What is white supremacy culture?
5 min read
This is a term I regularly use in my work, but I have discovered most people don’t actually know what this means. Many folks only hear me calling them white supremacists and shut down or get defensive (I mean, I am, but not because they’re the only white supremacists – because we are all conditioned to be white supremacists).
If this is you – if you are feeling frustrated or angered by the implication that you are a white supremacist – I encourage you to forget your current working definition of “white supremacist.” Erase, erase, erase. Now let’s start over.
But first, I’ve got to tell you my weakness: I’m white and lack the patience to coddle white feelings. I lack patience, in general. I move quickly and get frustrated when people don’t keep up with me. But this is my attempt to slow down and be patient anyway because I firmly believe that it’s my responsibility as a white person not to saddle people of color (POC) with the burden of educating white people. I also think it’s my responsibility to model for other white people ways of thinking and behaviors that work to dismantle white supremacy culture. So here we go…
What is white supremacy culture?
Tema Okun, who first wrote about white supremacy culture in 1999, defines it as
“the widespread ideology baked into the beliefs, values, norms, and standards of our groups (many if not most of them), our communities, our towns, our states, our nation, teaching us both overtly and covertly that whiteness holds value, whiteness is value.”
The objectives of white supremacy culture are to:
Disconnect and divide white people from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
Disconnect and divide BIPOC from each other
Disconnect and divide white people from other white people
Disconnect and divide each and all of us from the earth, the sun, the wind, the water, the stars, the animals that roam(ed) the earth
Disconnect and divide each of us from ourselves and our one-ness as living beings
Before I go into how white supremacy culture shows up in our lives, we must examine where it comes from. So let’s first go back in history and look at the source.
Where did white supremacy culture come from?
Once upon a time, when European settlers started colonizing the Americas, they did not identify as “white.” They identified with the nation they came from and/or their religious roots. Most of their leaders were Christian and male.
These settlers came to create a “new world” but found that they were outnumbered by the Indigenous people whose lives and land they were stealing and outnumbered by the Africans they kidnapped and enslaved to steal their labor.
Feeling threatened by being outnumbered, the ruling class elite persuaded newly arriving immigrants from Europe to set aside their ethnic, national, and religious differences to stand in solidarity with a new identity – ”white.” This was not merely a request; it was a requirement of newly arrived immigrants if they wanted access to all the benefits of this newly formed category of “whiteness” specifically designed to pit them against Indigenous and enslaved peoples.
White was never a race. White supremacy was created and maintained by the power elite to define who is fully human and who is not. It was manufactured to create a hegemonic Christian society based on white supremacy ideology, undermining community solidarity in the process.
What does white supremacy culture look like?
If you’ve chosen to read this article, I’m going to assume that you’re wise enough to know that white supremacy culture didn’t end with slavery or the three-fifths compromise or the right to vote, or any other major progressive event in US history.
But the mistake most people make when they hear “white supremacy culture” is to assume that it just means white people are racist towards Black people. Not so. White supremacy combines or (intersects) with other systems of power to control people, including but not limited to:
Capitalism – teaches us profit is more important than white people while systematically advantaging those who appear white.
Class oppression – teaches us that the wealthy are deserving and the poor are to be blamed, while systematically and disproportionately exploiting the labor of non-whites.
Heterosexism – teaches us that white men are superior to women and other genders.
Gender oppression – teaches us that gender binaries are “normal,” while gender fluidity is threatening, and the degree of threat depends on your race.
Ableism – teaches that disabled bodies are wrong and lesser than able bodies, with white bodies being valued above all others.
Christian hegemony – teaches us that Christians (particularly a kind of white Christian) are divinely capable of shaping and defining reality for the rest of us.
English-language hegemony – teaches us that English should be the “universal spoken language.”
White supremacy culture collaborates with these other systemic oppressions to reinforce ad reproduce each other. And who benefits? The power elite.
Fundamental truths about white supremacy culture to take away
1. It affects all of us, but not equally.
As said by Okun, “we are all swimming in the waters of white supremacy culture. We are all navigating this culture, regardless of our racial identity.” Some of us are encouraged to collude without awareness, and some are shamed because they can never fully join, no matter how hard they try. Some are denied any invitation at all so that they can be exploited and violated.
2. It shapes how we think and act
We are all conditioned from birth by white supremacy culture. We are conditioned to have an implicit bias about race, ethnicity, gender, age, the LGBTQ+ community, and ability. Harvard’s Implicit Association Test can help reveal to you your implicit biases.
Spoiler alert: most people have an implicit bias towards white skin, even many POC.
These biases affect how we think, act, make decisions, and behave. It constantly reminds us that white = right, and there is a “right” kind of white.
Most concepts we consider “normal” are informed by white supremacy culture. Professionalism and academia, for example, are certainly not immune from white supremacy culture.
3. It can be deconstructed and replaced
White supremacy culture is a construct, but anything constructed can be deconstructed and replaced. While it requires bravery, boldness, and creativity to envision a future without white supremacy culture – one that we are all unlikely to live to see – it is indeed possible to replace this oppressive system (and all the oppressive systems collaborating with it).
If you feel shame and guilt, please remember that we all have to unlearn this systemic conditioning. Me too. I am heavily conditioned by white supremacy culture and still unlearning every day. What matters is that we are committed to doing the work – not that we are perfect in our process of unlearning.
Interested in learning more about white supremacy culture?
Read Tema Okun’s article on white supremacy culture
Watch this webinar on white supremacy culture by Tema Okun
Read Layla F. Saad’s book Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
Read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
I hope this helps.