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It is imperative to reject the instinct to conflate white nationalism with white supremacy.
U.S. white supremacy is a system of social control and disparities formed to exploit indigenous populations, Blacks, poor whites, immigrants, and women’s sexual reproduction to maintain the political, cultural, economic, and social domination of those identified as white.
If white supremacy is a system of disparities and bias used to exploit and maintain control, white nationalism seeks the complete removal of Jews and people of color from the United States altogether.
Rather than something to replicate, white nationalism sees white supremacy as a failed experiment and not one worth revisiting.
Unlike white supremacy, white nationalism is rooted in the anti-Semitic belief that Jews are responsible for the defeat of white supremacy and seek to destroy the “white race” through mass immigration, gay marriage, and a host of inclusionary policies.
If ridding our nation of systems of historic and present-day white supremacy is primarily a legislative and judicial imperative, then successfully isolating white nationalism as a social movement is primarily a cultural one.
We as anti-racists have to contend with both white supremacy and white nationalism. When we go on and on and on about one getting more attention than the other, we do our world a huge disservice. We are unintentionally signaling that one is more important than the other.
We must continue to expose the systemic vestiges of white supremacy AND we must build a society that is able to compete against white nationalist ideology. It’s not an either/or equation. That really needs to stop.
