“The only thing white people have that black people need, or should want, is power – and no one holds power forever. White people cannot, in the generality, be taken as models of how to live. Rather, the white man is himself in sore need of new standards, which will release him from his confusion and place him once again in fruitful communion with the depths of his own being.” 

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin

My undergraduate studies in philosophy, religion and anthropology, and my related travels in Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize, ignited a lifelong yearning to distill what is universal about the human condition and know –  Aham Brahmasmi – I am that. Among the many things we have in common is problem solving. Humanity arrived at opposable thumbs and tools by solving problems. We exist because ancestors solved enough problems to survive and reproduce. 

Problem solving operates like a background app. Once we learn words, concepts, and strategies, such as “door” and “open,” “hand” and “hot stove,” we apply those lessons learned to subsequent open and hot stove situations. 

The underlying problem solving principles go something like this.

1. There is a problem.
2. Something can be done. 
3. I want something to be done.
4. What exactly is the problem?
5. Ok – Here it is. 
6. I’m ready to fix it. 
7. I will fix it.
8. Anyone impacted?
9. Make it right.
10. Internalize the lesson. 
11. Live the lesson. 
12. Share the lesson.

Applied to the problem of dirty dishes, the underlying problem solving principles are:

1. The dishes are dirty. 
2. The dishes can be cleaned. 
3. I want the dishes to be cleaned. 
4. How dirty are these dishes? 
5. Here’s how dirty! 
6. I need to change this. 
7. I will change this. 
8. Any impacts? 
9. Make it right. 
10. Stay on top of it. 
11. Normalize new behavior and rewards. 
12. Apply generally. 

Applied across millennia by hunter-gatherers, farmers, industrialists, service providers, and information technologists, a group of struggling alcoholics applied this approach specifically to the problem of alcoholism in the 20th century. 

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

If these problem solving principles work for dirty dishes and alcoholism, can they work for rigged advantage, which relies on white supremacy and anti-Blackness?

The Divine Right of Kings in Europe became the Divine Right of Whiteness in Colonial America. Though the colonists would eventually declare independence, their colonized minds merely supplanted “Kingdom” with a plutocratic “Realm of Whiteness.” They were “Christian” elites (not savages) who were primarily propertied Englishmen. They evolved a legal status for Whiteness as an entitlement to dominion over property (including Blackness, a means of production). To rig advantage for plutocracy, Whiteness became king. Subjects of the realm were entitled to divine right, which (in practice) trumps democracy’s rule of law. Since they were endowed by their creator to amass wealth, why give it to the king? They were entitled to it by any means necessary, including revolution and slavery. 

According to Rigged Advantage Theory (Watson, 2023), Whiteness is a category of inclusion constructed in colonial American law to protect and reproduce wealth and power. In a democratic republic, if indentured servants, other whites and slaves actually had inalienable rights including the right to vote, they could potentially amass an alliance sufficient to threaten elite power. To fracture that potential majority, elites used law to redefine and reallocate a significant portion of that potential majority. This newly defined alliance of whiteness produced a coalition of elites with these “new” whites, whom they exploited for strength in numbers. These new lower class whites were exploited (colonized) into “voting” against their own interests for the interests of elites since their whiteness in common would now trump class. 

Rigged Advantage Theory presents whiteness as an inclusion-collusion delusion perpetrated to produce wealth and power for elites across generations. Masquerading as democracy, rigged advantage uses two primary strategies: white supremacy (an ideology of identity), and anti-Blackness (the triggered activities of white supremacy). Exploited whites displace their subjective experience of exploitation using the very white supremacy and anti-Blackness that is used to inculcate them. Displacement suppresses consciousness of the exploitation. Exploited whites are “jumped into the whiteness gang” via white supremacy and anti-Blackness. Displacement of this trauma onto Blackness and “others” secures a high level of extremely bonded social capital, a contract of violence that enables the exploitation to persist and reproduce across generations. For the trickle-down whiteness crumbs from master’s table, these exploited whites must act as dehumanized junkyard dogs to protect their master’s junk. 

Demographics forecast that plutocracy’s minority rule will not last forever. Like cornered prey, minority rule fights to retain plutocracy even if that fight exposes its contempt for democracy. Democracy must defeat plutocracy. Defeat is necessary; but defeat is insufficient. Compare this to alcoholism. Not drinking is necessary, but insufficient. The treatment plan to recover from the substance use disorder of alcoholism (which persists in remission without drinking) must also include learning how to live sober. 

To fix/treat this Rigged Advantage problem, we use the same problem solving principles used for evolving as a species, cleaning dirty dishes or treating alcoholics. 

Part One (Repentance – Truth)

Step 1: We admit our problem: rigged advantage.

Step 2: We believe something can be done.

Step 3: We decide to act.

Step 4: We detail the problem.

Part Two (Atonement – Reconciliation)

Step 5: We present the problem.

Step 6. We resolve to change.

Step 7. We humbly turn toward change.

Step 8. We identify the harm.

Part Three (Redemption – Renewal)

Step 9. We repair the harm.

Step 10. We remain vigilant.

Step 11. We choose reverence.

Step 12. We consecrate liberty free from rigged advantage.

These steps are as old as ancient religious traditions. These steps are so simple that children can understand them. Children know it is wrong to abuse others for selfish benefit. They are usually taught to apologize, fix what they broke, and do better when they know better. 

If we have steps so easy children can understand them, how are we still in this mess?  

Moneyed interests sustain the status quo by any means necessary. We allow ourselves to languish, confused and bamboozled, at our peril. We are trapped in a national disorder so powerful it overrides our capacity to survive. 

To all of White America systemically, but to white American readers specifically, do not be confused: while a remedy for the American descendants of enslaved Africans is overdue, it is for our own redemption that we seek a remedy for wrongs to others. Black Americans do not need us. We need Black Americans in order to work out our own individual repentance, atonement, and redemption, which could amass a national tipping point of truth, reconciliation, and renewal for the USA.

These twelve steps can become the new standards Baldwin called for to: “release the white man from his confusion and place him once again in fruitful communion with the depths of his own being.”

Finally, we can both love the ideal of a United States of America; and, at the same time, reckon with this hard truth: 

Democracy has not failed so much as we have yet to try it.

A United States of America needs a scalable, free, and easily adoptable treatment plan rooted in time-tested problem solving principles.  Twelve Steps for White America: for a United States of America maps our way forward to a sustainable multi-racial democracy where race no longer predicts outcomes.

Watson, W. (2023). Twelve Steps for White America: for a United States of America. Cognella Press. San Diego, CA. 

W, B., & Alcoholics Anonymous. (2019). Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book: The original 1939 edition. Ixia. (p. 59).