong that I don’t need to spend energy questioning the structure - she’s right about the power.
8) To be fair, it was advice on dealing with sexism. And in context I understand this message. Go deeper and get what you need. But as the next generation of all of this female whiteness, I know we can’t “ignore” the structure. It’s killing us and killing everyone else, too.
9) So I’m reading all of these newspaper clips and social intricacies and more than family history, I see work. I don’t know that they would have agreed with me alive. But in death they support me. They push me forward. Even when I tell them to bluntly fuck off 
10) The *really* obvious takeaway for me in this though, is this: These people, *my* people, expended large amounts of energy on this maintenance of these social structures. It was intentional effort focused on maintaining certain social connections. This wasn’t accidental.
11) One more time: This was not an accident. It was intentional. One newspaper clipping at a time. One ascendancy to the presidency of the Eastern Star at a time. One acquisition of land at a time. One vote at a time. White supremacy is intentionally maintained at every level.
12) White supremacy is maintained at every level in routine ways that are so routine they look like little newspaper blurbs about a Sunday drive. It’s in the ways people connect and why. It’s in the fact that they needed the community to know about their connections.
13) I joke all the time about how white people love making records of things. I’ve got reams of paper about my family history. It’s not really funny though because the other thing white people have done is fail to record the existence of others and destroy the records of others.
14) This refusal to create and willingness to destroy the records of others, is also intentional. It is exactly as intentional as making sure the neighbors know how “important” you are. And all of it is insidious and all of it is a meticulous and intentional record of supremacy.
15) So there’s steps here. We created this structure. We maintain this structure. And all the way along, we have recorded it. We felt we were so important that we had to document the entire process — AND not only did we document it but then we manipulate the record.
16) All. Of. This. Is. Intentional.
