That "White Supremacy Culture in Organizations" guide you linked to is a bizarre document - it's like a bunch of random "how to build a good organizational culture" advice that's been branded as having something to do with anti-racism despite the lack of a clear connection. I guess it's branding things like "perfectionism" or "power concentration" as inherently white, or inherently white supremacist? Nonsensical on it's face if so.
Honestly I too don't find the attribution of all those cultural characteristics to whiteness or white supremacy that convincing. I think the argumentation offered in the references provided by Krista below does clarify things somewhat, but there is still something over-broad about the approach in my view.
However, you don't have to accept the entirety of the analysis to accept that something went badly wrong here, and regardless of the origins of the characteristics in question, they are clearly toxic to organizations.
BIPOC thought leaders have done endless amounts of labor defining the ways white supremacy is perpetuated. These traits are discussed and defined in all sorts of different academic literature. I'm not sure what qualifications any of us have to disagree? I am 100% invested in believing BIPOC folks when they say that these characteristics infiltrate culture and perpetuate white supremacy, instead of nitpicking their definitions (which, to be direct, is one way BIPOC voices are often silenced). Just because some trait is also problematic in other, non-race-related ways doesn't mean it isn't a tool of white supremacy. And unless we are willing to actually NAME it, how are we actually going to stop perpetuating it? How are we going to remove it from our institutions?
I'd say it's our duty as participants in the intellectual world to engage critically with what we read and disagree when necessary. Blindly parroting what others say without actually thinking it through is irresponsible.
My issue here is that it doesn't make sense to link "white culture" broadly with these random negative organizational characteristics. We should confront bad organizational practices where we see them, and remove them by trying to improve the organization's culture and practices. If you're concerned about the concentration of power in an organization for example you should be thinking about ways to decentralize decision making or make leaders accountable. Racializing the issue just makes that harder by shifting people's attention away from concrete, practical solutions and towards vague resentment of other ethnic groups.
I'm going to frame my response as though you're white, though I don't know for sure. If that's an incorrect assumption, my apologies, but I do believe these points are still salient.
And my point is that "it's our duty to engage critically and disagree when necessary!" is a tactic that white people -- including self-described allies, and it seems like *especially* white folks in the atheist/skeptic community -- have used for ages to silence BIPOC people. It's also paternalism which -- you guessed it! -- is a tool of white supremacy culture.
You can disagree all you want, but at the end of the day, BIPOC folks get to define their oppression and they get to decide how best to fight it. We do not know better than them. We do not have the framework or experience. If we really want to end oppression, it is our job as white people to listen and follow, not opine and lead. Everything else is counterproductive.
I think this is the key insight. We are all entitled to exercise our minds and make a judgment as to the quality of a set of ideas. That’s a core component of our intellectual freedom and our dignity as human beings. But in cases such as this that is a secondary concern to the justice work we are called to do. This is a matter of injustice working through our institutional structures, and we are being asked to work to change that.
Huh that is a very strange framing - surely the paternalistic view is saying that non-whites are too fragile to be engaged with critically or disagreed with? I think reading someone's ideas in good faith and giving your honest response is the greatest sign of respect you can offer to those ideas. Sure it doesn't guarantee that you'll accept and agree with those ideas, but that's not something you can (or at least should!) guarantee. There's more diversity of thought within each race than there is between them, it's not really possible to use "this is what people in community X think about this topic" as an end run around actually engaging with the topic.
Krista, 100% agree with you. When bringing up the Eurocentric ideology in a recent presentation on Humanism and how it denigrated and insulted the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples around the world, I was met with defensiveness, arrogance and disdain. Pointing out the colonizer mentality, referring to our ancient knowledge as "Myth" while praising the "knowledge & wisdom" of European philosophers, was too much to bear for the white supremacist mentality of the presenter and even some in attendance. Even when I pointed out thousands and thousands of years of our knowledge of astronomy, medicine, math, architecture, art, psychology, etc, I was dismissed and met with anger. As a professional woman of mixed race, Native American and African, I am used to it and will never be silenced. Thank you for your wisdom sharing.
