White Supremacy Research Articles

Hidden Heterogeneity: How the White Racial Category Masks Interethnic Health Inequality.

Inequality research has often used non-Hispanic Whites as the reference category in measuring U.S. racial and ethnic health disparities, with less attention paid to diversity among Whites. Immigration patterns over the last several decades have led to greater ethnic heterogeneity among Whites, which could be hidden by the aggregate category. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey (2000-2018), we disaggregate non-Hispanic Whites by nativity status (U.S.- and foreign-born) and foreign-born region of birth (Europe, Former Soviet Union, and the Middle East) to examine diversity in health among adults aged 30+ (n = 290,361). We find that foreign-born Whites do not have a consistent immigrant health advantage over U.S.-born Whites, and the presence of an advantage further varies by birth region. Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) are particularly disadvantaged, reporting worse self-rated health and higher rates of hypertension (high blood pressure) than U.S.-born and European-born Whites. Middle Eastern immigrants also fare worse than U.S.-born Whites but have health outcomes more similar to European immigrants than to immigrants from the FSU. These findings highlight considerable diversity in health among White subgroups that is masked by the aggregate White category. Future research must continue to monitor growing heterogeneity among Whites and consider more carefully their use as an aggregate category for gauging racial inequality.

Black and Latinx hermeneutical resources, hip hop music and white supremacy

Abstract I will argue that the diminishment of hip hop music as a hermeneutical resource for Black and Latinx persons by white supremacy promotes the ubiquity of ignorance of racial injustice in North America. To this end, I will defend what I call the hermeneutical-diminishment thesis. According to this thesis, white supremacy has diminished hip hop as a hermeneutical resource for Black and Latinx persons. To defend this thesis, I will substantiate two sub-theses. The first is the prescriptive-rap sub-thesis. According to this sub-thesis, white supremacy has caused prescriptive rap to predominate the content of hip hop in comparison to descriptive rap. The second sub-thesis is the descriptive-rap sub-thesis. According to this sub-thesis, if (i) hip hop can have prescriptive or descriptive content; (ii) hip hop with prescriptive content is a poorer hermeneutical resource for Black and Latinx people; and (iii) hip hop is dominated by rap music with prescriptive content; then (iv) hip hop is a poorer hermeneutical resource for Black and Latinx people. The defense that I present of the hermeneutical-diminishment thesis will take the following form. If the prescriptive-rap sub-thesis is true and the descriptive-rap sub-thesis is true, then the hermeneutical-diminishment thesis is true. I here show that both sub-theses are true, and therefore the hermeneutical-diminishment thesis is true.

From Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to Justice: Calling in for Collective Learning and Action on Racism in Dietetics.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is the prevailing framework that has informed efforts in dietetics to redress racism. Although EDI has strengths, it has several weaknesses that ultimately hinder progress on racism in the profession. In this paper, we present racial justice as an alternative framework that, we assert, engenders more meaningful, purposive, and politically critical language, analysis, and action to redress racism and White supremacy.

Notes on Abolition in Planning: A Framework for Listening

How can city planners support abolitionist movements? The case for abolition in planning must first confront historic and contemporary white supremacy, colonialism, and racial capitalism. Urban planning often reifies harmful structures targeting black, Indigenous, and people of color communities through affirmation of practices that uphold systems of policing and surveillance. Leaders in abolitionist thought, Kaba and Ritchie, among others, provide a blueprint for practicing planners for whom the incremental is perhaps more doable, but a critical reframe is required to move toward abolition planning. We briefly review emergent dialogues in planning pedagogy and practice on what abolition looks like.

Stories From a Literacy Coach: Developing Pro‐Black Instruction Within a Eurocratic Mandated Curriculum

ABSTRACTThis article describes experiences of a literary coach working with a first‐grade teacher to make Pro‐Black culturally relevant pedagogy foundational to the coaching relationship. Responding to the failure of mandated programs to support Black students' literacy proficiency and the success of culturally relevant pedagogies, they addressed the White dominance of a district‐mandated program by revising lessons in Pro‐Black, culturally relevant ways providing classroom examples and implications for literacy coaches.

