Disciplines:
Until receiving this prompt, I've generally seen capitalism as the core of racism. A few years ago, I learned that the first (and longest running) modern stock exchange is the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, founded in 1602 by the countrymen of my ancestors on my Dad's side. The first stock listed was the Dutch East India Company, allowing the European public to invest directly in colonisation and genocide. Within 70 years, Nederlanders listed stocks inviting investment in the TransAtlantic Trade of Enslaved Africans. This solidified my view that racism is economic. People with a lot of money who are used to an excess of comfort would have to be willing to give it up in order for us to get out of systemic racism without retaliatory / defensive violence.
In response to this prompt, I dove into trying to find facts about what is the first trauma and how it relates to the origins of racism. The Portuguese were the first to transport enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, in 1526. Before that, in 1441 - 1444, the Portuguese captured Africans along the Atlantic coast and enslaved them in Europe. Before that, around 1336 - 1341, the Portuguese trafficked the first Canary Islanders off the northwest coast of Africa for enslavement in Europe. Before that, the Moors invaded, occupied, and ruled Portugal from 711-1294. Before that, before that, before that . . . enslavement and other forms of violence were pervasive in Europe. Europe’s first large-scale war likely began about 5,000 years ago, 1000 years earlier than previously believed.
Around the time of the start of Europe's TransAtlantic Trade of Enslaved Africans, famine struck Portugal in 1302, 1333, and 1344, and plagues hit in 1348, 1361, 1371, and 1381. War seems to have been constant during this time, and apparently nobody with any power thought that food production and healthcare science were better things to fund than war. Rather, in 1349, 1373, and 1375, those hoarding power in Portugal issued laws requiring forced labour and land productivity. Any single one of these events could be the source of a lifetime trauma. Certainly the culmination of these events would not easily produce a positive mindset, or an expectation of peace and safety, or respect for life.
Everyone surviving the colonised world today has multiple traumas to overcome, whether it's from being dehumanised, or from having ancestors who set us up to benefit from white supremacist violence, or from staying silent, or from myriad other forms of violence that are necessary to maintain systemic racism. Members of my generation talk about “surviving capitalism.” The traumas of this economic system grow exponentially as we watch the climate crisis, housing/cost of living crisis, public health crisis, as well as the depression/anxiety crisis worsen.
There is a lot of rational fear about stepping outside of capitalism. In this system, our level of humanity is judged by how much money we have, with a precipitous drop if we're unhoused. Rather than being able to trust public institutions to help us, we're guaranteed to experience police and other state violence if we stumble while trying to survive legislated poverty and deliberate systemic neglect by the state.
This seems like a good spot for a bell hooks quote:
“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.”
This concept can be applied to racism. Dehumanisation of the self precedes the dehumanisation enacted by those who profit from the enslavement of “others,” or choices to perpetrate any systems of oppression. This is why cops, billionaires, and many seasoned politicians often have cold, dead eyes.
We have a monumental challenge, because I think healing from racism is necessary to eliminate it, but eliminating racism is also necessary to heal from it. How can we heal from oppressions and traumas still being inflicted?
For myself, after working 6 or 7 days per week in my 20s, and dealing with multiple abusive employers as well as financial instability, I hit a wall. 2014 - 2018 was a time of unravelling and instability. On the other side of this experience, I don't regularly work more than 20 - 25h per week. I attend to my self care (Audre Lorde's original version, not the co-opted consumerist version) as a core part of my lifestyle. I keep my expenses down; I've never really enjoyed shopping as a hobby (anyway 99% of what we buy is in a landfill within 6 months), and although I'd love to travel more, even better is structuring my life so that it's not something I need to escape.
Once I reduced my participation in capitalism, I had more space in my life and mind to develop a real understanding of what community means and requires. In my own time and space, I started to heal. I started to recognise and address my internalised racism. I started to find deeper ways to connect with abolition and anti-racism work. Disengaging is more complex than I could describe here, but a short version is to say that my current situation is a mix of privilege and uncertainty. I still suffer daily due to capitalism, but I've found more of myself than I could have while working constantly to achieve an art career of status. That frenzied career path wasn't making me happy, not like idleness and the freedom to dream of a better world does.