Yeah no comment meant on the actual organizational issue at hand except to the extent anyone referencing that document slightly damages their own credibility by doing so - I do not feel remotely informed or qualified to judge this sort of internal squabble between a bunch of people I know nothing about. Abstract position papers making big theoretical claims are a lot easier to digest and form an opinion on than messy human drama.
Nah, those elements of white supremacy culture have been defined over time in academia. That guide is just a reference to earlier, more elaborate works. Examples:
Judith Katz – Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States, 1985.
Robette Ann Dias – Transforming Institutional Values: Revisited, 2008.
Joseph Barndt – Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America, 2007
Barbara Major – How does White Privilege Show Up in Foundation and Community Initiatives? from Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building
I appreciate you taking the time and energy to list these resources out here Krista! The characteristics of white supremacy culture have indeed been rigorously defined by numerous scholars of color. Disagreeing with or feeling confused by reading one summary document intended to be used by those who already understand the underlying scholarship does not entitle any of us to dismiss decades of well thought-out work. When I find myself in this situation, I try to have the humility to recognize that my lack of understanding may have more to do with my ignorance than a problem with the scholarship (I fail to understand much of particle physics, and I don't sit around second-guessing those researchers or calling their work nonsensical! I am the ignorant one, and I defer to the specialists). I encourage anyone (especially those socialized as white) who have feelings of skepticism about these aspects of white supremacy culture to at least read the actual body of literature/listen to the talks by experts before rendering public judgement. And then to approach one's own negative reactions with an equal measure of skepticism, given the weight that our white socialization has on our decision-making processes. Whether it's particle physics or white supremacy, a good rule of thumb is, if I disagree with an expert, and I am not myself an expert, then my disagreement is likely a sign that I have more learning to do.
Some of these "experts" are not accepted as such by many others whose qualifications are just as good if not better. For example, Robin Di Angelo calls herself a "race scholar." Is she? Depends on whom one asks.
And yes, they ARE saying that those attributes are inherent to "white culture." It took me awhile to get my head around that idea, too (because, like, not all white folks are perfectionists for example??), but if you think about the fact that those are the cultural values in effect, and the culture has been formed and shaped by white people (and whiteness) since at least the founding of this country, and all attributes of other cultures were suppressed, then it makes more sense. And we all just kinda default into these things without thinking about them - the culture perpetuates itself.
Plus, those attributes are routinely weaponized by folks in power (cough white folks) to keep that power and oppress others, which makes them tools of white supremacy culture.
A good example of the way this can play out is this Twitter thread that's been floating around about "real talk" - https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1353902811868618758 And it applies here, I think -- the Alliances were trying to use "Real Talk" with the Board, and it was NOT received well.
Seems like this is conflating "white culture", "white supremacy", and "problematic organizational practices." White Americans have their own idiosyncratic cultural traits like any other group, and there's nothing problematic about that. There's no need to purge "whiteness" or "white culture" from our lives anymore than their is a need to purge Frenchness or French culture, or blackness or black culture. The only way these groups will stop having distinctive cultural traits is if they merge and stop being distinct groups at all - which sounds nice I guess but doesn't seem like it's on the agenda.
It seems like the actual race-related issue here is the culture clash resulting from non-whites joining white-dominated organizations. That's of course a very real issue that brings a lot of people a lot of grief, but it's clearly not something that can be resolved by changing white culture in such a way that culture clashes no longer happen. Those will be with us as long as cultural diversity is, and are best dealt with by promoting tolerance and cultural competency, not trying to problematize one of the cultures in question. Cultural differences can of course be a tool of white supremacy in that they're way to pick out and discriminate against non-whites, but only in the same sense that skin color differences can be a tool of white supremacy for the same "helps with picking out and discriminating against non-whites" reason.