Beyond exceptionalism

The idea of Nordic countries as benevolent, egalitarian nations largely innocent of colonialism, is increasingly challenged by researchers. Yet, there is still reluctance within Nordic education systems to properly examine issues of coloniality, race, and white privilege. In this conceptual paper we first draw on research from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to deconstruct the notion of Nordic exceptionalism. We highlight a shared history of colonial complicity and ongoing coloniality towards Indigenous and minoritised groups. We also show that the Nordic emphasis on societal equality is based on a narrative of cohesion, an imagined sameness, that increasingly fails to reflect their diverse populations. This egalitarian ideology results in colour-blindness in society and an unwillingness to acknowledge or confront issues of race, white supremacy, or inequality for fear of disturbing the equilibrium. Using decolonial theory, we then suggest that within education, Nordic exceptionalism has led to a singular historical narrative and attempts to assimilate minoritised groups, in the process valorising Western epistemology. Educators either dismiss, or are ignorant of, what Quijano (2000) terms the colonial matrix of power: the system of Western domination that continues to normalise epistemic violence and devalue other knowledges and perspectives. Educators prefer to protect white sensitivities rather than allow critical discussion and uncomfortable questions of coloniality. We demonstrate that Nordic education needs to decolonise itself, but that this cannot be achieved until it overcomes a discomfort with difference that prevents alternative knowledges and practices from being valued or adopted. We conclude with some thoughts on how to begin this process.

The cruelty is the point: racial gaslighting in teacher education

The inspiration for this paper emerged after a series of online meetings among four teacher educators of Color engaged in a collective memory work (CMW) research project. Initially, our purpose for coming together as a group centered on finding solidarity in a supportive community while also creating a space for theorizing our memories of experiences with institutionalized racism. It was in this space where we explored our experiences individually and collectively. We met together via Zoom 16 times during a 14-month period. During these two-hour meetings we discussed our institutional lives, the difficulties we face, and the broader socio-cultural implications of our work in teacher education. Using a CMW protocol, we wrote personal narratives and shared them with each other. Several unanticipated themes and thoughts involving racial gaslighting, White supremacy, and our place in the academy emerged from our discussions, which we theorize in this paper.

The solidarity bind: narratives on fractures in solidarity and internalised racism in HE

ABSTRACT Research into racism within higher education (HE) has reported how faculty and students of colour linger on the periphery of academia due to exclusionary white supremacist ideologies and practices. However, less attention has been paid to how such ideologies and practices are internalised by faculty and students of colour, resulting in resentment and mutually unrealistic expectations. This paper reports on the findings of a small qualitative study conducted within pre- and post-92 British universities, uncovering the experiences of internalised racism of minoritised academics and students at the intersections of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, immigration trajectories and other social markers. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, my findings reveal the participants’ critical awareness of how their experiences of internalised racism link to sustaining white supremacy in HE. This paper investigates participant views on the fractures in solidarity and the risk of these concerns being manipulated by white institutions to fit dominant narratives. I present the concept of “solidarity bind”, wherein racialised academics and students are expected to foster solidarity with other marginalised academics whilst simultaneously being the target of internalised racism which they are expected to suppress for fear of being labelled “disloyal”. The paper concludes by discussing how challenging it can be to disrupt structures in HE, as racialised academics and students wrestle with solidarity bind and struggle to situate this within the broader movement of coalition building.

‘The Hunger Games’: politics and drought in post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1980–1992

This paper explores the politics of drought and hunger in the immediate post-colonial period in Zimbabwe, 1980–1992. This period was characterised by the state's efforts to consolidate power in the context of the African citizenry's anticipated reform of the colonial system and ensuing white supremacist state. The new African-led state's power consolidation efforts manifested in the Gukurahundi massacre between 1982 and 1987, in which drought became a tool to enforce hunger in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces. There followed a continuation of the politics of patronage and poor administration, which came to characterise the state's drought relief programmes. We explore this political context and deploy a socio-environmental approach to explain the history of drought in the first decade of post-independence Zimbabwe. We begin our analysis in 1980 at the start of political independence, where the political structure of drought response changed, and end in 1992 with the worst drought of the century. Our primary sources are oral history interviews, newspapers, and parliamentary debates. We demonstrate that the post-colonial droughts between 1980 and 1992 were characterised not only by failure at government level but were a conscious manipulation in line with the ruling party's neopatrimonialism stance. Where loyalty could not be bought, it had to be coerced. So the state-forced starvation on drought victims was central to its strong-arm programme of control. Indeed, the failure of the rains could be an excuse when the state needed to claim an alibi for its own failures. In essence, we contend that politics eclipsed policy in fighting drought.

