White Supremacy in Business Practices

Revolutionary Suicide

The sociology of white America: A teaching and learning guide

White supremacy shaped both the formation of the South African racial state and the formation of racial groups, including the creation of the Coloured category as mixed and liminal between White and Black. There are, however, debates about the continuing legacy of white supremacy in post-apartheid, contemporary South Africa. This paper joins others in the important task of delineating racial hierarchies within contemporary South African society to help reveal the form of oppression, and the accompanying underlying assumptions and ideologies, such as white supremacy, that allows racial difference and deprivation to remain. In this paper, I analyze semi-structured interview data from 50 “Coloured” adults in order to explore their understanding of white supremacy, the racial hierarchy, and contemporary racism. I find that white supremacy negatively impacts Coloureds’ lived experiences through shaping their experiences of structural and interpersonal discrimination from White South Africans. In addition, Coloured South Africans understand the legacy of white supremacy in shaping contemporary racial hierarchies such that White South Africans “still come out on top.” However, I argue that, at the same time, white supremacy also “colours” or hinders some Coloured respondents’ perceptions of their remaining relative privilege in post-apartheid South Africa. This project contributes by revealing a more complete story about the pervasiveness of contemporary hegemonic, global white supremacy that impacts all aspects of the racial hierarchy, including those mixed or in the middle.

On First Reading Thomas Dixon Jr. in 2021: What Racist Fiction from Reconstruction Can Teach Us About Building Multiracial Democracy Today

OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 356 © 2019 Oregon Historical Society Note from the Editors THE PRIMARY GOAL of this issue is to help readers understand White supremacy — what it means, what it has meant, and how it has presented itself in Oregon history. White supremacy is not just the Klu Klux Klan donning robes or burning crosses, but it can be. It is not just an individual act of racial discrimination, although it can be that, too. White supremacy is a collective set of codes, spoken and unspoken, explicit and implied, that society enforces through its institutions, governments, and legal structures in order to keep those deemed as White on top and every other racial group below them — with specific emphasis, in the United States, on keeping Black people at the bottom. White supremacy is a system by which American society was initially, and continues to be, organized. Social organizing systems are imperceptible . They make a certain way of doing things seem fundamental, thereby normalizing that practice. Historical methodologies that trace change, continuities , turning points, and flash points are important tools that historians use to make sense of historical phenomena that otherwise are difficult to articulate. The authors of the articles and essays in this special issue make use of these methods to understand Oregon's history of White supremacy, its manifestation in everyday life, and the ways people have resisted it. This historical investigation was prompted by current events. On May 26, 2017, a White man verbally attacked two young women, one wearing a hijab, on the light-rail system in Portland, Oregon. Three men intervened, and the attacker killed Ricky Best and Taliesin Namkai-Meche, while severely injuring Micah Fletcher.1 Shortly thereafter, the Oregon Historical Quarterly's (OHQ) Editorial Advisory Board gathered for its semiannual meeting, where board member Dr. Carmen Thompson suggested that, as a scholarly publication housed in the state's historical society, OHQ could offer a complex, contextualized investigation of the history of White supremacy in our state. All agreed that the effort would be worthwhile. The ensuing work engaged dozens of scholars and community leaders and resulted from collaborative decision-making among the journal's editorial staff and guest editors, Thompson and Dr. Darrell Millner. Over a dozen authors drew on lifetimes by Carmen P. Thompson Thompson, Note from the Editors 357 of scholarship and spent over a year writing, revising, and responding to editorial suggestions, fact-checking questions, and layout drafts. This special issue is not neutral on the subject of White supremacy. It does not put blame onto readers who are labeled as "White," but it is meant as a call to self-reflection. Millner, in one of our editorial meetings, put it best when he said: "We are not responsible for the past, but we are responsible for our relationship to the past." We challenge all readers to look both inward and outward at the legacies and vestiges of what racial labeling has meant, and continues to mean, for people who are not White and for those who are. History, as revealed in this issue, demonstrates that White supremacy is subtle. It is historical, it is organic, and it is alive and well in the twenty-first century. In America, being White has long been the standard, the norm, the universal image and framework through which the nation's institutions have been conceptualized. Conversely, those who are not White know and sense that the perspectives of Whites are the standard. In the same way, someone with a disability knows that the world is designed around people with a certain ability, or women know that our society offers greater opportunity for people who are labeled as male, or someone who is not heterosexual knows that heterosexuality is assumed. It is the same way with White skin and supremacy in America. With this in mind, the editors and staff of this special issue of OHQ ask you, as you partake of this scholarship on Oregon's White supremacist history, to keep an open mind. 1. See Jim Ryan, "2 killed in stabbing on MAX train in Northeast Portland as man directs slurs at Muslim women, police say," Oregonian, May 26, 2017, updated...

