RACE VERSUS ETHNICITY
The construct of race is often erroneously confused with another social construct: ethnicity. Ethnicity can be defined as a group of people who identify with one another based on common ancestral, social, cultural, or national experiences. Ethnicities based on ancestral or cultural experiences include Latinx, Hispanic*, and Jewish; ethnicities based on national and cultural experiences include African American.
Ethnicity is not the same as race and using them interchangeably glosses over important nuances. Latinx and Hispanic ethnicities each comprise a vast range of races—like Indigenous Latinx or Afro-Latinx—so using them to describe one race is inaccurate. If you are white and Hispanic, you’re still white (not white-passing). Confusing ethnicity with the construct of race creates the false belief that white people who belong to marginalized ethnicities cannot be racist, especially to others within their ethnic group. A 2019 Pew report found dark-skinned Hispanics viewed as non-white face more discrimination than Hispanics viewed as white (64 percent versus 50 percent).4 When we talk about ethnicities we need to be more specific as to whom we’re actually talking about, because these groups are not a monolith and treating them as such only furthers and serves white supremacy.
Before some of you pop off, this does not take away from the fact that Latinx, Hispanic, Jewish, and other ethnic communities are, as a whole, oppressed in serious historical, global, and systemic ways. They absolutely are and that oppression needs to be condemned. Immediately. But ethnic-based oppression is not founded on race, and attempting to conflate the two erases the very real experiences of those living at the intersection of both racial and ethnic discrimination (like Afro-Indigenous folx). Racism is a very specific form of oppression. We cannot undo these systems of oppression without getting clear about the specific and complex ways in which they operate, both within and outside our various social groupings. Still with me? Good, let’s continue.
WHITE SUPREMACY SPELLED OUT
Racism is a pervasive global system of white supremacy, but they are not one and the same. White supremacy is the common, status quo, globally held, and often unconscious belief that white people, and thus white ideas, beliefs, actions, and ideologies, are in some way superior to non-whites. It is the conscious and unconscious collective, institutional, and systemic belief that white people are and deserve better than other races, are rightfully entitled to hold the global majority of power, privilege, and all the benefits that go with them, and earned such power and privilege in a manner that did not take advantage, abuse, and oppress BI&PoC in order to do so. White supremacy is present in all facets of our daily lives. It shows its ass in science, health care, education, housing, justice (or a lack thereof), politics, government, the military, social welfare, banking, religion, nonprofits, and every single institution or system you can think of. Anyone of any race can perpetuate white supremacy, but in the end, only white or white-passing people benefit. All white people. Whether they intend to or not. Whether they’re rich or poor, Jewish or Christian, straight or queer, cis or trans. Denying this fact is simply perpetuating further oppression and leading to more violence inflicted on BI&PoC. Now, let me be clear: I’m not saying all white people are bad or evil. What I am saying is that all white people belong to whiteness and perpetuate a system of white supremacy that has and continues to harm BI&PoC, especially Black and Indigenous women+, day in and day out. Often without intention. White supremacy is the normal state of being and it needs to stop. Like, now. All white people are responsible for the system of whiteness and its inherent white supremacy, and nothing is going to change until white people own and acknowledge their role and commit to dismantling the brutish systems they have created. Periodt. And BI&PoC need to make our own commitments and hold ourselves and one another accountable. For example, white supremacy shows up for me when I assume someone who is talking about a lawyer or doctor is talking about a white person, when I succumb to writing for the white gaze or otherwise prioritize the comfort of white people to the detriment of my own.
There are many ways white supremacy plays out, ranging from normalization to genocide, but its “softest” form is, according to the Equality Institute, indifference.5 Let’s go back to my getaway during the Charlottesville protests for a hot second: my white friends did not seek to know or much care about the brutal race-based assaults that had taken place that weekend. Indifference is like nourishing water to the grand oak tree of white supremacy. As set out in the Pyramid of White Supremacy on the previous page, indifference to racism leads to its minimization, minimization leads to veiled racism, veiled racism to discrimination, which morphs into calls for violence and ultimately mass murder.6
Fig 1—The Pyramid of White Supremacy by Scarlett Thorby-Lister, visual designer at the Equality Institute (as adapted from the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence)
Racist violence and genocide grow not from the manure spewed by a few egocentric villains, but rather from the tiny seeds planted day in and day out by and through the indifference of everyday global citizens. You get to decide what kind of citizen you will be.
WTF IS WHITENESS?
Whiteness and what it means to be white often go entirely undiscussed. The focus of discussions of white supremacy is almost always solely framed around BI&PoC, which is another way white supremacy works (she sneaky)! It makes whiteness neutral, standard, and invisible. As though there aren’t qualities or characteristics attributable to whiteness. But of course, there are. Whiteness can be described as an ideology rooted in belonging to a socially constructed “race” of humxns possessing the most power and privilege of any other race and believing in that race’s superiority. It is the state of both being white (or white-passing) and perpetuating white supremacy.
Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being considered white. I say shifting because who qualifies as “white” is not fixed. White-passing multiracial folx may receive all the benefits of white privilege in some or all spaces whether they wish to or not, or may even identify as white. Irish and Italians were once excluded from the category but very much qualify today. Sometimes racially white Jews are considered white and sometimes not (def not to those rockin’ white cloaks). Under the U.S. Census, South Asians were classified as “white” for one year in 1970,7 and all North Africans are still classified as “white” today.8 This all speaks to the socially constructed nature of whiteness, which is at its core rooted in anti-Blackness and defined by being everything Blackness is not. The construct of what is deemed white was simultaneously created through white slave traders’ construction of what is Black. The practical reality is that “whiteness” is a fallacy just as “Blackness” is—each encompasses a broad range of folx from diverse places, cultures, languages, ethnicities, and nationalities. Whiteness requires white people to forgo their diverse cultures, traditions, and ancestry in order to belong to and benefit from it. Elements of whiteness include:
perception of normalcy and inherent belonging—all others are foreign and exotic
invisibility and unconsciousness—white people are generally unaware of their whiteness
an imagined monolithic “white” race and culture
perception of neutrality, which requires no contemplation or explanation of ethnicity or family origin
definition by negation and the relational—whiteness is what Blackness and Indigeneity are not (i.e., savage, criminal, dumb, ugly, lazy, etc.).
appropriation and domination of BI&PoC cultures and identities9
Being white means you belong to the system of whiteness and white supremacy like bread to whiteness’s butter, but that doesn’t mean all white peeps are pricks. As comedian and activist Amanda Seales shares, there are “white people” and then there are “people who happen to be white.”10 What’s the diff? People who happen to be white understand that they benefit fro
m and perpetuate white supremacy simply by virtue of being white. They appreciate the power and privilege that white supremacy has granted them, and they not only own and acknowledge that privilege but actively work to shift the power imbalance and create opportunities for oppressed folx every damn day. They are aware of their whiteness but actively negate it and the construct that belies it.
Then there are “white people,” which is, unfortunately, the majority of white folx—and they be trippin’. They wander through life unaware of their whiteness and the ways in which they benefit from and perpetuate white supremacy on the daily, resulting in chronic acts of unintentional violence toward BI&PoC. But here’s the thing: in this day and age, not knowing is often an intentional act. We live in a world where access to information is easier than ever. Google processes more than forty thousand searches every second (let alone other search engines)!11 BI&PoC have been making the same arguments for centuries. Nothing that I am saying, nothing that any modern racial justice activist is saying, is new. So y’all should have been knowing. A long-ass time ago. But your privilege-cloaked whiteness protected you from bringing this information into your consciousness. From needing to know.
As a matter of survival, BI&PoC have had no choice but to study, understand, and, to the extent possible, adhere to the ideology of whiteness. For this reason we understand it better than white people ever could themselves. In studying white supremacy for our own welfare, we have had to absorb its toxicity. In the words of James Baldwin, “I have spent most of my life… watching white people and outwitting them, so that I might survive.”12
WHITE SUPREMACIST CULTURE*
One of my oldest memories from my predominantly white law school, with my all-white professors, was my first day in first-year property law. I remember my blond-haired, blue-eyed professor explaining that the majority of land in Canada was owned by the government, making the Canadian government one of the largest landowners in the world, entirely disregarding that the land was stolen from Indigenous people. I surveyed my classroom in disbelief, like, are we all just gonna pretend land fell from the sky into the laps of some lucky white guys? Oh, we are. Okay, cool.
When I showed up to my first criminal law class it was more of the same. I learned about the standard of the “reasonable person.” Again, I looked around the room at my white professor and mostly white classmates like, for. Fucking. Real?! Who is this “reasonable person,” though? Do they look like me? Are they navigating a world that is constantly using legal, social, and political willpower to stamp them out? Nah, didn’t think so. The rest of my law school experience was precisely like this. Shocked and appalled at the extent to which the white-washing of the world was legally enshrined.
I was still naive back then, but all of this is precisely how white supremacy works.
In addition to being an ideology to which the majority of the world subscribes, consciously or not, white supremacy is also a culture. It is an ethos of values and characteristics that helps to perpetuate a paradigm of race-based and other oppressions. As Tema Okun outlines, white supremacist cultural characteristics include:
individualism and perfectionism
belief in objectivity
power hoarding
either/or thinking (right versus wrong)
worship of the written word
defensiveness
paternalism and urgency
quantity over quality
fear of open conflict and right to comfort13
I would also add:
binaries (including gender)
entitlement to ownership and wealth accrual (aka capitalism)
heteropatriarchy, fatphobia, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, colorism, and pretty much every form of oppression as it currently exists (most of which originated as a means to define “whiteness” as separate and superior to Blackness)
The grand revisionist history I was bombarded with in law school, an institution literally made by and for the encoding of white supremacist values, was very much par for the course. White supremacist culture is responsible for the capitalist culture of extraction and exploitation that created the climate crisis threatening the future of all life on Earth. It leads to the bullshit belief in an “American dream” (where anyone, no matter their access to power and privilege, can work their way to billions), overworking and pervasive burnout, and a culture where money allows you to cause harm with impunity.
