Thread by @MessengerOfRage

When we talk about white supremacy, I think most people imagine ignorant racists in hoods frothing at the mouth and wanting to hang all the black people they can get their hands on.

This is a dangerous mistake, and I think it's time we address it.

Supremacy is defined this way:

the state or condition of being superior to all others in authority, power, or status.

Notice there is no claim to superiority or inferiority on either side. A person can simultaneously hold the notions of equal value and white supremacy in mind.

And this, I think, is the core issue with many of my fellow white people.

This is why racial inequality is so prevalent (and so utterly ignorant, there's only one damn race, ya "racist" morons...true racists would put ALL of humanity first).

Most racially conscious white people in America have given a lot of lip service to the concept of equal value among white people (again, an ignorant classification) and not-so-white people.

But when it comes to reality, when it comes to the point where the rubber meets the road -THAT'S when white(r) people have issues.

It's all good to talk about civil rights, the right to vote, equal pay, equal justice, equal prominence in society.

But we see that it's just talk.

And we can see that because actions speak louder than words. And you know what speaks even louder than action?

INACTION.

Whiteys, we're still sitting on our asses and talking about making things better, talking about making a difference.

But our effectiveness is actually less than it was, I'm afraid.

We used to have something of an excuse, although it wasn't a pass, and never will be.

We weren't able to see the stark differences. We lived in different communities (by design), worked in different jobs, mostly.

We held that flawed concept of 'separate but equal' fast in our minds, even if we didn't say it out loud. We knew the 'hood was a bad place, we just kinda figured when "they" wanted to get out of it, they'd finally see the light and make a better life for themselves.

I'm ashamed to admit I let myself be steeped in that mindset as a child. No, I didn't know better. In the eighties, in my shithole little rural town in SW Missouri, we didn't have any people of color, except for one adopted girl in my grade. She was very light-skinned, but still.

I remember being in 4th grade and sitting next to her at lunch. I was friendly with her, probably mostly because I was picked on a lot as well, being a skinny little kid with actual emotions.

I had to ask my mom what "ni@@er-lover" meant. I understood who it meant, but not why.

As much as I've not always been the perfect ally to people with more melanin, I'm glad I had no idea I was expected to avoid contact with her.

But that's the kind of garbage I saw as a young kid. None of that changed much for me until I graduated and joined the Army.

My drill sergeants were fond of telling all of us in basic training that we were all one color now: GREEN.

Uncle Sam didn't see skin color, just that uniform verdant sea of compliance.

While I'll say that equality is better in the Army, it's still not where it should be either.

Yes, there are black Generals and other high ranking people of color there. But it's the exception, not the norm. And when it comes to the ones with true power, the ones who sit on the Joint Chiefs, etc...you'd be hard pressed to find a whiter bunch.

An inaccurate cross-section.

But I got to work side-by-side with people that weren't like me. People who didn't look like me, had vastly different experiences from me, and also with people who were openly, outright racist bastards.

Sometimes our eyes just get opened when we least expect it.

I remember one guy I thought was pretty cool and hung out with for a while, though his name is lost to the years.

Several months I hung around with him, talked a bit about relationships, cars, stuff, the usual. I even stayed at his parents' house when he got married.

And suddenly, one day, he just spat out the n-word. Just let it rip, like it was supposed to be said. Like he had a fucking right to do so. Following that filth was a short diatribe on how he thought they were getting too powerful in the Army, and how he didn't like that one bit.

I mean...you think you know a person.

Jesus, was that a fucking eye-opener.

But it made me start looking around, and looking at myself. What had I said or done that had made him think I'd agree with him.

What hadn't I said or done?

That one moment changed me.

It certainly changed my associations. I started looking at how people talked, how they acted. I started really seeing a thing, although I didn't know what it was at the time.

And that thing was white supremacy.

I started to see it, and it took me a long time to understand it, because it wasn't an ideal I held in my heart.

Now, I know if people actually read this far, many whiteys will smile and pat themselves on the back here.

"Yeah! Me either!"

Don't you fucking lie to yourselves, assholes.

Yes, I've grown. I've progressed in my sense of justice and equality. I've gotten better, which means that I wasn't as good as I should have been all along. I have no shame in admitting this.

But see, this is where White Supremacy comes into play.

Because white supremacy isn't just the Klan. It's not just PFC Asshole from Tennessee who grew up steeped in that quiet, casual racism. And racism is DIFFERENT from White Supremacy, make no mistake.

