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What is white supremacy?
Many white Americans hear that and think white hoods, cross burnings, lynchings, bombings, white nationalism, KKK, explicit & extremist racism.
Black Americans & academics have a different understanding. It's not all obvious & extreme.
Many white Americans hear that and think white hoods, cross burnings, lynchings, bombings, white nationalism, KKK, explicit & extremist racism.
Black Americans & academics have a different understanding. It's not all obvious & extreme.
White supremacy manifests in a lot of ways that fall short of the extremism of the orgs that represent it to white America.
It's in stereotypes of Black ppl as poor, as criminals, as uneducated, as violent, as fatherless, as violent gang members.
It's in stereotypes of Black ppl as poor, as criminals, as uneducated, as violent, as fatherless, as violent gang members.
White supremacy is in stereotypes of doctors, lawyers, politicians, executives, inventors, engineers, scientists, teachers, bankers as white people.
It's in the impulse of white women to cross the street, wait for the next elevator, clutch their purse when Black men are nearby.
It's in the impulse of white women to cross the street, wait for the next elevator, clutch their purse when Black men are nearby.
White supremacy is in the calls to 911 for Black people selling water or lemonade, sitting in cars, working in their yards, fishing, walking down the street, swimming in their apt complex pools, or otherwise just living their lives & being visibly present.
White supremacy is in funding schools with property taxes, so that white neighborhoods, which have higher home prices & property values than otherwise identical black neighborhoods, and white families, who are less likely to live in poor neighborhoods, have better schools.
White supremacy is in Black people getting fewer calls for interviews off resumes with identical qualifications to white candidates.
It's in Black people being paid less in the same jobs, even when they have more experience & are better qualified.
It's in Black people being paid less in the same jobs, even when they have more experience & are better qualified.
White supremacy is in Black men with graduate degrees earning about the same income as white men with high school diplomas.
It's in banks and mortgage lenders charging Black people higher interest than they do white people with identical credit scores for the same type loans.
It's in banks and mortgage lenders charging Black people higher interest than they do white people with identical credit scores for the same type loans.
White supremacy is in high school guidance counselors advising Black students to go to technical school instead of college.
It's in for-profit colleges preying on Black students trying to earn degrees for better jobs.
It's in Black professionals' high rate of imposter syndrome.
It's in for-profit colleges preying on Black students trying to earn degrees for better jobs.
It's in Black professionals' high rate of imposter syndrome.
White supremacy is in white professionals assuming Black colleagues are clerical or other support or facilities staff, or that they got their positions through affirmative action or quotas.
It's in "jokes" that Black women should serve food or drink or clean up after colleagues.
It's in "jokes" that Black women should serve food or drink or clean up after colleagues.
White supremacy is in Black people rarely becoming executives in companies, govt agencies, schools *even when they are the majority of workers*, have experience, meet degree requirements.
It's in failure of executives to mentor Black employees, preferring their own race & sex.
It's in failure of executives to mentor Black employees, preferring their own race & sex.
White supremacy is in industrial facilities being located in Black communities & the resultant greater exposure of Black families to water, ground & air pollution.
It's in white NIMBY efforts resulting in moving planned factories, prisons, pipelines to Black communities.
It's in white NIMBY efforts resulting in moving planned factories, prisons, pipelines to Black communities.
White supremacy is in the targeted destruction of Black communities for the interstate system from its beginning to present day.
It's in the use of eminent domain to extract land from Black families to benefit white developers.
It's in the use of eminent domain to extract land from Black families to benefit white developers.
White supremacy is in the assumption that a Black man driving an expensive car either stole it or bought it with money from criminal activity such as drug dealing.
It's in the assumption that Black women are more likely to shoplift & should be followed by store security.
It's in the assumption that Black women are more likely to shoplift & should be followed by store security.
White supremacy is in the assumption that a Black person with a firearm has it illegally and for criminal purposes, posing an immediate threat, while white people with firearms are assumed to have them legally & present no immediate threat.
White supremacy is in dress codes & appearance standards for schools & workplaces that bar natural Black hairstyles like locs, braids, or afros and that police Black girls and women more strictly than white people.