Decolonising social work practice field education: A scoping review

Decolonisation is redressing colonial legacies and reaffirming self-determination. Understandings of decolonisation in social work field education literature were examined using a social justice lens. This scoping review combined systematic database searching with decolonising methods including relational searches. Data synthesis included thematic and deductive analysis to critical frameworks. The 43 studies included were primarily English-speaking and post-2010. Themes emphasised integrating Indigenous knowledge, challenging White dominance, reconstructing spaces, promoting critical reflection, and understanding socio-political contexts. Analysis highlighted the need for ameliorative and transformative change. Cultural and epistemic injustices embedded in social work field education marginalise non-White social work students. If unaddressed, harmful practices will be perpetuated.

HAIRY INDUSTRIES: THE POLITICS OF ADVERTISING HAIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO SOUTH AFRICA ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM

This paper investigates messaging by smaller businesses in the hair and beauty industries in South Africa who use targeted ads to promote products and services to Facebook and Instagram users in South Africa. These ads are currently not considered “political” ads, despite the fact that racialised notions of hair and beauty have played and continue to play a key role in white supremacist discourses in South Africa. Using the Facebook Ad Library, we obtained a purposive sample of ads posted to Meta platforms over a six month period (N=558) by 99 different advertisers whose ads matched the query “hair”. We review image-based adverts in this sample, asking how visual signifiers of gender and ethnicity address potential consumers and represent their hair. Multimodal content analysis was used with the aim of identifying current micro-targeting practices on the platforms. Our analysis of the messaging about hair in the ads found hegemonic racial ideologies and binary gendering in campaigns addressing ethnically differentiated audiences of women in SA. The relative absence of men from the messaging suggested that the burdens and pleasures of hair care and maintenance remain distinctly feminised while the hair industry is actively involved in production of gender. WoC were targeted with messaging which, at best, promoted a new aesthetic or promised to save money or time. At worst, it was promoting harmful products and perpetuating racialised discourses. Built on dataveillance, such micro-targeting may be fuelling feedback loops that further entrench the country’s extreme racialised inequality.

BREADWINNER OR BREADMAKER: CONTRADICTIONS IN TRADWIVES' CREATOR LABOR, RELIGIOUS VERNACULAR, AND AESTHETICS

First emerging around 2015, tradwives represent a nostalgic yearning for a mythic past and white supremacist utopia. Yet, in recent years, tradwife creators have received increased mainstream attention and notoriety for their display of “traditional” gender roles, 1950s aesthetics, and open anti-feminism. This online prominence has led some of them, paradoxically, to emerge as the breadwinner in their family–a development that seems at odds with their professed belief that women should eschew careers in favor of childrearing and homemaking. In this in-progress, mixed-methods project, we aim to understand the tensions between the traditional gender roles tradwives advocate for and the entrepreneurial nature of their online promotion and monetization of said lifestyle. We conducted a computational text analysis of 25 English-language creators’ websites, as well as a qualitative analysis of the creators’ Instagram Story highlights. Our emerging findings show that tradwives’ solution to the tension between their professed ideology and their entrepreneurial activities lies in the obfuscation thereof: Neither housework nor creator labor are discussed as work. Explicit political discussions remain similarly unspoken, except for occasional expressions of opposition to feminism and reproductive rights. Religion, however, features prominently. The obfuscation of labor and absence of explicit politics represents a strategic move towards palatability that allows the current iteration of the tradwife to find greater mainstream appeal than earlier tradwives. Our results suggest that the tradwife is a particular influencer style or vernacular around a coherent ideological theme, thus emerging as a metapolitical branding strategy.

