Running While Laughing: Why Our DNA Remembers—And Yours Does Too
Let’s start with a question.
Why do some Black folks instinctively run when one of us bolts—laughing or not?
Why do we clutch our spirit in tense rooms, scan for exits in unfamiliar spaces, and second-guess joy when it comes too easy?
This isn’t a personality trait. It’s a pattern. It’s legacy. It’s the hum of warning embedded in melanated bones. That laughter-turned-sprint isn’t about play—it's about survival. Our DNA carries trauma.
But if that’s true—and science proves it is—
then what the hell are white Americans carrying?
Because trauma doesn’t just embed in the oppressed. It embeds in the oppressor too.
Let’s talk about that inheritance. Let’s talk about the generational damage they don’t want to claim.
The Myth of Blank-Slate Whiteness
See, white Americans love to act like they just “appeared” here—clean, guiltless, born after the bad stuff, sipping Starbucks and quoting MLK out of context.
But lineage don’t lie.
If your great-great-grandfather was a slave owner, overseer, Confederate, or just complicit—you didn’t skip that inheritance.
You carry the entitlement, the violence, the suppression of truth, and the fractured connection to humanity.
“Whiteness” is not a culture. It’s an invention. A shield created to protect wealth, dominance, and distance from accountability.
Before it was “white,” it was Irish, Scottish, German, French. Ethnic. Tribal. Spiritual. But whiteness stripped that away. Whiteness demanded loyalty to a lie. In exchange for safety, you gave up roots.
You don’t know who you are.
You just know you’re not us.
Epigenetics Doesn’t Play Favorites
The field of epigenetics—where science meets memory—proves that trauma passes down through generations.
Black people pass down trauma from slavery, colonization, lynchings, redlining, and systemic assault.
We inherit cortisol resistance, stress adaptations, PTSD wiring.
And guess what?
You inherit what you dish out.
If my great-great-grandmother was raped and silenced, yours may have been the one who watched it and said nothing—or worse, gave permission.
If my ancestor ran through a field barefoot to freedom, yours sat on a porch pretending they were a “good” slave owner while sipping bourbon.
You think that didn’t alter your nervous system too?
Signs of the Inherited Disease: Modern-Day Symptoms of Unhealed Whiteness
Let’s name some things.
Obsession with law and order = fear of karmic justice
White fragility = spiritual disassociation
Cultural appropriation = spiritual starvation
Performative allyship = inherited guilt avoidance
Policing Black bodies = ancestral dominance addiction
Mass shootings and incel culture = generational emotional detachment
Lack of empathy = centuries of dehumanizing others as economic strategy
This isn’t new. It’s in you.
It’s your grandmother’s denial. Your grandfather’s silence. Your great-great-uncle’s badge and whip.
Y’all don’t get to detach from your ancestors just because the family photo album got uncomfortable.
Spiritual Consequences: You Inherited the Curse Too
You can’t enslave, murder, displace, and erase entire peoples—and walk away whole.
You can’t build your generational wealth on bones and then ask us to “move on.”
There’s a reason white Americans are the most medicated, depressed, unfulfilled demographic on the planet.
Y’all are haunted.
But not by us—
by the pieces of yourselves that you sacrificed for supremacy.
The identity of whiteness demands:
Disconnection from spirit
Denial of wrongdoing
Suppression of guilt
Erasure of origin
Obedience to power structures
And in return, you get…what? Money? A mortgage? Passive privilege?
Congratulations. You sold your soul for an illusion.
We’re Healing. Are You Even Looking?
Black and Indigenous folks are doing the work. We’re unpacking generational wounds, confronting pain, reclaiming ceremony, returning to ancestral wisdom.
But white folks? Most still out here blaming the media, clutching patriotism, or playing devil’s advocate in the comments.
That’s not healing.
That’s hiding.
You want to be a “good one”? Then start asking:
“What did I inherit?”
What behaviors feel normal but are actually echoes of violence?
What makes you panic when someone tells the truth?
Why do you think you are the exception?
The Truth Doesn’t Need You to Like It
Black Americans didn’t ask for generational trauma.
But you didn’t accidentally inherit your privilege either.
If we carry the weight of stolen bodies,
you carry the weight of stolen land, stolen names, stolen power.
And that weight is breaking your humanity.
It’s why white folks can watch a murder on screen and still ask what the victim did wrong.
It’s why y’all center yourselves in every conversation—even the ones that ain’t about you.It’s absolutely maddening.
It’s why the veil is cracking—and you feel it.
Let it break.
No One Escapes Inheritance. Not Even You.
You can’t keep hiding behind “that was so long ago” while still spending the inheritance.
If you benefit from it, you’re connected to it. Period.
So ask yourself:
What do I carry that isn’t mine? And who paid for it?
Because we know what we carry. We name it. We heal it. We rise anyway.
But you?
You’re still pretending your hands are clean—while the whole world can smell the blood.
🔍 Sources for Further Reading:
Call to Action:
If you read this and felt angry, good.
If you read this and felt exposed, even better.
This was never about guilt. It’s about truth.
We are not here to soothe your shame—we are here to reclaim our power.
The healing has already started.
The reckoning is here.
What are you going to do with your inheritance?