White supremacy is in the assumptions by police that something in the hand of a Black person--cell phone, sandwich, book--is a firearm and an immediate threat to public safety or police life, and in the refusal by district attorneys & juries to hold police accountable.
White supremacy is in over-policing of Black communities and with algorithms justifying continued over-policing because more arrests happen where there are more police.
It's in police culture in nearly every dept around the US.
It's in police culture in nearly every dept around the US.
White supremacy is in mainstream media choice to report more often & show more photos of Black crime suspects than white ones, to show booking photos for Black ppl & family photos for white ones, to search for criminal history or drug use & use it to justify police violence.
White supremacy is in the assumption that Black ppl who have interactions with police or are killed by them must have done something to justify it & that if they were just polite & compliant they would be safe.
White supremacy is in the assumption that Black people who are financially successful must be in entertainment or sports, or that they benefited from affirmative action, while at the same time holding up the exceptional as the standard all Black ppl should be able to reach.
White supremacy is in the fact that only one Black woman has been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company & the numerous chances mediocre white ppl, especially executive men, are given to prove themselves, while one Black person's failure is taken to reflect on all.
White supremacy is in the portrayal of white ppl, esp rural & working class, as "real Americans", the very white Midwest as "the heartland", the erasure of half of Black America by portraying Southerners as white.
White supremacy is in the portrayal of demands for equity for Black people as "radical", "unAmerican", a threat to "the American way of life".
It's in the stereotype of American soldiers as white despite nearly 1/3 of female soldiers & 1/6 of male soldiers being Black.
It's in the stereotype of American soldiers as white despite nearly 1/3 of female soldiers & 1/6 of male soldiers being Black.
White supremacy is in white ppl co-opting Black culture & icons such as MLK while rejecting much of Dr. King's agenda & current ppl working to dismantle systemic racism.
It's in the finding that 50 years after the Kerner Commission report, little has materially changed.
It's in the finding that 50 years after the Kerner Commission report, little has materially changed.
White supremacy is in medical research excluding Black subjects, doctors believing Black ppl have higher pain tolerance, historically majority-Black jobs being excluded from Social Security & Medicare, Black communities lacking healthcare access & mamas dying from childbirth.
White supremacy is in treating movies, TV shows, books with Black main characters as being for Black audiences, while those with white main characters are treated as being for all audiences.
It's in the entertainment & publishing industries heavily favoring white writers.
It's in the entertainment & publishing industries heavily favoring white writers.
White supremacy is in the myth of meritocracy, the belief that success is the inevitable result of working hard & playing by the rules & a lack of financial success indicates failure by that person or community to put in the effort.
White supremacy is in the ludicrous portrayal of Jesus as white, a man from the modern-day West Bank in the Middle East just north of Africa with hair described in the bible as being "like lamb's wool".
White supremacy is in the belief that racism is a problem for Black people to solve, who neither created nor perpetuated it & that people "play the race card" for attention or victimhood rather than "throwing a race flag" to draw attention to actual racism.
White supremacy is in the assumption that racism is mostly a form of classism & that addressing economic inequities & criminal justice inequities will essentially erase consequences of racism.
White supremacy is in the constant flow of tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while cutting safety net programs & disparaging their recipients with racist dog whistles as Reagan did with "welfare queens" he said were driving Cadillacs to pick up welfare checks.
White supremacy is in concern trolling over whether Black Americans will choose covid vaccination without addressing medical & institutional abuses of Black ppl, historical & current grounds for distrust, or white anti-vax communities.
White supremacy is in politicians' rhetoric about "law & order", "invasions" of immigrants, exploitation of fear of "the other", and voters' support for them.
It's in NIMBY resistance to public transportation, public housing & multifamily housing.
It's in NIMBY resistance to public transportation, public housing & multifamily housing.
White supremacy is in our lack of labor & wage protections for farm laborers (who have the highest suicide rate of all jobs) & domestic workers, jobs held disproportionately by Black ppl & immigrants.
It's in our minimum wage being far below a living wage.
It's in our minimum wage being far below a living wage.