This article examines the loss of whiteness in Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man (2022), in which the white population of an unspecified Euro-American nation turns non-white. It situates the novel in a tradition of speculative political and cultural discourse that invokes the loss of whiteness to explore demographic change. The Last White Man is a science-fiction enaction of contemporary white supremacist dystopian rhetoric known as the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. White supremacists’ “melancholic” fears of “macrodemographic” changes (Feola, 2021) — that white populations will be outnumbered and oppressed by non-white groups — are accelerated in the novel’s macrodermal changes, in which racial transformation is figured as a pandemic affecting only skin colour. The article reads The Last White Man as a critical whiteness text that employs white racial transformation to reveal whiteness as a constructed identity and challenge white supremacy. Hamid depicts a melancholic relationship with whiteness that at first refuses to abandon white supremacy and clings to nostalgia for white purity, before accepting demographic and individual change. His exclusive focus on white characters scrutinizes melancholic whiteness and provokes his largely white readership to imagine undertaking the process of letting go of whiteness. In overcoming white melancholy, Hamid resists reemergent dystopian white supremacist narratives regarding demographic change. In doing so, his outwardly dystopian novel becomes tentatively utopian, ending with a raceless society. Rather than offering a manual for tackling white supremacist politics today, Hamid’s experiment with genre prioritizes the affective life of white supremacy, imagining new structures of feeling beyond racial hierarchies.

<p>White supremacist ideology is the elephant in the social work classroom, negatively impacting educators’ abilities to facilitate discussion and learning. One of the most effective ways to dismantle and organize against white supremacy is to politicize the seemingly benign moments that occur in the classroom that can create discomfort for students and instructors. Politicization includes identifying and addressing both the racial (micro-) aggressions that occur in the classroom and the processes and institutional policies that create complacency and lull us to sleep. In this conceptual piece, we use a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to understand how white supremacy perpetuates itself in the classroom, with a particular focus on whiteness as property. As well, we explore what it means to decolonize the classroom. Using a vignette based on our teaching experiences, we use these two frameworks to analyze classroom dynamics and interactions, and discuss how implications for social work education include waking from the metaphorical sleep to recognize the pernicious effects of whiteness and white supremacy. Included are practical individual teaching, relational, and systemic suggestions to enact change.</p>

White supremacist ideology is the elephant in the social work classroom, negatively impacting educators’ abilities to facilitate discussion and learning. One of the most effective ways to dismantle and organize against white supremacy is to politicize the seemingly benign moments that occur in the classroom that can create discomfort for students and instructors. Politicization includes identifying and addressing both the racial (micro-) aggressions that occur in the classroom and the processes and institutional policies that create complacency and lull us to sleep. In this conceptual piece, we use a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to understand how white supremacy perpetuates itself in the classroom, with a particular focus on whiteness as property. As well, we explore what it means to decolonize the classroom. Using a vignette based on our teaching experiences, we use these two frameworks to analyze classroom dynamics and interactions, and discuss how implications for social work education include waking from the metaphorical sleep to recognize the pernicious effects of whiteness and white supremacy. Included are practical individual teaching, relational, and systemic suggestions to enact change.

