White supremacy is most often represented in pop culture and the news as something either in the past or exiled to the fringes of society (see Part 1). But the same term is also sometimes applied to US society as a whole, and even progressive groups like the women and men gathered for the Women’s March on Washington in the picture above. How can the same term that describes prison gangs, criminals, Nazis, the KKK, and overtly hateful white nationalists also be used to describe a completely peaceful, multi-racial protest rallying for women’s rights? The difference is between direct racism and structural racism (also called institutional or systemic racism). Pop culture usually focuses on stories of direct racism. That’s because it’s pretty easy for cops or superheroes to kill or lock up one violently racist person or group, and that makes for a good story with a clear hero and a clean ending. But because so many stories about white supremacy create the idea that it is something outside the bounds of normal society, or even a historical phenomenon that’s been completely conquered, as viewers or consumers, we often get the idea that we don’t have to be concerned about it. It might even make us dismiss the idea of structural white supremacy as an exaggeration or even just plain wrong. But if pop culture can convince us to believe structural white supremacy doesn’t exist, really it’s just convinced us not to do anything about it.
Structural white supremacy is a historical fact. It is the extremely durable and powerful legacy of European colonialism and slavery. In fact, it is so embedded in American and European culture that it can be hard to see (Richard Dyer, for example, writes about the invisibility of whiteness as a racial category), especially for white people who benefit from it just by being who they are.
It is not just an American problem either. It is built in to the cultures of American, British, and other colonial or formerly colonial cultures. In other words, it’s part of the history of the institutions like schools, government, law enforcement, and even Hollywood and pop culture industries that people interact with and use every day. Because structural white supremacy is so big and so much a part of daily life, it can be difficult for those who benefit from it—mostly middle- and upper-class white people, but all white people to some degree—to even see it or acknowledge that it exists. As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva says, it’s racism without racists. He also says that white supremacy is shorthand for “racialized social systems,” which means all the rules and laws, written and unwritten, that give people of European descent privileges and powers that non-Europeans, people of color, don’t have access to.
So how does the image above represent structural white supremacy? In one sense, this is a picture of a vast crowd. It’s given meaning and made personal, almost intimate, however, by the sign that takes up the most space and the dead center of the frame. The raised clenched fist in the middle of the female symbol connotes feminist power and resistance. The downward facing plus at the bottom of the symbol works like an arrow pointing directly to the woman holding the sign. This pale white woman in her pink pussy hat (the home knit hats were designed for the March and appeared in solidarity marches around the world) becomes the real subject of the photo because hers is the only face in total focus, facing directly toward the camera, and highlighted by the shape and positioning of her sign. She’s the most important person in this picture. Now look at the crowd. There are a couple of men, a couple women of color, and a sea of white faces. White supremacy isn’t about sheer numbers, but this picture is representative of the vast majority of pictures from the historically large protests on January 21, 2017. Most of the news coverage of the marches did not mention race as a major component of the protests; this was represented as a feminist action for all women. But we can see from this picture, it did not at all equally represent all women. The large majority of marchers were white. That is white supremacy in action because the concerns of white women were presented as the concerns of all women.* That leaves out the possibility of women of color having problems that might be specific and less relevant to white women. It also covers up a big issue raised by the picture below: that 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump, who continuously made directly racist remarks during his campaign.
(Photo Credit: Kevin Banatte)
This picture of Angela Peoples went viral after the Women’s March. You can read an interview with the activist in The Root. Let’s compare this image to the one above. Just like the one above, it shows us a crowd of almost entirely white faces. The difference in this image is that our attention is divided between two sections of the frame: the bottom left foreground where Ms. Peoples holds a sign reading Don’t forget: White Women Voted for Trump; and the top right background where three white women in pink pussy hats are using their phones, one of them taking a selfie. The contrast between these two quadrants of the photo is pretty stark. The white women are blonde, dressed in combinations of pink and other bright colors. Two of them smile; they seem happy to be part of a celebratory event. Selfies are often considered selfish or narcissistic (that’s not to say they are, just that pop culture often represents them that way). It’s common to criticize people in any circumstances for engaging with their phones rather than being “present” or “in the moment.” Because we’re reading the photo itself, and not trying to read the minds of the people in it, we also notice that the white women are not just at the top of the frame (a position of power, usually), but that they are standing on a barrier literally elevated above the rest of the crowd. This creates a little space around them, even within a big group of people. That extra space makes them stand out. It draws our eye to them and their bright pink hats. It gives them privilege (attention) within the frame. That attention is a metaphor for the privilege they (and all white people to varying degrees) experience in real life. Getting us viewers to notice all those visual cues and understand that metaphor is the purpose of this picture.
The foreground provides a stark contrast. African American Peoples wears a camouflage coat, a white hat, looks away from the camera, and sucks on a lollypop. She doesn’t smile or wear the bright happy colors that appear in the other section of the photo. The position of her sign makes it look like a caption for what’s happening behind her. And it is. Peoples is an activist and with this photograph she is trying to make structural white supremacy visible. In the interview with The Root, speaking of white women, she says, “I need them to recognize they are implicit or complicit benefactors of systems like white supremacy and patriarchy—and that’s a problem.” Her use of the word systems is really important to her point. She is not accusing the women behind her or any of the white women at the protests of taking racist actions. To be complicit with white supremacy means to benefit from the color of your skin, without even noticing that you have an advantage. These two pictures show us how easy it is for white people to be surrounded by people who look like them, and more importantly, how easy it can be for white people not to notice they’re surrounded by similar people. Starting to see how dominant white skin is in popular culture, in politics, and even in progressive causes like feminism is the first step toward breaking down structural white supremacy. It’s the first step toward not just being not racist, but being anti-racist.
Post by Jorie Lagerwey
*For more on why there are conflicts within the feminist movement, see our upcoming post on Intersectionality.
Sources Cited
Brooke Obie, “Woman in Viral Photo from Women’s March to White Female Allies: ‘Listen to a Black Woman,’” The Root January 23, 2016.
Top photo: The New York Times, January 21, 2017 (photo credit: Ruth Fremson)
Further Reading
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America 4th edition (Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014)
Richard Dyer, White: Essays on Race and Culture (London: Routledge, 1997)
Decoding Media 