System of White Supremacy and White Privilege

The New York Times reports that the term “white supremacy” was used fewer than 75 times in 2010, but nearly 700 times in 2020 alone (as of the article’s printing on Oct 17, 2020). In the past, the term construed extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis. Now this term refers to a political and socio-economic system where white people enjoy structural advantages and rights that other racial and ethnic groups do not. Many white people are unaware that this system exists, which is one of its successes.

Peggy McIntosh’s seminal article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” discusses the everydayness of unearned entitlements and advantages. White privilege includes powerful incentives for maintaining this privilege and its consequences, and powerful negative consequences for trying to interrupt or reduce its consequences.

To understand and accept white privilege is not an academic exercise. The responsibility is to internally and externally work to dismantle the system of white supremacy in all of its forms. The resources in this section discuss how to dismantle the system of white supremacy and decenter whiteness. Also, there are resources specifically for white people to identify white privilege, and “do the work” for racial justice in meaningful, accountable, and actionable ways.

---

Concepts and Analysis

Title	Author	Organization
Donald Trump Is Out. Are We Ready to Talk About How He Got In?	Ta-Nehisi Coates	The Atlantic
The White Left Needs to Embrace Black Leadership	Barbara Ransby	The Nation
“White Supremacy” Once Meant David Duke and the Klan. Now It Refers to Much More.	Michael Powell	The NY Times
Reckoning With White Supremacy: Five Fundamentals for White Folks	Lovey Cooper	Scalawag Magazine
The Disruption of White Supremacy	Mark Trahant	YES! Magazine
The Problem Is White Supremacy	Barbara Smith	Boston Globe
Accumulating Advantage: How is Health Impacted by Race and, Consequently, Class?		Unnatural Causes
Dreaming of a Self Beyond Whiteness and Isolation	john a. powell	Journal of Law and Policy
Fighting White Supremacy and White Privilege to Build a Human Rights Movement	Loretta Ross	Understanding and Dismantling Privilege
Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building	M. Potapchuk, S. Leiderman, D. Bivens, and B. Major	CAPD; MP Associates
The Anatomy of White Guilt	D. Martin	Unitarian Universalist Association
The Subtle Linguistics of Polite White Supremacy	Yawo Brown	TheMagicalNegro.net
The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing	Joe R. Feagin
What Is White Privilege?	Maggie Potapchuk	CAPD; MP Associates
What Is White Privilege?	Sharon Martinas
What’s Missing From “White Fragility”	Lauren Michele Jackson	SLATE
White Fragility	Robin DiAngelo	International Journal of Critical Pedagogy
White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies	Peggy McIntosh	Wellesley Centers for Women

History and Construction of Whiteness

Title	Author	Organization
What is White Supremacy?	Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez	Catalyst Project
White Identity in America Is Ideology, Not Biology. The History of “Whiteness” Proves It.	Nell Irvin Painter	NBC News
How White People Got Made	Quinn Norton	The Message
Seeing White podcast	John Biewen and Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika	Scene on Radio, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
Understanding Whiteness		Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre
Where White Privilege Came From	Allan G. Johnson

Resources

Title	Author	Organization
From White Fragility Graphic	Russell Nadel with Robin DiAngelo
White Too Long: How Racism Lives in the DNA of White Christianity in America Podcast	Robert P. Jones with Rev. Jim Wallis	Sojourners
A List of Privilege Lists	Ampersand	Alas! A Blog
Confronting Racism is Not About the Needs and Feelings of White People	Ijeoma Oluo	The Guardian
White Privilege: Let’s Talk – A Resource for Transformational Dialogue		United Church of Christ