<p>White supremacist ideology is the elephant in the social work classroom, negatively impacting educators’ abilities to facilitate discussion and learning. One of the most effective ways to dismantle and organize against white supremacy is to politicize the seemingly benign moments that occur in the classroom that can create discomfort for students and instructors. Politicization includes identifying and addressing both the racial (micro-) aggressions that occur in the classroom and the processes and institutional policies that create complacency and lull us to sleep. In this conceptual piece, we use a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to understand how white supremacy perpetuates itself in the classroom, with a particular focus on whiteness as property. As well, we explore what it means to decolonize the classroom. Using a vignette based on our teaching experiences, we use these two frameworks to analyze classroom dynamics and interactions, and discuss how implications for social work education include waking from the metaphorical sleep to recognize the pernicious effects of whiteness and white supremacy. Included are practical individual teaching, relational, and systemic suggestions to enact change.</p>

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew W. Hughey, ‘The Janus Face of Whiteness: Toward a Cultural Sociology of White Nationalism and White Antiracism’, Sociology Compass 3/6 (2009): 920–936, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2009.00244.x Author’s introduction Over the past 20 years, the study of white racial identity has received in‐depth, interdisciplinary attention. Under sociological scrutiny, the study of whiteness has traversed quite a few stages: from understandings of whiteness as a category replete with social privileges, as a mere reflection of non‐racial (often class‐based) dynamics, to its most recent turn that emphasizes the contextual and intersectional heterogeneity of whiteness. Because of the increased attention to context and political disputes, the study of whiteness has never been more amenable to cultural analysis than it is today. Hence, an emphasis on different white racial formations that span a political spectrum – from conservative to liberal and racist to antiracist – is now dominant. In this vein, white nationalists and white antiracists represent the distinct polarities of contemporary inquisitions into white racial identity. Motivated by this academic milieu, this guide offers an overview of the major scholarship that address white nationalism & white antiracism, appropriate online materials, and examples from a sample syllabus. Together, these resources aim to assist in understanding the general processes and contexts that produce ‘whiteness’ and imbue it with meaning, the social relationships and practices in which white racial identity identities become embedded, and how whiteness simultaneously possesses material and symbolic privileges alongside diverse and seemingly antagonistic experiences. Author recommends The complexity of whiteness McDermott, Monica and Frank L. Samson 2005. ‘White Racial and Ethnic Identity in the United States.’ Annual Review of Sociology 31 : 245–61. Any contemporary apprentice of the sociological study of white racial identity should read this essay. Monica McDermott and her student Frank Samson combine to provide a robust overview of the literature. They walk the tightrope of balancing both a broad coverage of the literature with the depth that key studies necessitate. In so doing, they put a finger on the key dilemma of studying white racial identity today: ‘Navigating between the long‐term staying power of white privilege and the multifarious manifestations of the experience of whiteness remains the task of the next era of research on white racial and ethnic identity’ (2005: 256). Duster, Troy 2001. ‘The ‘Morphing’ Properties of Whiteness.’ Pp. 113–33 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness , edited by E. B. Rasmussen, E. Klinenberg, I. J. Nexica and M. Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. In this essay – part of a larger volume on whiteness that I also recommend – Duster synthesizes disparate approaches to the study of whiteness. Demonstrating how some scholars understand white racial identity as a contextual and cognitive category (‘fluid’), while some frame whiteness as a structural and fixed category of material privileges (‘frozen’), Duster asks ‘who is right?’ He answers via the metaphor of whiteness‐as‐water. In one moment, whiteness can morph into vapor as a contextual and unstable identity, while the next moment it can instantly transform into a harsh and unyielding form of ice‐like privilege. Duster’s essay is an excellent retort for those who argue that we should move ‘beyond’ race to the utopian realm of color‐blind individualism. Duster demonstrates, although the example of the supposedly egalitarian New Deal, that while race is socially constructed, the legacy of racism remains a historically reproduced and real social fact – denying the existence of race perpetuates racial inequality. Duster closes the chapter with a personal anecdote that grounds the historical example in modern, interactional, and everyday life. Perry, Pamela 2002. Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identities in High School . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Perry gives us two ethnographic studies in one – that of two northern California high schools: one located in a predominantly white, if economically diverse, suburb, the other situated in a multiracial urban community. Perry persistently and systematically probes the complexities of white racial identity in the practices and discourses of the youth attending these high schools. She finds that whites in the predominantly white, suburban high school do not see themselves as a unique race and take their racial identity for granted – they understand distinctly white practices as normative rather than as constitutive of a subjective worldview. In contrast, the whites at the multiracial, urban high school possess a more critical and comparative view of race and their own place in the racial order. In sum, Perry argues that whiteness is a set of complex, contradictory, and multiple subject positions. Wray, Matt. 2006. Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Matt Wray brings the tools of cultural sociology viz‐á‐viz ‘symbolic boundaries’ to the interrogation of the moniker White Trash . Wray problematizes this relatively normalized term to question its origins and how it persists. Drawing upon literary texts, folklore, diaries, medical articles, and social scientific analyses from the early 1700s to the turn of the 20th century, Wray documents the multiple meanings that were projected onto poor rural whites in the United States. Of particular import, Wray demonstrates how white supremacist ideas about class and region became dominant through public health campaigns and eugenic reformations. Impoverished whites found themselves the targets of officials and activists who framed them as ‘filthy’ or “feebleminded,” and thus a threat to the purity and supremacy of the white race. This text is particularly informative for its demonstration of how white supremacist logic was not only focused on racial ‘otherness’ but used the axes of class and location to directly demarcate and attack those seen as ‘white’ yet somehow racially deficient and unworthy. Winant, Howard 2004. ‘Behind Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Contemporary U.S. Racial Politics.’ Pp. 3–16 in Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society , edited by Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, Linda C. Powell and April Burns. New York, NY: Routledge. In applying his now classic approach formulated in concert with Michael Omi ( Racial Formations , 1986), Howard Winant applies the ‘racial projects’ thesis to whites: ‘I think it would be beneficial to attempt to sort out alternative conceptions of whiteness, along with the politics that both flow from and inform these conceptions. … focusing on five key racial projects, which I term, far right, new right, neoconservative, neoliberal, and new abolitionist ’ (2004: 6). Hence, Winant maps a theory of white identity formation onto a bifurcated ‘culture war.’ Labeling this phenomenon ‘racial dualism as politics,’ Winant advances a paradigm in which whiteness is undergoing ‘a profound political crisis.’ Winant’s essay is especially important for those that wish to emphasize the heterogeneity of white racial identity, as he provides Weberian‐like ‘ideal types’ for the comprehension of the racial‐political landscape. Hughey, Matthew W. (forthcoming 2010). ‘Navigating the (Dis)similarities of White Racial Identities: The Conceptual Framework of “Hegemonic Whiteness.”’ Ethnic & Racial Studies. In this work, I build upon many of the aforementioned studies. Like Pamela Perry (2002) I dive into two ethnographic sites, but of much different breed. To interrogate how whiteness might be akin to ‘vapor and ice’ (Duster 2001) and to provide a robust answer to the dilemma of the ‘long‐term staying power of

