White supremacy can be defined as the institutionalization of whiteness and white privilege and the historical, social, political and economic systems and structures that contribute to its continued dominance and subordination (Giroux & McLaren, 1994). Francis Lee Ansley describes white supremacy in the following way:
“By ‘White supremacy’ I do not mean to allude only to the self-conscious racism of White supremacist hate groups. I refer instead to a political, economic and cultural system in which Whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of White superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of White dominance and non-White subordination are daily re-enacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings” (Ansley as cited in Gillborn, 2006, p. 320).
Smith (2016) explains her framework titled the “Three Pillars of White Supremacy” below:
This framework does not assume that racism and white supremacy is enacted in a singular fashion; rather, white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logics. Envision three pillars, one labeled Slavery/Capitalism, another labeled Genocide/Capitalism, and the last one labeled Orientalism/War, as well as arrows connecting each of the pillars together. (p. 67)
Whiteness differs from white supremacy in that whiteness is an ideology and logic by which one moves through the world, connected to dynamic relations of domination. It operates most obviously in White bodies but also in and through racially oppressed bodies. Gillborn (2015) describes whiteness as “a set of assumptions, beliefs and practices that place the interests and perspectives of White people at the center of what is considered normal and everyday” (p. 278). Fanon (1967) asserted that whiteness is a process that corrupts the ‘‘soul of the white man’’ (p. 129) and that it has pushed the white man to believe that he is the master of the world (Fanton, 1967). In her work, hooks (1992) wrote that seeing whiteness as natural and people of color as racialized “Others,” leads white people to deny any ‘‘representation of whiteness as terror or terrorizing’’ (p. 45).
Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) theorists have explored how whiteness is invisibilized and normalized in our everyday lives (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001), in part through processes of race evasion or the assumption that white is not a race. They discern that whiteness is only invisible to those who inhabit it, to those who see it as ahistorical, and to those who deny its own creation (Ahmed, 2004; Leonardo, 2002). As such, whiteness operates as embodying the racially ideal subject and as a global privileged signifier and tends to uphold whiteness as neutral and universal (Ahmed, 2004; Leonardo, 2002; Matias, 2016; Delgado & Stefancic, Shah et al., 2022). Thandeka (1999) posits that whiteness is predicated on the denial of difference within oneself, constituting in the white subject a core sense of self that is hidden from view and shrouded in shame. As individual experiences and backgrounds inform how one experiences whiteness, Thandeka (1999) notes that the fear of exclusion from the collective leads whites to reject parts of themselves that could be seen as non-white. Ultimately this guides racist ideologies and practices and creates white shame which allows white people to ignore the harm caused by racial inequities (Thandeka, 1999).
Ahmed (2007) notes that “whiteness gets reproduced by being seen as a form of positive residence; as if it were a property of persons, cultures and places” (p. 154). This narrative then allows for seeing the impacts of racism to be belonging to the individual, absolving responsibilities from the collective. Over the years, the works of W.E.B. Dubois, James Baldwin, and many other Black scholars have been making visible the manipulations and pervasiveness of whiteness within the fabrics of our society (Matias, 2016). It is also important to note that whiteness, as an ideology and logic, can exist in non-white bodies, too. Shah & chanicka (2023) describe a continuum of whiteness in which Brown (South Asian) people, like other groups deemed model minorities, may find themselves aspiring to whiteness and distancing themselves from Blackness in their appearances, politics, and solidarities.
Other significant issues relating to whiteness and white identity are concerned with the theory that some Non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants to the Americas became white. Included in this group are Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants. Yang & Koshy (2016) explore this assertion by explaining that rather than becoming white these groups of people entered in the social status fold of the dominant society. They further assert that these groups were always white. There is some debate around becoming white however that does not delineate from the understanding that becoming white involves a social status classification change (Yang & Koshy, 2016). In critiquing the logics of white supremacy, we consider the following:
1. Dominance of liberal individualism: Similar to neoliberalism, critiques of white supremacy challenge liberal myths of neutrality, meritocracy and objectivity. Particularly, these myths operate through colour-evasive narratives that erase the experiences, realities and aspirations of Black, Indigenous and racialized staff, students, and communities, and deny the existence of whiteness and white privilege.
2. Permanence of racism: Critical Race Theory explores both the normalization of race and the permanence of racism in systems, laws, structures, society, and the state, making both race and racism largely invisible to White people (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). As Bell (1992) states, “racism is an integral, permanent, and indestructible component of its society” (p. ix).
3. Ahistorical, decontextualized, and changing definitions: The specificities of history and context are often separated from our analysis and understandings of students, families, communities, and schooling. Furthermore, it is important to understand that racialization, racial meaning, and racial value change in response to the needs of White society, the nation-state and the labour market (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012).
4. Whiteness as normal and natural: An ideology and logic by which one moves through the world, connected to dynamic relations of domination. Whiteness serves to equate the interests, experiences, and perspectives of white people with what is considered normal and natural, while othering and devaluing Black, Indigenous, and racialized peoples.
By disrupting white supremacy in leadership, we consider several questions:
- How do processes of racialization inform who is considered a good “fit” for leadership?
- How do silence, denial, and compliance operate to protect white power and punish efforts at anti-racism, anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous racism?
- What wisdoms, experiences and perspectives are denied when anti-colonial and anti-racist leadership praxes are not centered?
- How might centering the counternarratives of Indigenous, Black, and racialized people expose dominant narratives of colour blindness, meritocracy, and neutrality, while promoting self-authorization and challenging objective “truths”?
- How might we consider reverse pipelines to increase the representation of Indigenous, Black, and racialized leaders who lead for anti-racism?
References
Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8(2), 149-168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700107078139
Ahmad, S. (2004). Declarations of whiteness: The non-performativity of anti-racism. Borderlands, 3(2). http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/ahmed_declarations.htm
Bell, D.A., (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well. Basic Books.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction (2nd Ed.). New York University Press.
Fanon, F. Black skin, white masks. Grove Press.
Gillborn, D. (2006). Rethinking white supremacy: Who counts in ‘WhiteWorld.’ Ethnicities, 6(3), 318–340.
Gillborn D. (2015). Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and the primacy of racism: Race, class, gender, and disability in education. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(3), 277-287.
Giroux, H. & McLaren, P. (1994). Between borders: Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies. Routledge.
hooks, b. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. South End Press.
Leonardo Z. (2004). The color of supremacy: Beyond the discourse of “White privilege”. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(2), 137–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00057.x
Matias, C. (2016). Feeling White: Whiteness, emotionality, and education (Cultural pluralism, democracy, socio-environmental justice, & education, vol. 2). Sense Publishers.
Shah, V., Aoudeh, N., Cuglievan-Mindreau, G., & Flessa, J. (2022). Subverting Whiteness and Amplifying Anti-Racisms: Mid-Level District Leadership for Racial Justice. Journal of School Leadership. 32(5), 456- 487. https://doi.org/10.1177/10526846221095752
Shah, V. & chanicka, j. (2023). Brown identities, complicities, and complexities: Towards solidarity for Black lives. Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, 10(1), 1-26. doi: https://doi.org/10.24908/jcri.v10i1.15355
Smith, A. (2016). Heteropatriarchy and the three pillars of white supremacy: In INCITE: Women of colour against violence (Eds), The color of violence: The INCITE! Anthology (pp. 66-73). Duke University Press.
Thandeka. (1999). Learning to be White: Money, race, and God in America. Continuum.
