the legacy of domination

Practicing domination creates useful tools for social enforcement.

The prize of control and security, however illusory, has always been a driving factor in human evolution.

Those with access to resources maintain power over others by controlling what’s around them. Community inclusion and access to life-sustaining resources often has a price tag of submission to the dominant norms.

What we are seeing in the U.S. now is a tipping point where submission has truly become unbearable. The illusion of dominance as power is crumbling. People are revolting in solidarity and claiming their power to fight for what’s real and what matters: justice.

For many folks, this is a wake up call, but lots of us have been up and going for a long time. The current events are not new. America was founded on slavery and indigenous genocide. Any progress we make as a country will mean facing this shadow and owning the legacy of domination we have inherited.

Whiteness and privilege are inextricable from dominance.

These forces are potent not primarily from their overt display but because they are biases residing largely in the subconscious mind.

When you refuse to make the subconscious conscious, you remain complacent to its effects on you: a useful tool for maintaining the status quo.

It’s heartening that I am finally seeing conversation around questioning use of master/slave titles, in light of fresh waves of awareness around the cultural legacy of racism and slavery. (In kink contexts as well as others beyond)

Let’s keep that momentum and name the broader problem of systemic violence for what it is: a deeply-held generational allegiance to domination.