White Supremacy
By Ras Tyehimba
December 25, 2003
"PLEASE realize, that it is only a small minority of white skinned people think like this. Not all whites are racist baldheads."
Contrary to what you say, the large majority of white people are beset by superiority/racist complexes. The problem is that since it has become politically incorrect to be overtly racist, racism has taken on a far subtler edge than earlier on in history. Hollywood tries to portray racists as being profane, being armed with guns and as having swastikas tattooed on their arms. This representation attempts to put across that it is only a few isolated whites are racists, which is very far from the truth. Those who behave as above are easy to spot but those who come disingenuously with polished rhetoric of 'one love' and 'we are all one people' are harder for the sleeping masses to spot. In spite of the proclaimants of many Whites, that they are not racist, the evidence overwhelmingly exposes this charade. Whether people like it or not, racist/sexist superiority attitudes are imbedded, and conditioned by media, family friends, institutions, religions and the education system and thus racism is the norm and not the exception.
Many Whites try to sidestep their complicity in the whole global system of White Supremacy, yet still continue to uphold and benefit from the plethora of white privileges that underlie the dynamics of White Supremacy. Unless Whites deal with themselves holistically which involves them coming to terms with their past misdeeds, the most they can be is patronizing, while subtlety manifesting their superiority complexes on those around them.
Likewise, there are Black people (especially lighter skinned Blacks) themselves who have become neo-colonial agents of White Supremacy by perpetuating the principle of 'white over brown over black'. Thus the dark skinned, kinky haired African is often hit with the worse that White Supremacy has to offer while the lighter skinned more European looking person is given preference. This privilege has proved very hard for Black people who are high up in this hierarchy of White Supremacy to come to terms with.
Then there are those that prescribe the mindset of colorblindness to deal with the scourge of racism. This attitude represents real blindness as it is ignorant of the fact that race is not the problem but rather ignorance. So if people being of different races is not the real problem, then being colorblind won't solve racism, which is a manifestation of conditioned ignorance. People coming to terms with their own role in the global system of racism, gender discrimination, injustice and inequality, will be an important step in overcoming a lot of societal ills.
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