Zoom-ing in on White Supremacy

College-educated white women across social classes support and uphold racism. Using narrative methods in a secondary analysis, we, as two white women, explored how white non-trans women make meaning of social class using the revised model of multiple dimensions of identity (RMMDI; Abes et al., 2007) as positioned within the context of white supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriarchy (hooks, 1994) and higher education. Findings were framed by white ignorance (Mills, 2007) and whiteness as property (Harris, 1993). We found that white women used class to distance themselves from whiteness and white supremacy in two ways. First, they projected race and class onto elite spaces that they simultaneously desired entry to and distance from. Second, they avoided critical reflection on their racial positioning and identity by constructing a pliable class identity. Both distancing strategies demonstrate "moves to innocence" (Mawhinney, 1998; Tuck & Yang, 2012) away from white complicity, a process that the institutional environment largely facilitated and supported. Such an approach advances understandings of intrapersonal student development by examining how white women use social class to avoid addressing their racial domination and maintain false innocence (Mawhinney, 1998; Tuck & Yang, 2012). We discuss research and practice implications.

White supremacy is a racial order that relies on a presumed “natural” superiority of whiteness and assigns to all groups racialized as non-white biological or cultural characteristics of inferiority. Despite decades of scientific studies refuting these claims, beliefs in racial difference continue to rely on ideas of innate or genetic differences between groups. Scholars now widely agree that race is a social, cultural, and political distinction that was and continues to be forged through relations of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. A focus on white supremacy does not limit scholars to the study of white supremacists, that is, those individuals and groups that outwardly espouse a racial order that privileges whiteness and white people and frequently endorse physical violence to maintain this order. Under white supremacy, societies privilege whiteness even in the absence of explicit laws and sometimes while promoting ideologies of racial inclusion and equality. Contexts of white supremacy feature the consolidation of white power and wealth at the expense of people of color—an arrangement that is maintained through racial capitalism, settler colonialism, anti-blackness, imperial conquest, Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism, and xenophobic or anti-immigrant sentiment. Widespread awareness of linguistic difference can be mobilized to support these pillars of white supremacy through a range of official language policies and overt acts of linguistic suppression, as well as more covert or subtle language practices and ideologies. While the term “white supremacy” has gained broader circulation in the 21st century, these topics have been studied by linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguists for decades under the more familiar headings of “race and language,” “racism and language,” and “raciolinguistics.” This scholarship examines how racial domination is consolidated, maintained, and justified through attention paid to language, but also the ways that marginalized speakers take up a broad range of linguistic practices to challenge assumptions about the superiority of whiteness and emphasize non-white racial pride, community ties, and cultural and linguistic heritage and traditions. Racial and linguistic hierarchies work together to falsely connect whiteness and the use of “standard” (officially sanctioned) language with rationality, intelligence, education, wealth, and higher status. Under these racial logics, speakers of languages associated with non-whiteness are readily linked to danger, criminality, a lack of intelligence or ability, primitivism, and foreignness. Together these ideologies naturalize connections between languages or specific linguistic practices and types of people, producing the conditions under which racialized speakers experience discrimination, marginalization, exclusion, oppression, and violence. At the same time, speakers challenge these power dynamics through linguistic practices that range from codeswitching, bilingualism and multilingualism, and language revitalization efforts, to verbal traditions both old and new, including social media genres. Though racial hierarchy continues to be bolstered by a linguistic hierarchy that assigns higher value to English as well as other European or colonial languages, linguistic variation persists, as speakers proudly embrace linguistic practices that defy the push to assimilate or submit to language loss. Beliefs in the superiority of whiteness have global resonance, but local specificities are important, and a majority of research has thus far been conducted within the context of the United States. Scholars who study language, racial inequality, and oppression continue to weigh in on public policies and debates in an attempt to raise awareness on these issues and advocate for racial and social justice.

Chip Smith, The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism (Fayetteville, NC: Camino Press, 2007), 466 pages, paper $19.95.In The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism, Chip Smith has written a historical treatise on white racism in the United States. He provides a well researched, detailed account of the cause and effect of white privilege in the United States. The book effectively examines the influence of racial privilege on a broad range of social relations from an international to a personal level. It targets progressive white people who are consciously anti-racist and provides insights for individual self-reflection and organizational changeThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Future of Whiteness