Interview with Ramon Grosfoguel, 30 August 2023

Abstract This commentary takes the form of an interview with Ramon Grosfoguel, who is an internationally renowned Puerto Rican intellectual, and scholar of decoloniality and coloniality. Dr Grosfoguel speaks to the historical context and contemporary manifestations of coloniality, white supremacy, capitalism and cis-gendered-heteronormative patriarchy. He discusses three temporal crises being faced globally and several forms of resistance evident today.

Race, gender and the erasures of gentrification in Ezra Daniels and Ben Passmore’s BTTM FDRS

This article pays attention to gentrification, race and gender in the work of Ezra Daniels and Ben Passmore, as well as the specific forms of ‘erasure’ that connect these themes in their work. The erasure of identity that stems from racial, economic and gender disparity – the processes of marginalization that affect non-white voices and identities through logics of white supremacy and cultural appropriation – have been abiding themes of these artists. Reading Passmore’s and Daniels’s approach to these themes as part of a longer history of black comics activism, their work (like 2019’s BTTM FDRS) can be seen as an example of an ‘intersectional’ urban conscience, one that is mindful of the underrepresented history of black women’s participation in urban struggle (whether in the form of direct action or the production of graphic media), and how this participation is a key nexus in the web that connects race and gender with the problem of gentrification.

Review: The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future, by Robert P. Jones

Review: <i>The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future</i>, by Robert P. Jones

A critical analysis of whiteness at work after a racist incident involving a sorority and fraternity life community

ABSTRACT Attention on sorority and fraternity life (SFL) continues to rise in the United States, as concerns about various issues within SFL organisations—including their openness to diversity—grows. However, little is known about how campus communities experience explicit actions of racism and white supremacy in SFL communities. This case study explored how SFL members furthered or interrupted ideologies of whiteness at a higher education institution following a fraternity member being photographed in blackface. Data from interviews with campus-based professionals and focus groups with SFL members revealed how (a) the context of SFL in the institution reproduced whiteness before and after the event, (b) members of historically white SFL organisations minimized the impact of the event and saw it as isolated to individuals, and (c) senior-level administrators perceived progress whereas practitioners and students described how SFL members resisted change. We then provide implications for practice and research.

African American Language in science education: A translanguaging perspective

AbstractIdeologies of language and race are deeply connected in the United States. Language practices associated with racially marginalized communities, such as African American Language (AAL) or Spanglish, are often heavily stigmatized. Such stigma is not grounded in empirical research on language, but rather in “raciolinguistic ideologies” that reproduce white supremacy and oppression in teacher education and in US classrooms—including science classrooms. Science education need not be this way, however. Translanguaging pedagogies can create space for students to use any and all types of languaging practices to engage in scientific sensemaking. Implementing translanguaging pedagogies to support scientific sensemaking will require science teachers to develop inclusive ideologies of language—not only the knowledge that multiple varieties of language are valid tools for sensemaking, but also the inclination and ability to formatively assess student thinking even when that thinking is not couched in canonical “science language.” In the present manuscript, we explore the relationships among teachers' language ideologies, their racial ideologies, their knowledge of language as an epistemic tool for teaching science, their self‐reported assessment practices, and their actual responses to several different samples of student science writing—including a writing sample that includes an oft‐stigmatized feature of African American Language. We show that teachers with more language‐inclusive ideologies—that is, those who take a translanguaging stance, and thus value the use of AAL in classrooms—appear to be better at formatively assessing and responding to student science writing compared to teachers with more language‐exclusive ideologies. We also show that seemingly race‐neutral ideologies of language are in fact strongly associated with oppressive ideologies of race, and that these language ideologies predict teachers' science formative assessment practices independently of existing measures of pedagogical knowledge. We discuss implications for science teaching, teacher education, and science education research.

