Is there a difference between being white and being a white supremacist?
I believe there is — but, some white people make the distinction quite blurry, if not altogether nonexistent, which is all kinds of problematic.
Simply stated:
- being white is okay;
- actions asserting white supremacy, on the other hand, are not okay;
- the difference should be clear in everyone’s mind because the lack of clarity is hurting people — people of colour, and white people, too.
So, let’s unpack it, in ~1900 words.
Being white is just fine
When I think about some of the white people who are close to me, it’s utterly clear to me that my blackness is not perceived by them as a threat to them, nor do I perceive their whiteness to be a threat to me. We can spend time together, work together, enjoy a meal, or a round of golf, or a hike or bike ride, or sparkling conversations over wine or coffee that lasts into the wee hours, talking about our pasts, our plans, our lives, our stories, our cultures, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. I’m okay with them, they’re okay with me, it’s all good.
Being white is just fine. Being proud of your heritage, wherever you may be from, is just fine. Read this twice. Believe it. It is okay to be white.
A pivotal pivot
But, with some white people, a curious thing happens when white supremacy is called out — they start defending their whiteness. All too often, this is the first response from some white people when discussing Confederate monuments. While these monuments are being taken down because they are symbols of white supremacy, some white people are defending them as icons of their heritage.
Somehow, to them, calling out white supremacy is an attack on their heritage, their culture, their whiteness. If, if their minds, calling out white supremacy is an attack on being white, then, in their minds, being white and being a white supremacist are essentially the same thing.
Either that, or when that pivot happens, it seems to belie some deep-seated awareness of the degree to which white supremacy is ingrained in our Western society, systems and institutions, and how much it has contributed to a white-centred identity and world view. In other words, too much of what it means to be white was built upon — and still stands firmly upon — a foundation of white supremacy, to the extent that the two are reflexively conflated.
Here’s the problem with white supremacy: it’s relative
My loved ones, friends, and colleagues who know — and act upon — the difference between whiteness and white supremacy, have no problem living and letting live, recognizing that people who do not look like them have the same right to take up space as they do.
Celebrating their own culture is not at the deliberate expense of others’ cultures. They do not derive their sense of self-esteem from perceiving themselves as better than others, because they recognize that their lives and cultures have merit and value that stand alone. And that’s a beautiful thing.
The thing is, “supremacy” is inherently relative. It needs something else beside it that it can perceive — and treat — as inferior. And, in a society that purports and strives (albeit in fits and starts but nevertheless) to consider all people equal under the law, supremacy must keep busy, vigilant — it must actively contest, impede, block, and hinder progress towards equality.
White supremacy is not even about just being white, um , sort of…
Think about the logical mechanics of the following quote (link to source provided) from a KKK leader in North Carolina about the man who killed Heather Heyer, a white woman peacefully protesting against white supremacy, in his own words:
“Moore applauded Fields’ actions and called the suspect a ‘white patriot.’
“Nothing makes us more proud at the KKK than we see white patriots such as James Fields Jr., age 20, taking his car and running over nine communist anti-fascist, killing one [expletive] lover named Heather Heyer,” Moore said in the voicemail. “James Fields hail victory. It’s men like you that have made the great white race strong and will be strong again.”- North Carolina KKK leader: ‘I’m sorta glad’ people got hit, woman died in Charlottesville.
To a white supremacist, a white person who sympathizes with a person of colour is…I’ll go with “an enemy” rather than repeat the vile term he used in his quote above. But, make no mistake, such a person is an enemy to the extent that they are, literally, better off dead, in terms of a white supremacist’s purposes; in fact, to the extent that, in the mind of a white supremacist, killing such an enemy is justified.
To a white supremacist, it’s more important to be a white supremacist than it is to be white. They, too, know very well the difference between being white and being a white supremacist.
White supremacy is enforced with violent action
In the above-quoted white supremacist leader’s own words, “white patriots” make the KKK proudest when they are acting out their white supremacist views violently. In his mind, in the mind of white supremacists, it is these violent acts that make the white race strong and will make the white race strong again. That’s scary.
White supremacists cannot live in equality with others. Notice, I did not write that they can’t live in peace with others; they can, as long as they are in charge and minorities “know their place”.
