White Supremacy is White Exclusion

Dear Reader,

White supremacy, power, and privilege have been the buzzwords of 2020. Unfortunately, these phrases continue to consume our attention as a virginal 2021’s evolves into an attempted coup, impeachment process, tumultuous pandemic, and our country’s uncertain democracy. As we sit stunned (hopefully not newly, but better late than never I guess), angry, and tired, let me remind our dear readers of a fact that has become painfully clear during this firestorm: American Whiteness is exclusion. White supremacy, the notion that white people comprise a superior race in America, is built intrinsically on the exclusion of other racial and ethnic groups. Importantly, as predominantly white spaces finally perform the long-overdue Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Oppression (DEIA) work, let us not forget that Inclusion is a concept created and perpetuated by white exclusivity to co-opt the one thing they shouldn’t be able to — being oppressed.

Whiteness in America is entirely built around the concept of power through physical, mental, and legal exclusion of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Middle Eastern Americans. (This is not a lesson in history, but you are also not the type of reader who needs reminder of the current and past events in our nation’s history which support this.) American Whiteness further derives power by dictating who is included, providing a tantalizing escape from the hum-drum of minority existence. The historic conceptualization of Whiteness in America points to how specific groups like Italian, Polish, Jewish, and Cuban (?) people were initially excluded, but then able to ascribe to White ideals, find inclusion, and eventually acceptance into Whiteness. Even before then, the British, Dutch, and French colonizers commandeered the concept of Whiteness to find safety and exclusion from Native Americans.

If Whiteness is exclusion from others, that dictates who is included, then what are the rest of us being excluded from? What did the BIPOC Trump supporters who stormed the capitol want so badly that they were willing to lose face within their own BIPOC communities? The answer is nothing. American Whiteness has no culture, no intrinsic value-add. Its entire appeal lies in the power and superiority that exists in its exclusion. American Whiteness is a co-opted concept, lacking intrinsic language, religion, food, tradition. Along the way, some were invited into Whiteness, while others excluded based on arbitrary phenotypes. However, the tantalizing allure of exclusivity plus an early socialization of Whiteness as desirability, continues to draw BIPOC folks to see ourselves and fit in with Whiteness.

So what does this mean for the well-meaning White person reading this essay? The concept of inclusion in predominantly White institutions is rooted in historic oppression and ultimately paradoxical — one cannot have inclusion championed by a system built on exclusion. Inclusion initiatives allows the white person to perform DEIA/activism, without getting at the root of the problem. Stop focusing on how to include BIPOCs into your own White spaces, how to redefine your concept of exclusivity and prestige to match what’s vogue, how to tokenize the select few to meet your definition of diversity. Start thinking about how you can dismantle White exclusivity and White supremacy by uplifting Black, Indigenous, and POC colleagues (present and future), even at the cost of your own career advancement. After all, haven’t we all learned that equity is about giving folks differential resources to achieve a common goal? Commit to equity and anti-oppression, and leave the paradoxical diversity and inclusion out of this.

And to my fellow BIPOC, tired, angry Americans? The majority of Americans will be “minorities” in 20 years. The majority of new-born Americans already belong to BIPOC communities. Don’t define America in default Whiteness, in default exclusion. Instead, make America into the multicultural space that White people love claiming it already is. Imagine American leaders, institutions, media stars, celebrities, families as BIPOC, and then go out and manifest it into reality. Don’t settle for White inclusion, build your own institutions. The strength in the BIPOC collective is not built on exclusion, but in our own (very real) cultures.

Respectfully yours,

Anita Heaux