White Supremacy
White supremacy isn’t the shark — it’s the water.
Material Covered
- READ: “The Theory of Racial Formation”; “Racism, Colonialism, Imperialism”; “The Strange Enigma of Race in Contemporary America”; “‘Southern hospitality’ doesn’t always apply to Black people, as revealed in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery” — optional
- WATCH: “Geographies of Racial Capitalism”
- LISTEN: “‘We the People’ — the three most misunderstood words in US history”
Listen Up
Introduction
Let’s talk about race, white supremacy, and the systems that they are connected with. I want to specifically focus on white supremacy and not racism as “the” social problem as a way of emphasizing how embedded it is in so many things.
Racism is often narrowed to simply racial hate — or interpersonal domains of interaction (racism is seen as a “moral failing”) — while ignoring the way the other domains of power produce and reproduce ideologies, policies, and practices leading to racial inequality and domination.
Ultimately, all forms of power are relations not things. Just as the political and economic system of capitalism is about relations. I want us to think of the relationship of race to power.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore Defines Racism
This definition of racism by Ruth Wilson Gilmore really highlights the systemic nature of racism — that it is the power of the state — and by extension the law — that groups are differentiated (that is constructed) and then subjected to systems and cultures that produce different outcomes depending on what group you are in. Thinking back to the “Five Faces of Oppression” reading, we can think about the ways that different groups — particularly racialized groups — are subject to Exploitation, Marginalization, Powerlessness, Cultural Imperialism, and Violence or the threat of violence.
The Theory of Racial Formation
We read briefly about race as a social construction a couple of weeks ago in “Constructing Differences.” Sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the authors of the article, developed the theory of Racial Formation in 1986 as a way of understanding the way race and ethnicity were socially constructed identities. They suggested that these categories, then, also have an impact on identity formation and larger institutions such as social, economic, and political forces. Race becomes a way of “making people” and defining new categories of difference which lead to the “othering” of groups of people.
While “social construction” is now a widely accepted and applied tool of analysis, Omi and Winant were among the first to thoroughly explain the social construction of race and ethnicity. Most importantly, while definitions of race and ethnicity change over time and place, they show that, in the United States, race is a master category. This means that race “has profoundly shaped, and continues to shape, the history, polity, economic structure, and culture of the United States” (106). You can also see how various groups of people have been granted access into the category of “white” (with inconsistent requirements) to allow them greater political, economic, and social power.
Yet, the authors acknowledge that race itself is also shaped by class, gender, and sexual orientation. For example, when thinking of the most privileged among us (white men), all others are situated against this group — this “links race to gender, and people of color to women” (107). We can also consider the question posed by the author: “What does the presence of mixed people mean for both white and male supremacy?” (108). How can we see that various groups have had to navigate both patriarchy and white supremacy? Much like gender, race is a relational concept which involves representation and material relations which are shaped by power.
Yet, while race can not be defined biologically and it is a “social construction” — the consequences of these racial identities do have very real social consequences. Race, as the authors define, is a “concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies… it is a social and historical process [that] does ideological and political work” (110–111)
Ultimately, race — like gender, sexuality, etc. — is not a “problem” in and of itself. It is constructed as a problem and as a category of difference by which to allocate resources or even human rights. As the authors point out, and as we’ll go over in other materials, race or race consciousness (that is “making up people”; constructing an “other”) becomes a way of justifying colonization, genocide, land theft, enslavement, war, violence… through the use of these technologies of exploitation that are the root of the modern capitalist political economy.
When we consider how the concept of race has changed over time, how can we think sociologically? Who benefits from white supremacy’s ability to adapt? Who and what gets erased?
The Strange Enigma of Race in Contemporary America
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is an Afro Puerto Rican sociologist at Duke University whose work on the structural nature of racism has transformed sociological understandings of race and ethnicity.
Bonilla-Silva outlines the development and consequences of colorblindness in modern society. Many of you have probably heard phrases (especially from white people) such as “I don’t see color” “I see everyone as equal” “We are all one race — the human race”… You may even hear many white people insist that minorities are responsible for the “race problem” — much like gay people are said to be the cause of “homophobia” — people “play the race card” without “taking personal responsibility” for their situations. (Individualizing the problem)
But race is so entrenched in our society. It formed the foundation of this country and shapes its present institutions, politics, and culture. This colorblindness produces a “new racism” which is “subtle, institutional, and apparently nonracial.” As the author says, “Shielded by colorblindness, whites can express resentment toward minorities; criticize their morality, values, and work ethic; and even claim to be the victims of ‘reverse racism’” which creates an “enigma of racism without racists” which helps maintain white privilege by muddying the ways race is still a basis of material rewards and consequences.
Bonilla-Silva also argues that whites and people of color have vastly different understandings of various terms. As I said previously, racism for white people is a moral failing (“I’m not racist!”) while people of color experience racism as it is embedded in institutions (that is they experience it systemically).
Just as the previous authors described, race, while a socially constructed category, still has social implications. Race is formed into a racial structure which Bonilla-Silva defines as “the totality of the social relations and practices that reinforce white privilege.” Again, thinking of this as a relation not a thing. The ruling racial ideology (that is white ideology) becomes “common sense” or “natural” or “unmarked” and justify hierarchy and domination. Despite whites having vastly different experiences given their class, gender, or sexuality, etc., most, in some fashion, “endorse the ideas that justify the racial status quo”
When we are uncritical about our own positionality, our institutions, our culture, etc. (when we don’t use critical thinking and our sociological imagination), we can fall victim to perpetuating or subscribing to portions of white supremacy which keep it in place. This is where we can also challenge our binary ways of thinking in terms of “good” vs. “bad”: how do we, instead as the author suggests, understand the “institutional nature of racial matters and accept that all actors in a racialized society are affected materially (receive benefits or disadvantages) and ideologically by the racial structure? Our goal is to understand this so that we move towards living as anti-racists.