BLACK & INDIGENOUS LIBERATION
As a result of misogyny, slavery, and colonization, Black and Indigenous women+ have the most intimate, violent, and long-standing relationships with white supremacy while also being subjected to global anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity from all races, ethnicities, and gender identities. Race impacts every humxn on the planet, but it is critical to be clear that it was created by white enslavers, for the purpose of justifying the enslavement of Africans, labeled “Black,” as well as the slaughter of other Indigenous folx worldwide. Why? To ensure the wealth, power, and privilege of those presumed white. It is for this reason I highlight the dichotomy between white and Black and white and Indigenous (and particularly Black Indigenous). Since so much of the racial hierarchy was born from the oppression of these two groups, the resulting harms faced by Black and Indigenous folx have grand consequences for all who face race-based marginalization. Eradicating the system of racial harms endured by Black and Indigenous people will also lead to eradicating such harms toward non-Black and non-Indigenous PoC.
ANTI-BLACKNESS
When I was in grade seven, I was part of the class that put on an annual play, and in my year the chosen play was Snow White. At twelve years old I was the sole Black person in my entire school, so I was well aware of my otherness in a lot of ways—but still unaware of others. I lived to sing and dance, but my mom couldn’t afford to put me in lessons, so this play was my big break. To say I was excited is like saying Aretha Franklin can sort of sing, aka a serious understatement. I did what any young girl who loves the center stage would do: I auditioned for the lead role. Uh-huh. I was ready to rock out as the most sensational Snow White and I didn’t know of any reason why I wouldn’t win the role. I could sing, I could act, I loved to dance. I had it in the bag. Except, I didn’t. My white teachers cut me in the final round and I was devastated. I wasn’t given any good explanation, and I could tell my teacher felt like she had done something wrong, but I couldn’t tell why. It was only decades later in retrospect I realized I never had a chance for the role because, well, I’m Black! When I got hip to this in my early twenties I felt like a fool for even auditioning. But a friend reminded me that the teachers didn’t have to choose a play that centered around whiteness that year (or ever). And actually, they still could have selected me for the role. It would have required some nuance, but hey, anything’s possible. At the time the teacher wanted to make it up to me, though she wouldn’t say why, so she gave me an alternate role of distinction. I was put on the playbill as, drumroll please: the lead dancer and witch’s black cat! I wish I could ask my mom about this now, because I’m sure she had a stern word with the school administration, yet again.
Anti-Blackness highlights the specific racial oppression Black people face globally by all humxns at the hands of white supremacy. Every race, culture, and ethnicity oppresses those of Black-African descent, including the Black community. “Anti-Blackness” is used to name this expansive form of oppression against those of Black descent as perpetuated by any- and everybody.
To be clear, non-Black PoC certainly face prejudice from other races and racism from whites. That is an unquestionable fact. But the impact of anti-Blackness is particularly pervasive and brutal and results in discrimination against Blacks in all cultures the world over. For example:
The most prominent form of hate crime in America is anti-Black hate crime, with 2,428 reported victims in 2018 alone.14
Brazilians who appear Black or mixed-Black make up 76 percent of the bottom tenth of income earners.15
Adul
t Black Americans are the most incarcerated population in the world, with one in twenty Black men between the ages of thirty-five and thirty-nine in state or federal prison.16
Statistics Canada concluded that irrespective of class “the overriding factor determining vulnerability to household food insecurity [in Canada] is [being Black].”17
Black Caribbean kids are permanently expelled from school three times more than the national UK average.18
Black women+ are the most likely to suffer pregnancy-related death in the Western world, with Black Brits dying at a rate 5 times the national average19 and Black American women+ being 3.3 times more likely to die from causes relating to pregnancy than white Americans, irrespective of class or education.20
Clearly, privilege and oppression are not equally distributed among communities of color, and unless we acknowledge and address the inequitable experiences between us, we can never unite against white supremacy. White supremacy by whites is the worst oppression of all, but anti-Blackness by non-Black PoC perpetuates a similarly toxic sludge. For example, Black Africans were not only enslaved en masse to create unparalleled generational wealth for white western Europeans and North and South Americans, but also Arabs. Over hundreds of years my Black ancestors, mostly women, were kidnapped by Arabs to work as laborers and concubines in India and the Persian Gulf. Capitalism literally relies on anti-Blackness, which is why capitalism is part and parcel of white supremacy. As anthropologist Dr. Dori Tunstall shares, “No other race’s oppression is so intimately tied to the global economic system as it currently exists.”21
Black folx worldwide have been racially repressed by whites and non-Black PoC, with Black women+ bearing the brunt of both anti-Blackness and misogyny from all races and gender identities. As Angela Davis said, non-Black PoC perpetuating anti-Blackness often do so believing that they are enacting original ideas and beliefs that emerge from their own experiences; in reality, they are carrying out the established anti-Black ideology of the state as created by and for white supremacy. And it sucks. When BI&PoC tear each other down, we are distracted from tearing down the system. Anti-Blackness shows up among BI&PoC and ethnic minorities in a number of ways, including:
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