ELITE POLITIQUE ET SOUVERAINETE DE LA REPUBLIQUE DEMOCRATIQUE DU CONGO. POUR LA CONQUETE DE LA PAIX DES TERRITOIRES DE FIZI ET UVIRA, SUD-KIVU EN R. D. CONGO

Elite Politics and Sovereignty in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For Lasting Peace in The Fizi and Uvira Territories, South Kivu in D.R. Congo. Respect for the sovereignty of Congo-Kinshasa is an issue that has remained a preoccupation. This has been the case since its birth on July 1, 1885, in the Berlin Conference. This sovereignty has been flouted both internally and externally for 138 years. Intra- and inter-community tensions have taken root in every territory, with Fizi and Uvira being particularly hard hit. There is a real contrast with the euphoria that would have us believe that the post-colonial period would be one of celebration and universal deliverance, of man's rise to the highest degree of his symbolic faculties, etc. Jean Claude Willame describes the dreams of the first Congolese "évolués", auxiliaries of white power, as being about the beautiful cars, mansions, etc., that they would be able to acquire at the moment of independence. Thomas Kanza puts it this way: "We were happy to be ministers ... we used to discuss which offices we would occupy, where we would live, how we would divide up among ourselves. The various regimes since the assassination of the 1st Prime Minister Patrice-Emery Lumumba to Félix Antoine Tshisekedi, have been characterized by the "zombification of power" and the decline of democratic governance.

#BlackLivesMatter:

Through a variety of narrative discourses and forms, Afrofuturism has frequently dissected concrete and figurative traverses that intersect and engage in interaction with one another across the Black Atlantic and beyond. It has redefined, extended, and dislocated white supremacist narratives about time, culture, history, violence, and racism, taking an interesting stance on the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, after the movement Black Lives Matter was born following George Zimmerman's acquittal in Trayvon Martin's shooting murder in 2012. On the same note, Afropessimism is an outlook that focuses on the infinite consequences that the black body confronts as a nonexistent slave, a space and often as a defenseless being prone to ceaseless violence. An exact antithesis of humanity, Afropessimism proclaims that the white dominant society simultaneously forgets and exploits the black and the anti-dictatorial apparatus and discourses. Being the case, even psychological procedures cannot alleviate the sufferings of those nonbeings who exist beyond the boundaries. This article undertakes an Afrofuturist and Afro-pessimistic reading of an American experimental hip-hop band clipping.’s (stylized as clipping.) song “The Deep” (2017) and Rivers Solomon’s novella The Deep (2019) to examine how the narratives of trauma and collective memory work to create a futuristic nexus of emancipation, liberation, and technology. Based on the mythology of Detroit electronic band Drexciya, clipping.’s song "The Deep", a multilayered and evocative sci-fi tale, deals with the underwater descendants of pregnant African women who were cast off slave ships. Based on the song, Solomon has tweaked the outline and turned it into a literary work of the same name, The Deep, which will be examined as a text to further inspect the power relationship. The aim of the article is two-fold. Firstly, underpinning Afrofuturism and Afropessimism lenses, it seeks to explore the texts to portray embedded collective trauma and memory to redefine, re-explain, and reimagine the archived history/ies. Secondly, the article will connect the text to study how every black lives matter.

A Historical Perspective on Political Culture in Contemporary African Politics

Abstract This article offers a historical but critical perspective on the influence of colonisation on political cultures in African states. It seeks to interrogate how colonialism has influenced Africa’s political systems. There is little literature that exists to explain the influence of colonialism on contemporary African politics. As an oppressive system, colonialism was rooted in white dominance, “racial hierarchy”, and exploitation. This led to the setting up of coerced institutionalised colonial systems of government. Notable examples were the British indirect rule system and assimilation by the French. This encounter led to the dismantling of Africa’s precolonial traditional systems of governance and their replacement with oppressive colonial systems. This article argues that colonial structures led to the instituting of, among other things, ethnic fragmentation, one-party states and military takeovers. This underpins “contemporary” discourse as it relates to democratic and non-democratic political cultures in Africa. The main sources used in this study are literature studies, but the article also uses a variety of other sources to investigate political cultures. This includes analysing reports and historiographical and postcolonial theorising. The article makes a unique contribution to colonial, postcolonial and, more so, contemporary discourse on Africa’s political culture. Using the framework of Almond and Verba (1963), the article identifies three classifications of political culture: participant, subject and parochial. Thus, the article not only to applies this theoretical framework as it is but adapting it to the African context. It includes a salient focus on The Gambia’s 2016 presidential elections, which led to the democratic transition from autocracy.