On the other hand there are some issues like perfectionism or the concentration of power that are problematic ways for organizations to operate, but aren't particularly associated with one culture or another. We should definitely oppose those... but it's weird and likely counterproductive to frame that opposition through the lens of racial stereotypes and ethnic conflict.
I appreciate this assessment and your courage to share your honest thoughts! Also, I resonate with your characterization of realizing how institutional change works. I had the same experience doing equity and justice work in the independent school context.
That "White Supremacy Culture in Organizations" guide you linked to is a bizarre document - it's like a bunch of random "how to build a good organizational culture" advice that's been branded as having something to do with anti-racism despite the lack of a clear connection. I guess it's branding things like "perfectionism" or "power concentration" as inherently white, or inherently white supremacist? Nonsensical on it's face if so.
Honestly I too don't find the attribution of all those cultural characteristics to whiteness or white supremacy that convincing. I think the argumentation offered in the references provided by Krista below does clarify things somewhat, but there is still something over-broad about the approach in my view.
However, you don't have to accept the entirety of the analysis to accept that something went badly wrong here, and regardless of the origins of the characteristics in question, they are clearly toxic to organizations.
BIPOC thought leaders have done endless amounts of labor defining the ways white supremacy is perpetuated. These traits are discussed and defined in all sorts of different academic literature. I'm not sure what qualifications any of us have to disagree? I am 100% invested in believing BIPOC folks when they say that these characteristics infiltrate culture and perpetuate white supremacy, instead of nitpicking their definitions (which, to be direct, is one way BIPOC voices are often silenced). Just because some trait is also problematic in other, non-race-related ways doesn't mean it isn't a tool of white supremacy. And unless we are willing to actually NAME it, how are we actually going to stop perpetuating it? How are we going to remove it from our institutions?
I'd say it's our duty as participants in the intellectual world to engage critically with what we read and disagree when necessary. Blindly parroting what others say without actually thinking it through is irresponsible.
My issue here is that it doesn't make sense to link "white culture" broadly with these random negative organizational characteristics. We should confront bad organizational practices where we see them, and remove them by trying to improve the organization's culture and practices. If you're concerned about the concentration of power in an organization for example you should be thinking about ways to decentralize decision making or make leaders accountable. Racializing the issue just makes that harder by shifting people's attention away from concrete, practical solutions and towards vague resentment of other ethnic groups.
I'm going to frame my response as though you're white, though I don't know for sure. If that's an incorrect assumption, my apologies, but I do believe these points are still salient.
And my point is that "it's our duty to engage critically and disagree when necessary!" is a tactic that white people -- including self-described allies, and it seems like *especially* white folks in the atheist/skeptic community -- have used for ages to silence BIPOC people. It's also paternalism which -- you guessed it! -- is a tool of white supremacy culture.
You can disagree all you want, but at the end of the day, BIPOC folks get to define their oppression and they get to decide how best to fight it. We do not know better than them. We do not have the framework or experience. If we really want to end oppression, it is our job as white people to listen and follow, not opine and lead. Everything else is counterproductive.
I think this is the key insight. We are all entitled to exercise our minds and make a judgment as to the quality of a set of ideas. That’s a core component of our intellectual freedom and our dignity as human beings. But in cases such as this that is a secondary concern to the justice work we are called to do. This is a matter of injustice working through our institutional structures, and we are being asked to work to change that.
Huh that is a very strange framing - surely the paternalistic view is saying that non-whites are too fragile to be engaged with critically or disagreed with? I think reading someone's ideas in good faith and giving your honest response is the greatest sign of respect you can offer to those ideas. Sure it doesn't guarantee that you'll accept and agree with those ideas, but that's not something you can (or at least should!) guarantee. There's more diversity of thought within each race than there is between them, it's not really possible to use "this is what people in community X think about this topic" as an end run around actually engaging with the topic.
This is pretty basic anti-racism stuff, so the internet is full of counters to this exact argument. I hope you'll spend some time reading them.