It's very easy to conflate the two. They are inextricably linked, and this is plain to see for all. Invariably white supremacists that are open and advocating for a white nation, a "pure" nation (🤮) exist and are utterly racist.

But they're not exactly the same.

This matters.

Racists feel that other "races" are genetically/socially/intellectually/odorifically INFERIOR to their group.

They feel that the differences are far more than skin deep. That white people should rise above the rest, and this nation should belong to just us.

News flash, it's fucking melanin, you idiots. That's it, that's the tweet.

And yes, there are cultural differences between whites and not-so-whites. That's to be expected, since we came from different areas historically. We developed cultures independent of each other. Clearly there will be things that aren't looked at identically between groups.

And in large part, it's our own shared experiences that have made this stark and plain to see.

Because when Americans interact, it becomes clear to see what ideology prevails.

And that is White Supremacy.

Think I'm wrong, whiteys?

Think I'm calling you out hypocritically, that I'm just bowing down to the hyper-present tone policing that you see so much in social media?

Think the fuck again.

Like when I grew up, many of you don't see the differences in our realities versus their realities. You don't see the projects, because your only experience with the projects was what, New Jack City back in the day? From cop shows on TV where the bad guy is caught in 60 minutes?

You sit in your suburbs, or your shithole little rural towns in SW Missouri and think that your way of life is so superior, and that everyone should be just like you.

Some of you even admit this to yourselves.

Some of you even say it out loud to other whiteys.

But what you fail to see is the plain truth, and that's the history of racial relations in America, and the world at large.

You fail to see how redlining affected the growth of communities of color over the last century. How Jim Crow dehumanized a huge segment of people.

How all of the struggles (and jesus, are there too many to go into right now...suffice it to say we whiteys have a lot to answer for) added up to the point where black people get killed by cops ON FUCKING VIDEO and still most white people don't see the problem.

Am I generalizing? Yes. Are all whiteys guilty of this? No.

Go ahead, pat yourselves on the back if you must. Get that shit out of your system right the fuck now.

Because it's time to get down to the truth, and you all need to look at it with wide open eyes.

White Supremacy is not just calling black people the n-word and beating them up if you catch one alone on a sultry, Southern evening in rural Bumfuck, Georgia.

It's not just tattooing yourself with 88's or flashing the OK/WP signs in pictures of West Point cadets.

No, White Supremacy is not just those things.

It's also acquiescing to the social norms we've had for centuries in this nation that allow redlining to occur without a huge outcry from the entirety of America in protest.

Heads should have rolled across the financial sector.

But instead, we allowed a billionaire candidate (who has actually praised redlining, FFS) to woo the Democratic VOTERS. Not just party elites, hungry for that campaign cash and name recognition...but a whole shitload of you white-ass D voters, too.

You should be fucking ashamed.

When I was young, it was easy to live on in blind obliviousness to the disparities of white and black life. I had no access to black communities, and therefore could not see the ways things were different.

Now, though?

We have the fucking internet, people. We have VIDEO.

We have data, history, proof of all the injustices and wrongs that have been committed against non-whites in this nation over the centuries.

And hell, it's worse when you realize that we were even taught about the Native American treatment in school.

Our entire history as Americans, our entire CULTURE is founded on the principles of White Supremacy. The idea that white people should have more power, more prestige, more of everything that matters.

And if you think I'm wrong, you're a blind fucking fool.

Imagine an America where the tribes have a say in how our land should be allocated. Can you?

"But where would we live? This is our home!"

Yeah, it was their home first. Can you imagine us making this type of restitution towards the natives of this land before we arrived?

Imagine an America where we atone for years of preferential hiring of whites by hiring more black people than white people for leadership positions.

"But that's not fair! White people are the majority here, so we should have the majority of those positions!"

And while that's mathematically true, how does this help equality out in the slightest? How are black people going to overcome all the millions of ways we whiteys have marginalized them over the centuries without taking drastic measures like this?

Do you even understand generational wealth?

Do you not see how different it is for black people, Asian people, latinx people, etc. to succeed in America?

No, you probably don't. And that's the problem.

But if you can't even imagine a nation in which non-white people have more of a say in how this nation is run, how our businesses run, how our finances are allocated...then you need to re-read that definition and understand that you ARE a white supremacist.

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