White Racism, White Supremacy, White Privilege, & the Social Construction of Race

1. White Racism, White Supremacy, White Privilege, & the Social Construction of Race Omowale Akintunde

2. “Racism is a systemic, societal, institutional, omnipresent, and epistemologically embedded phenomenon that pervades every vestige of our reality.”

3. Conceptual Model One Racism Acts, terms, thoughts, and so forth that are racist in nature but are merely hypothetical abstractions until some human by conscious choice reaches into this realm and enacts the racist tendency in a society, thus transforming it from abstraction to reality. American Society Free of acts, terms, thoughts, and so forth that are racist in nature until some member of this society by conscious choice reaches out of the society, grasps a racist abstraction, and enacts it in the society.

4. Problems with Model One • Racism can be practiced by anyone, anyone can be a victim of racism. • You can choose NOT to be racist. • Racism doesn’t really “exist” except by choice, it is abstract, not real. • Racism can be ignored. • White supremacy does not become the focus of racial investigation.

5. White Supremacy “The entire infrastructure of American society is based upon and emanates from the Western canon…European Americans raped the continent and decimated its indigenous peoples, instituted a system of society and government sanctioned chattel slavery for over three centuries.”

6. White Supremacy “‘White’ is still benefiting from these systems and institutions.”

7. Conceptual Model Two “Racism is integrally and inextricably bound to all our of ‘human’ and social processes and that, in fact, American society itself is a function of racism and lies imbedded in racist ideology.” RacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacism American Society RacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacism RacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacism RacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacismRacism

8. White racism or White supremacy [have become] interlaced or interwoven into the founding fabric of modernist western civilization…the ways of the dominant group not only become the dominant ways of that civilization, but also these ways become so deeply embedded that they are seen as “natural” or appropriate norms rather than historically evolved constructions. -J.H. Stanfield