I’m not making this up. If you think I’m conveniently manipulating and taking the words of one person out of context, consider the following quote (link to source provided) from the man who confessed to killing Emmett Till, in his own words:
Milam: “Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I’m no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers — in their place — I know how to work ’em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain’t gonna vote where I live. If they did, they’d control the government. They ain’t gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he’s tired o’ livin’. I’m likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. ‘Chicago boy,’ I said, ‘I’m tired of ’em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I’m going to make an example of you — just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.’” ( https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/till-killers-confession/)
Whether the KKK leader of today, or the good ol’ boy from the South 65 years ago, the sentiments are identical, expressing a common identity, a shared ideology, a singular belief system.
No, this mentality is not isolated to a few murderous individuals in some remote backwater town. When oppressed people stand up for themselves and claim equal rights under the laws of the land, or just mind their own business while going about their business, white supremacists proactively organize pre-meditated backlash that is, all too often, brutal and deadly. Examples abound, here are just a few:
- sharecropper lynchings
- Jack Johnson riot
- Tulsa black Wall Street destruction
- When white supremacists overthrew a government (video covering the 1898 insurrection in Wilmington, NC)
- Confederate monument erections…and for some added context, see my notes. If you have Evernote, use My new take on the term “whitelash”, part 1 — if you do not have Evernote, use this link). The evidence is clear that these monuments were erected to assert white supremacy.
White supremacy hurts white people, too
This bears repeating — white supremacy doesn’t just hurt people who are not white. White supremacy hurts white people, too. In many ways.
The murder of Heather Heyer, as mentioned above, was just the most recent, and well-known example, that white supremacists have no qualms about putting a white person who sympathizes with people of colour in their crosshairs.
In addition to these visible, outward acts of violence, white supremacy hurts white people internally, because white supremacy belittles their own dignity. By making their self-worth inversely proportional to their perceived lack of worth of others, they fail to just accept the intrinsic, inalienable dignity of their very own being. If all lives truly matter, then there’d be no need to denigrate others to feel good about one’s self — they could just accept that their lives matter, and that other lives’ mattering does not take away from the value of their lives.
But, as it is, white supremacists demonstrate, in their need to oppress others, that they don’t see value within themselves that can stand on its own merit.
That is sad.
And dangerous.
Supremacists and activists both see the difference
Think, again, about that KKK leader’s seething hate for Heather Heyer, a white woman. He is a white supremacist, and that trumps being white; Heather Heyer, on the other hand, was white, but she was not a white supremacist, and her whiteness did not save her, because her whiteness wasn’t good enough. Neither of them identified with the other. They were both very clear about their positions on this difference, and they were living out their expression of that difference.
There ought to be a clear distinction between these two opposing views in the minds of all people, because there is a distinct difference in reality, and having this clarity puts is in closer touch with reality.
So, as I wrote at the top, I believe there is a difference. And I believe lots of people see the difference and live out that difference, in good and not so good ways.
How about you? Do you see the difference? If so, how are you living out that difference?
A brief comment on audience groups
My intended audience will fall into one of three groups: white people who will
- dismiss it wholesale;
- find that it resonates with what they already believe;
- fall into yet a third group, which may be the most important group of all, and the group I’m addressing specifically by writing this.
Those in the first group won’t be persuaded one iota by this article. To them, I thank them for at least reading it at all. We’ve got to be able to venture outside our own echo chambers and engage civil discourse across viewpoints, so I certainly neither want nor expect that the only people who read this were in agreement with me in the first place. At any rate, I hope some of these people will reconsider it.
Those in the second group are already like-minded, which is groovy. If anything, writing may have provided another approach for them to use in their travels and conversations.
The third group is somewhere in the middle — white people who may indeed not be actively, deliberately, outwardly racist, but have no particular sense of urgency that white supremacy is a threat; or feel that equality and justice are available to all people in our society in equal measure, or basically just aren’t clear on the difference, and hadn’t ever been particularly deliberate about taking a stand against racism and bigotry, starting with the uncomfortable exercise of exploring their own unconscious bias.
Social progress needs more of these people to align with humane ideals that actively contest the foundations of institutionalized inequality, and I hope this piece helps some of them gain sufficient clarity to take a decided stand against white supremacy, even if by just expanding the conversation in their circles.
Please share this — to whatever degree you may agree or disagree, it could add to and perhaps better inform the wider conversation, with your help.
Thanks. One love, y’all.
See follow-up conversations:
Four Problems with White Supremacy
What Was the American Civil War About?
Key Themes Across the Massacres
