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From Jim Crow to Buffalo, replacement theory's trail of destruction runs across American history
From Jim Crow to Buffalo, replacement theory’s trail of destruction runs across American history
by Michael Harriot
White supremacy is not defined by acts of outlandish violence. It is inflicted on America’s non-white population every day.
While more Americans are becoming aware of the theory, it is not new. It is the same concept that once made interracial marriage illegal, spawned Jim Crow and motivated southern segregationists to switch to the Republican party. At its foundation lies the desperate attempt to preserve and maintain control based on nothing more than being born into whiteness. It is about white power. Unfortunately (for the white majority), the only way to preserve white power is to stop moving forward.
It is easy to frame a lone gunman’s brazen act of lawlessness and the fearmongering ethnonationalism that produced it as a prototypical but rare act of white supremacy. But that narrative obscures a variety of legally sanctioned acts of violence inflicted upon America’s non-white populace every day.
The goal is to weaponize whiteness at the expense of everyone else’s freedom in the hopes of protecting white sovereignty.
White supremacy is not defined by the outlandish violence that enraptures racial extremists. This white domestic terrorism is the result of the belief that white people are entitled to the superior position that they enjoyed for most of this country’s history. While becoming a more perfect union has always been our publicly stated goal, the US has always been engaged in the preservation of white power. But that started at a time when the slaveowners and slavery apologists who penned America’s founding document couldn’t possibly fathom the idea that white men wouldn’t have perpetual possession of America’s reins. When they said “we the People”, they meant “white people”. They just want to make sure it stays that way.
by Michael Harriot
White supremacy is not defined by acts of outlandish violence. It is inflicted on America’s non-white population every day.
While more Americans are becoming aware of the theory, it is not new. It is the same concept that once made interracial marriage illegal, spawned Jim Crow and motivated southern segregationists to switch to the Republican party. At its foundation lies the desperate attempt to preserve and maintain control based on nothing more than being born into whiteness. It is about white power. Unfortunately (for the white majority), the only way to preserve white power is to stop moving forward.
It is easy to frame a lone gunman’s brazen act of lawlessness and the fearmongering ethnonationalism that produced it as a prototypical but rare act of white supremacy. But that narrative obscures a variety of legally sanctioned acts of violence inflicted upon America’s non-white populace every day.
The goal is to weaponize whiteness at the expense of everyone else’s freedom in the hopes of protecting white sovereignty.
White supremacy is not defined by the outlandish violence that enraptures racial extremists. This white domestic terrorism is the result of the belief that white people are entitled to the superior position that they enjoyed for most of this country’s history. While becoming a more perfect union has always been our publicly stated goal, the US has always been engaged in the preservation of white power. But that started at a time when the slaveowners and slavery apologists who penned America’s founding document couldn’t possibly fathom the idea that white men wouldn’t have perpetual possession of America’s reins. When they said “we the People”, they meant “white people”. They just want to make sure it stays that way.
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