The Iceberg of White Supremacy
We often think of white supremacy in terms of overt violent actions and groups. However, this obscures the more covert and “socially acceptable” forms of white supremacy that saturate every aspect of our society.
Racism, Capitalism, Imperialism
In this article, the author explains the ways white supremacy is upheld and perpetuated by three “pillars”. It is important to remember, as McMaster points out, that racism is not simply an individual moral failing or individual hatred… It is much more complex than that.
If Racism is: “state-sanctioned or extralegal production & exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death”
Then white supremacy is: political, cultural, & economic structure of power consolidation.
Just like the iceberg, it shows up in both overt and covert ways. It’s important to note, as the author states, that we can’t just think of white supremacy as something that is “extraordinary” and is only something that Nazis or KKK members adhere to. White supremacy, as McMasters says, is “an ordinary arrangement of power and privilege that shapes us as much as we shape it” (118).
The pillars that McMasters develops are Empire/Orientalism, Settler Colonialism, and Anti-Blackness — all of which have capitalism and war inherent in them.
Empire/Orientalism
- Constructing East vs West positions “The West” as superior, normal, and rational
- Constructs those in “the East” as simultaneously inferior and a threat
- For example, the racialization of many non-Black people of color such as Asian and Arab people create a perpetual foreignness — that prevents many from being seen as “belonging” in the United States even if they are citizens or despite having been in the U.S. for generations. (“Where are you from?”)
- Model Minority Myths are used to discredit Black and brown people regarding systemic inequality (bootstrap/meritocracy)
- These constructions are used to justify wars abroad — think about how the US talks about needing to “bring democracy” or “civilization” somewhere: these countries are always non-white.
- This creates Islamophobia as well and even impacts US immigration laws
Settler Colonialism
- Logic of replacement
- Displacement is necessary so that settlers can seize land for their own use
- Ongoing genocide
- The existence of Indigenous people creates a threat to the very foundation of the colonial nation-state and must be removed in order for it to continue
- Nationalist mythology
- How does the US talk about itself? Its origins? What gets hidden in these stories?
- Appropriation & mimicry
- The ongoing genocide and erasure or denial of the existence of Indigenous people is also seen through these. Culturally — through symbols, mascots, and other rituals — the US behaves as if there are no Indigenous people still living; they are a relic of the past
- Nuclear family & heteronormativity
- The nuclear family becomes the “basic unit of capitalist social organization” and now most resources that once were provided by the State are the responsibility of the hetero nuclear family
- Expanding on last week’s material on heteronormativity, this is something that was imposed onto Indigenous people by colonists as another method of erasure and domination
- Private ownership of land and natural resources
Anti-Blackness
“Anti-Blackness can be understood as the totality of violence and overdetermination that produces and is produced by the afterlife of slavery; it is a saturating and structuring logic of modernity, rooted in histories and power arrangements of Black enslavement and subjugation.” (123)
- An “afterlife” of slavery — slavery has only been transformed
- Criminalization of Blackness through culture & law
- Objectification & commodification — Blackness is seen as non-human; reduced to an object
- McMasters states: “The demise of anti-Blackness would require nothing less than ‘the end of the world’ and ‘the creation of an entirely new world.’” (124)
Geographies of Racial Capitalism
So as I hope these readings have demonstrated, we live within a system of racial capitalism that is structured by white supremacy. Again, capitalism is a relation not a thing as Ruth Wilson Gilmore states in the video we watched. Capitalism requires inequality because its motive is profit accumulation. And profit is gained by exploiting labor and not giving workers the full value of their labor. Racism has allowed capitalism to create a category of individuals which are seen as property (or constructed as objects) and whose labor and bodies can be exploited for profit.
This leads to increased spending on institutions of social control such as police and prisons or even war and diminishes the spending on systems which support life such as healthcare, housing, and education. Through the Prison Industrial Complex, about which Wilson Gilmore has written extensively, we can see a concentration of surplus people whose labor can be used for free (like modern slavery) and we have a construction of crime in order to continually increase the populations that can be concentrated. Which is evidenced by the explosion of prisons throughout the country.
“We the people”
In his video, Mark Charles asks: When has “we the people” meant “all the people”?
Who got to be a “person” has historically been narrowly defined. A person meant white, male, christian — these categories remain unmarked in our present society. This also becomes the basis of what “civilization” means — this is still used as a motivation for war and imperialism. People who are not white (and specifically not “Western”) can be constructed as uncivilized, undemocratic, infantile.
These narrow definitions of who is a person have long been codified in law and have set years of legal precedent which maintains white supremacy. Not only this but we use this logic to uphold property rights by linking whiteness to value.
Mark Charles states that “white supremacy is a bipartisan value.” Because of these foundations, our choices are “explicit racism” or “implicit racism” (or the part of the iceberg you see vs the part that you don’t). When we see racism as a moral failure instead of a relation to structures and ideologies, we are unable to confront all of these structures (or pillars) that work together to maintain systems of racial hierarchy.
How do we create a common memory when structures and ideologies create such dramatically different life experiences and understandings of race, gender, and class?