Resources for White People

Title	Author	Organization
White Women Doing White Supremacy in Nonprofit Culture	Heather Laine Talley	Equity in the Center, Woke @ Work
The Promise: A Lesson in White Privilege	Phyllis Unterschuetz	The Race Story Rewrite Project
John Biewen The Long View, I: On Being White	Krista Tippett (host)	The On Being Project
Recommitting to Racial Justice: White People’s Work in the Days Ahead		Showing Up for Racial Justice
White Women: Our Role in Racial (In)Justice	Kathleen Osta	National Equity Project; Medium.com
A Cultural Somatic Reader on Whiteness, Trauma, and Allyship	Tada Hozumi	Selfish Activist
A Word for White People, in Two Parts	adrienne maree brown
How White Managers Can Respond to Anti-Black Violence	Michael Kraus	Yale Insights
Performing Whiteness	Sarah Bellamy	The Paris Review
What If…White People Took Responsibility for Our Role in This Moment?	Kathleen Osta	National Equity Project; Medium.com
What Is the Role for White People Working for Racial Justice in This Current Period?		A Joint Statement from the Organization for Black Struggle and the Anti-Racist Collective
Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston	Jon Greenberg	Citizenship and Social Justice
Dear White America	George Yancy	The NY Times
Detour-Spotting for White Anti-Racists	jona olsson	cultural bridges to justice (cbtj)
Developing a Positive White Identity		Unitarian Universalist Association
Discussion Guide for Towards the “Other America”: Anti-Racist Resources for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter	Chris Crass	Truthout
Doing the Work: Unearthing Our Own White Privilege	Maggie Potapchuk	MP Associates
Finding Myself in the Story of Race	Debby Irving	TEDx Fenway
From White Racist to Anti-Racist: The Life-Long Journey	Tema Okun	ChangeWork
Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies	Paul Kivel
Hey White People: A Kinda Awkward Note to America by #Ferguson Kids		FCKH8
Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible	Shakti Butler and Rick Butler	World Trust Educational Services
Opportunities for White People in the Fight for Racial Justice	Jonathan Osler	White Accomplices
Retaining Benefits, Avoiding Responsibility	Paul Kivel
Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ)		SURJ
Talking to Our People: SURJ Guide for Talking to White People in the Moment of Trump		SURJ

Tools and Practices

Title	Author	Organization
It’s Not Complicated — White People Must Do Their Part to Dismantle White Supremacy	Lisa Lasky	National Equity Project; Medium.com
Calling People In About “Violence”: How to Do It and Why It’s Important Right Now		Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
How to Talk to Your White Friends and Family About Privilege	Beatrice Hazelhurst	i-D
Justice in June	Autumn Gupta with Bryanna Wallace
What Can White People Do?	June Holley	Network Weaver Consultants Network
Aamer Rahman, Fear of a Brown Planet – Reverse Racism	Aamer Rahman	Fear of a Brown Planet
AWARE-LA Toolbox		AWARE-LA
Decentering Whiteness and Creating Equitable Conferences: A Tip Sheet	Natasha Aruliah, Sonali Sangeeta Balajee, et al.
How To Talk To Someone About Privilege Who Doesn’t Know What That Is	Jamie Utt	Everyday Feminism
Identifying White Privilege in Progressive and Radical Grassroots Movements	Sharon Martinas	Challenging White Supremacy
SONG on the Role of White People in the Movement at this Time		Southerners on New Ground (SONG)
White Benefits		SURJ
White Power and Privilege	Tim Wise, Peggy McIntosh, et al.	Unitarian Universalist Association

White Dominant Culture

Title	Author	Organization
White Women Doing White Supremacy in Nonprofit Culture	Heather Laine Talley	Tzedek Social Justice Fund
The Network Economic Effects of Whiteness	Brant T. Lee	American University Law Review
When White People Are Uncomfortable, Black People Are Silenced	Rachel Elizabeth Cargle	Harpers Bazaar
Decentering Whiteness	Jeff Hitchcock and Charley Flint	Center for the Study of White American Culture
Pushing Back Against Habits of White Supremacy During a Crisis	Kad Smith	CompassPoint Nonprofit Services