I Am the Proof: Ending My Need for White Validation

The main goal shouldn’t be to prove to white people racism is real and alive

(Content Warning: Suicide mention)

“I always feel like I need proof,” I told my therapist. “I need to prove everything I’ve been through, or else no one will believe me. And if the no one believes me, then how can I believe myself? How can I not think I’m crazy?”

And my therapist responded, “Savannah, you are the proof.”

I paused and stared at my therapist, who is a young white woman. She is aware of what racism is and its devastating effects. I always feel very comfortable talking about it with her.

I am the proof. That’s one of the most powerful things anyone has ever told me.

Being raised in a white environment, and then not being able to escape white environments during my adulthood, I was repeatedly gaslighted and invalidated to the point where I accepted racially-motivated abuse and then completely denied that it happened.

I’ve seen many BIPOC receive almost nothing but invalidating comments when they open up about their personal experiences with racism. Of course, the majority of the comments come from white people.

“You need to get over it.”

“You’re just too sensitive.”

“Maybe if you were nicer, people would listen to you.”

“Are you sure it was racism?”

“Why is it always about race with you?”

Overtime, comments like these can get to you, and you might begin to question yourself, “Am I too sensitive? Am I just seeing things that are not there?”

And if you were raised in an environment where this is the only type of feedback you received, then you can become completely dependent upon others’ judgments, perceptions, and opinions regarding your own experience. In my case, I was completely dependent on white people.

White people who comment on my articles suggesting I’m not “objective” enough would have loved me during my formative years. I was about as bad as Candace Owens, only without the conservative views. I made white people feel comfortable, but I also did and said some wild things if only to get people’s attention. Thank goodness Twitter didn’t exist while I was growing up.

However, unlike Candace Owens, I grew up. And unlike Candace Owens, I no longer need validation from white people.

Validation is acknowledging and accepting another persons thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It’s understanding their behavior and why they react how they react. To validate someone, you are simply telling them, “I hear you. You matter. You exist.” Human beings need validation from each other at some point in their lives, even the most extreme, rugged individualists.

However, for BIPOC, validation is often very difficult to find.

White supremacy teaches all of us whiteness is the only valid world view. This is why white people are seen as “normal” while everybody else is an “other.” This is why BIPOC are often dismissed and outright ridiculed unless they align themselves with white people’s paradigms. This is why some white people needed to watch a Black man being choked to death by a white officer’s knee before they could even start to realize racism is real and is killing people.

BIPOC live in a world where their existence is repeatedly invalidated. And if you’re in a world where you’re constantly invalidated, then you can begin to doubt your own internal experience — what you see, what you hear, and what you feel. This is what happened to me, and it resulted in me having behavioral issues. I screamed at others, threatened suicide, threw things, and acted out if only to get other people’s attention.

But hey, at least my extreme behavior made some of my tormentors too afraid to interact with me ever again.

This is how I was able to easily understand those that chose to riot during the protests during the summer of 2020 (though it’s important to note peaceful protests far outnumbered the riots). I understood why people wanted to break things, destroy things, and set things on fire. If you have gone decades and centuries without being listened to, you would do anything to get attention. And attention was needed.

I know that whenever I write about my experiences, and I get white people commenting with the same lines I heard while I was growing up (“Maybe if you were nicer…” being the most frequent comment), I sometimes want to go back to screaming and cussing. But I am learning how to validate myself and making sure I validate other BIPOC writers who, like me, only want to be heard.

Self-validation has been a necessary skill for me to adopt as I write about racism, white supremacy, and my own experiences.

There are some topics where I can easily link to research and articles to back up my point. But because I typically write about the emotional and psychological effects of racism, my only sources are usually my memory, my heart, and my mind, along with some links that explain abusive tactics and their effects.

This makes me very vulnerable to attacks, but it’s a risk I take to let other people like me know they’re not alone. I often write what I think I needed to hear when I was younger and when I was dependent upon white people’s judgments.

Whenever I’m writing and I feel my self-doubt starting to creep in, or whenever I get an invalidating comment, I sometimes close my eyes, take a few deep breaths, and chant the words, “I am valid. I am the proof,” over and over again. Another one of my chants is, “I know. I understand. I believe.” That’s usually enough for me to finish my writing and have the strength to just block people rather than try to engage them and try to prove myself to them.

Receiving comments from other BIPOC has been very helpful, too. I’m sometimes shocked by how many BIPOC can relate to my experiences. I try to do the same for other BIPOC writers — let them know I’m listening to them and that I understand them.

It’s also great to receive some validation from allies. White people do have the ability to see what’s going on, and white people who have also been marginalized in other ways can even relate to some of my experiences, albeit on a different level.

But the majority of white people simply choose not to even entertain the possibility that maybe the BIPOC who is saying things they don’t like hearing has a point.

This is why we can’t depend on white people’s ability to see the truth. This is why the main goal shouldn’t be to prove to white people racism is real and alive. They can see it if they would make the choice to open their eyes.

White supremacy doesn’t want BIPOC to exist. In order to uphold white supremacy, BIPOC need to be silenced, dismissed, and stomped out. The ability to validate ourselves and to validate each other is key to defeating it.

Your words, the thoughts in your mind, and the feelings in your heart are proof enough.