By Madeline Price (she/they)
Social links: @madeline_rachel_price
Content warning: white supremacy, violence, racism, incarceration, death, rape and sexual violence
White supremacy: the term itself feels extreme, and to an extent, it is. It has been at the heart of extremist violence targeting synagogues across the United States and Germany, and mosques in Norway, New Zealand and England. It has led to guns being pointed at refugees, people seeking asylum and immigrants. It is linked to misogyny, ableism, racism, and classism, and globally, it is one of the largest causes of domestic terrorism.
But white supremacy also plays out in more subtle ways: it’s the targeting of women of colour in digital spaces; it is the classist worldview that woman – and not the systemic power structures – are holding themselves back (I’m looking at your Sheryl Sandberg with Lean In); and it’s the co-opting of a generations-long movement to end violence against First Nations and Indigenous women by the white-led One Billion Rising movement. It is the casual racism of everyday objects; the educational disadvantage faced by students who are not white men; and the entrenched belief that black children are less susceptible to pain than white children. It is the increased rates of incarceration of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) folk; the lengthier prison sentences for black men; and the dehumanisation of BIPOC folk by law enforcement. It is the false conflation of intelligence with light skin colour; the dismissal of white privilege; and the use of law enforcement to penalise everyday actions of BIPOC folk. It is the fight for funding seen by #BlackLivesMatter and Standing Rock that is not faced by the groups of white mother’s defending their sons accused of rape; it is the dismissal of white feminism’s existence and impacts; it is only priorisiting women of colour in order to tokenise them; and it is only showing up when it is convenient for you.
White supremacy is overt, but it is also subtle – and that is where it can be most dangerous.
White supremacy 101
Understanding how white supremacy needs to be dismantled in order to build a new feminist reality needs to come from an understanding of what white supremacy is in the first place.
It is characterised by the belief system central to which is one of the following: that “whites should have dominance over people of other backgrounds, especially where they may co-exist; whites should live by themselves in a whites-only society; white people have their own ‘culture’ that is superior to other cultures; and white people are genetically superior to other people.”
In a practical sense, “white supremacy is a web of violence and abusive behaviours, bolstered by white nationalists, racist elected officials, violent police and law enforcement, corporate money, and you.”
“When feminism is white supremacy in heels” – Rachel Cargle
A significant component of the subtle, underground acts of white supremacy, is its existence in the realms of feminism – particularly, white feminism.
Historically, feminism and white supremacy have been aligned: leaders in the suffragist movement continually sided with white supremacy in order to push their agenda of suffrage (even in Australia, white women achieved the right to vote in all states in 1911, whereas First Nations women and men did not have that right until 1962); hundreds of thousands of women have been active members of the Ku Klux Klan, with at one point the KKK founding a branch for women and receiving applications from over one million members; and, more recently, 53 per cent of white women (including many named feminists) voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
As explained by Kat McLaughlin: “While women are generally left out of historical conversations no matter the moment in time, in this case it allows women to go unseen in the history of white supremacy.”
Rachel Cargle further explains; “We cannot forget the ways that suffragettes dismissed the voices of black women, sending them to the back of their marches, only for black activists like Ida B. Wells and Anna Julia Cooper to make major moves while fighting for the vote in tandem with their fight for rights as black people... If there is not the intentional and action-based inclusion of women of colour, then feminism is simply white supremacy in heels.”
Cargle goes further to outline several ways that white feminists promote white supremacy in their work, through:
Tone policing;
Spiritual bypassing;
White saviour complex; and
Centring.
She emphasises that, without the strategic dismantling of white supremacy by feminists, then what feminist reality are we actually building?
Building this reality
Some simple steps to start dismantling white supremacy in your community, and building our new feminist reality include:
Start with:
Educate yourself, friends and family (utilise the Charlottesville Syllabus created by student organisers at the University of Virginia, the Eight Tools for Powerfully Dismantling Systems of Supremacy from the Unitarian Universalist Association, read the Me and White Supremacy workbook by Layla F. Saad, and explore white supremacy in Australia);
Listen to, read, watch and amplify the voices of activists of colour, as well as culturally and linguistically diverse authors, actors, musicians, politicians, community leaders, researchers, scientists, academics and columnists;
Pay reparations (or, if you’re in Australia, pay the rent);
Compensation BIPOC folk for intellectual, emotional and creative labour; and
Be accountable for your racism, supremacy and ignorance.
Move to:
Commit resources (people, capacity, infrastructure and financial) to community organisations led by and for BIPOC folk;
Work with local community leaders, councils and developers to remove, reshape, remodel and replace statues that pay homage to the legacies of colonisation and white supremacy;
Work with local community leaders, councils and governments for the protection of sacred lands; and
Talking openly about your anti-racist work and your actions to dismantle white supremacy.
Go here:
Create alternative decision-making structures to ‘majority rules’ democracy in your organisations, community groups and families, and centre the voices and experiences of BIPOC folk;
Institutionalise an explicit commitment to racial justice in policies, vision and values, hiring practices, and decision-making structures; and
Pressure elected officials to make policy that includes the needs of and considers the impacts to all populations.
As noted by Rachel Cargle: “In order for the feminist movement to truly be progressive and intersectional, white women must face this fact and begin to take on their load of work. We are long overdue to dismantle this system, which, if it is not intentionally and aggressively addressed, will defeat us all in the end.”
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