A reckoning for white supremacy
There are a lot of things that say a lot more than what you think.
If you think that white supremacy has mostly to do with explicit racism, water hoses, beating black and brown ass, and discrimination against black and brown citizens, I don’t blame you. In a way, it’s fair to assume that. However, if you limited to just outward expression of racism, then you are grossly misunderstanding how much genteel racism plays a role.
The genteel racist is not going to call you a racial slur. They’re not going to exclude you — hell, they may even welcome you in their homes. They’ll call you a friend — even a best friend. Hell, they may even have a relationship with you. They will claim that they are free of prejudice and they look at everyone as an equal — on their terms.
However, you are not going to see their racism until it matters most — when power is at stake.
White supremacy is about power. The power that comes with being at the top of the social pyramid; the economic pyramid; the political pyramid. It’s about hierarchy; fostered by a belief that history has ordained white supremacy as the default sociopolitical and socioeconomic order. It could be authoritarian, like pre-1960s America or South Africa under apartheid, or paternal, which is a discomforting element of modern populist conservatism.
In defending this order, we’ve seen scores of lives damaged and cultures ruined; entire demographics left playing catch-up as they struggle to legitimize their humanity in the smoldering ruins left by years upon decades upon centuries of oppression and obstruction. You can find many examples of this in the world today — examples that are rhetorically exploited by those that, as Malcolm X once said, will “deny the knife [is] even there.”
Here in the United States, we’ve fought a war that was effectively over white supremacy. The Southern rebellion may have been quelled but South ultimately won the war for at least the next 100 years. The South restored white supremacy, a complacent North was over caring about it, and blacks could not escape subjugation anywhere, coast to coast, border to border.
But laws were the first step; a step not even completely taken until the 1960s. It addressed many issues and represented a substantial degree of progress. In fact, there has been a lot of progress made in the past half-century plus. This should not be discounted.
Yet, as X said in the same sound bite (actually immediately before) “If you put a knife in me 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made.” White supremacy is more abstract now, and it goes back to what I mentioned earlier about genteel racism — racism that’s not of hoodies, robes, and burning crosses; but the racism that simmers beneath a surface that can be misleadingly polite and accommodating. This is more than just supremacy that is authoritarian or paternal; this is supremacy that is transactional — something, in my view, that’s far more nefarious. After all, it doesn’t take much for a purportedly reasonable population to embrace the clearly unreasonable.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to a client (who is a black South African) about this very issue. I can’t remember if it was myself or my client that suggested this, but the best analogy to what I am describing is to imagine a long table that represents the constituency that comprises our society, the white supremacist does not mind black and brown faces at the table so as long as there’s a white face always at the head of it.
The recent protests of the past week against the backdrop of crushing unemployment (roughly half of all adult blacks are unemployed) and black and brown Americans haphazardly affected by coronavirus infections and COVID-19 fatalities illustrate a new phase. It goes beyond just laws and policies; it’s about the quest of unquestioned and unconditional human dignity — something that is a complete and total affront to white supremacy.
No longer should we be a society that consents — passively or submissively — to the supremacy of one group and finds the passive subjugation of another group comfortably acceptable.
Listen closely over the next few days, weeks, months, and years. Listen to what the policymakers, activists, pundits; even what your friends and family say. There’s a clear difference between what is and what isn’t lip service, what is and what isn’t self-aggrandizement, what is and what isn’t opportune, what is and what isn’t empty virtue signaling, and what is and what isn’t a tacit defense of white supremacy.
