White supremacy didn’t start with a particular president or leader. BIPOC can both uphold white supremacy and possess anti-black views. A mother who tells her daughter not to play out in the sun because her skin will get too dark is upholding white supremacy and subtly reinforcing the belief that proximity to whiteness via lighter skin makes a woman more beautiful. White supremacy can also manifest as colorism, which is a persistent issue within India, Latin America, Africa and nearly every community of color. White supremacy in BIPOC communities often manifests as white adjacency: the act of aligning with whiteness and distancing yourself from your ethnic and racial identity in order to gain access and opportunities. Just because you identify as a person of color doesn’t prevent you from propagating white supremacist views and ideologies. This is one of the most deceptive myths about white supremacy because it prevents BIPOC from exploring and examining the ways that they may individually sustain white supremacy. Speaking of BIPOC, there is a commonly held belief that only white people uphold white supremacy. Even if it is not our intention to uphold white supremacy, the impact is still the same and can be harmful and even deadly for Black Indigenous people of color (BIPOC).Ģ. As we should know by now, intention does not determine impact. A corporate policy that upholds white beauty standards is just one of the plethora of ways we may unintentionally perpetuate white supremacy. A Black man for example, who decides to wear his hair in dreadlocks may be deemed unprofessional based on white standards. Even our notion of professionalism is seen through a white-centered lens. In the workplace, for example, company policies and practices may perpetuate white supremacy. redlining, American slavery, housing discrimination), we frequently uphold white supremacy in our lives without even realizing it. While this is often the case through innumerable laws and systems (e.g. The Anti-Defamation League conceptualizes white supremacy as the belief that the white race is superior to other races as well as the belief that more needs to be done to “save the white race.” A commonly held myth about white supremacy is that it is done intentionally. In an effort to close these gaps of misunderstanding, this article explores four commonly held misconceptions about white supremacy.ġ. There are some common myths that demonstrate the public’s lack of understanding when it comes to white supremacy and how it permeates every facet of society. The insidious nature of white supremacy allows it to shapeshift often, which is part of the reason why it’s so difficult to eradicate. As the horrific events of racial injustice that marred 2020 lost the public’s interest, conversations about white supremacy started to wane. In the summer of 2020, there was a renewed interest in books about white supremacy and anti-racism and a re-emergence of these types of books on the Amazon and New York Times best-seller lists. Conversations about white supremacy, what it is, and how it manifests have intensified. Much of the world is still reflecting on the riots that transpired last week at the U.S. The insidious nature of white supremacy allows it to shape shift often, which is part of the reason.
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