Finding my Way to Definition: Racism versus White Supremacy

[TygrBright]

I'm always very leery of sharing my thoughts, as a white person, on things that are visceral lived experience for non-white people. YET... I am a participant in that lived experience, too. A contributor to it, and I have a responsibility to think and learn and change.

Is there a difference (from a white person's standpoint, and please take that qualification as read for this entire post), between racism and white supremacy? I think so. Short version, "racism" is a somewhat non-voluntary cultural implant. "White supremacy" is an embraced, fear-based ideology.

I grew up and learned everything I know in a racist culture. Racism was baked into EVERYTHING I learned. Every book I read, every television show I watched, every subject I studied in school (math and science, yep, them too - maybe not in the base processes but in the understanding of who does it, who's good at it, how it's done, what it's used for... yep, racist as hell. Misogynist, too, but that's another post...)

Racism was baked into the attitudes and beliefs of everyone I knew, everyone I loved, everyone I learned from. Even my older relatives who supported the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement in my childhood, and explained to me the injustice of racism and the evils of Jim Crow... were racist. My mother's mother voted Democratic and thought Rev. King was "a great man and a great leader for the Negros" but when we drove through her old neighborhood with her in the car it was perfectly natural to her to say "Look at all the (epithet)s who've moved in here, now!"

I don't think I could possibly have avoided being racist. The best I can do is try to unlearn it as much as possible, check my own attitudes, question my own motives, and keep trying to change and be as anti-racist as possible. This is a challenge, but compared to what those who live the experience of racism as its targets must deal with, it's pretty easy. I have the privilege of slacking off. People with brown skin do not.

Racism is unambiguously toxic, vile, and destructive. This is not an apology in any way for racism. Nor is it a plea to "don't blame me, I was raised racist" which is bullshit. Unless I'm trying ALL the time to NOT be racist, I'm part of the problem. Being part of problems is a human condition, we are all part of one or more problems in some way. It's not an excuse and it's not justified, but it IS human, and our common humanity, even in our differing flaws, can be a door to change and understanding.

White supremacy, though.

Now that's something else. That's the EMBRACE of racism as the foundation of a fearful, hate-filled ideology motivating active perpetuation and expansion of institutionalized dehumanization of non-white people. No matter how they try to dress it up as "appreciating Western Civilization" (!) and the achievements of white culture (so many of which were appropriated from or based on the achievements of other cultures, but they'll never admit that!) it advances a hierarchy of human value in which everyone not-white has less value.

And that is a consciously-embraced, voluntary evil.

Is there a gray zone, a territory between not examining and rejecting your own racism, and actively embracing hate? The people who just don't want to be bothered, and get all defensive and negative when asked to change, and retreat into blaming those who are demanding the change?

I think so. I think that in that gray zone lie some choices... and those choices can be influenced. Defensiveness is a natural reaction to being confronted with our own flaws. Many things influence whether we choose to harden that defensiveness into rejection, and end up embracing an evil, or allow ourselves to be drawn into awareness of our flaws, examination of their cost to ourselves as well as others, and consideration of change.

Of those influential factors, fear is almost certainly the most powerful.

It isn't the responsibility of those demanding change to make it palatable, or not-fear-provoking. It wouldn't be possible, either, because what provokes fear varies from person to person. But an awareness of the process of hardening racism into white supremacy may be helpful in understanding how to structure responses and communications.

This is a long haul. Can I do anything in a short lifetime, to contribute to change?

Only if I don't give up. Only if I keep examining, keep learning, keep trying.

determinedly,
Bright

[abqtommy]

1. Now this is an excellent op. Short answer: Yes, the best thing we can do to fight

"racism" is to not be "racist" ourselves.

Long answer: I've written here on Du extensively about my view (which is supported by science) that there is only one race and that's the human race. Yes, we do have ethnic
and cultural differences but these don't identify different races.

If we examine our human family we see that there is "racism"/ethnic bigotry among all
people of any skin color, age and gender. It's the human condition. If someone writes
about "white supremacy" I know exactly who they're talking about. They're talking about
white persons who are fascists. But there are also brown-skinned and black-skinned
persons who are fascists. And this goes along with different religious influences. It's odd but many people don't want to hear about this. What to do, what to do?

My fall-back position is to avoid rude and argumentative people and concentrate on
being the best/most productive person I can be. I don't use "racist" language or the
language of ethnic bigotry. I don't judge people by skin color or gender or age and that's
good for me and the rest of us too.

It's good to be willing to learn. If we look for answers we Will. Find. Them.

[brush]

2. Thanks for the work you've put in on this, and continue to. That kind of work from...

allies is appreciated. IMO though the terms are interchangeable in this white-dominated country. Racism, the ingrained belief of being better than the "other", is a given here. That's undeniable.

And when one thinks about it, the ingrained belief of being better than the "other" could also be stated with just a couple of words substituted and it would lose no meaning—the ingrained belief of being superior to the "other"— and since there is no other other than the many whites who consider themselves superior to the POC/"others", the next step up from superior, as in nothing higher, is supreme, and since there is no other other than POC/"others" who racist whites consider above themselves—voila, white supremacy logically follows, though most often unstated.

[Biophilic]

3. You said so much of what I've gradually come to understand myself.

And you said it better than I've even said to myself. Thank you for the time and effort you put into putting these thoughts into words. I believe it is only when we start to see things more distinctly that we are able to see our own participation and begin to make the changes necessary for things to get better.