Krista, 100% agree with you. When bringing up the Eurocentric ideology in a recent presentation on Humanism and how it denigrated and insulted the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples around the world, I was met with defensiveness, arrogance and disdain. Pointing out the colonizer mentality, referring to our ancient knowledge as "Myth" while praising the "knowledge & wisdom" of European philosophers, was too much to bear for the white supremacist mentality of the presenter and even some in attendance. Even when I pointed out thousands and thousands of years of our knowledge of astronomy, medicine, math, architecture, art, psychology, etc, I was dismissed and met with anger. As a professional woman of mixed race, Native American and African, I am used to it and will never be silenced. Thank you for your wisdom sharing.
Yeah no comment meant on the actual organizational issue at hand except to the extent anyone referencing that document slightly damages their own credibility by doing so - I do not feel remotely informed or qualified to judge this sort of internal squabble between a bunch of people I know nothing about. Abstract position papers making big theoretical claims are a lot easier to digest and form an opinion on than messy human drama.
Nah, those elements of white supremacy culture have been defined over time in academia. That guide is just a reference to earlier, more elaborate works. Examples:
https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html
https://www.dismantlingracism.org/white-supremacy-culture.html
Tema Okun – White Supremacy Culture, 2001.
Judith Katz – Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States, 1985.
Robette Ann Dias – Transforming Institutional Values: Revisited, 2008.
Joseph Barndt – Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America, 2007
Barbara Major – How does White Privilege Show Up in Foundation and Community Initiatives? from Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building
I appreciate you taking the time and energy to list these resources out here Krista! The characteristics of white supremacy culture have indeed been rigorously defined by numerous scholars of color. Disagreeing with or feeling confused by reading one summary document intended to be used by those who already understand the underlying scholarship does not entitle any of us to dismiss decades of well thought-out work. When I find myself in this situation, I try to have the humility to recognize that my lack of understanding may have more to do with my ignorance than a problem with the scholarship (I fail to understand much of particle physics, and I don't sit around second-guessing those researchers or calling their work nonsensical! I am the ignorant one, and I defer to the specialists). I encourage anyone (especially those socialized as white) who have feelings of skepticism about these aspects of white supremacy culture to at least read the actual body of literature/listen to the talks by experts before rendering public judgement. And then to approach one's own negative reactions with an equal measure of skepticism, given the weight that our white socialization has on our decision-making processes. Whether it's particle physics or white supremacy, a good rule of thumb is, if I disagree with an expert, and I am not myself an expert, then my disagreement is likely a sign that I have more learning to do.
Some of these "experts" are not accepted as such by many others whose qualifications are just as good if not better. For example, Robin Di Angelo calls herself a "race scholar." Is she? Depends on whom one asks.
And yes, they ARE saying that those attributes are inherent to "white culture." It took me awhile to get my head around that idea, too (because, like, not all white folks are perfectionists for example??), but if you think about the fact that those are the cultural values in effect, and the culture has been formed and shaped by white people (and whiteness) since at least the founding of this country, and all attributes of other cultures were suppressed, then it makes more sense. And we all just kinda default into these things without thinking about them - the culture perpetuates itself.
Plus, those attributes are routinely weaponized by folks in power (cough white folks) to keep that power and oppress others, which makes them tools of white supremacy culture.
A good example of the way this can play out is this Twitter thread that's been floating around about "real talk" - https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1353902811868618758 And it applies here, I think -- the Alliances were trying to use "Real Talk" with the Board, and it was NOT received well.
Seems like this is conflating "white culture", "white supremacy", and "problematic organizational practices." White Americans have their own idiosyncratic cultural traits like any other group, and there's nothing problematic about that. There's no need to purge "whiteness" or "white culture" from our lives anymore than their is a need to purge Frenchness or French culture, or blackness or black culture. The only way these groups will stop having distinctive cultural traits is if they merge and stop being distinct groups at all - which sounds nice I guess but doesn't seem like it's on the agenda.
It seems like the actual race-related issue here is the culture clash resulting from non-whites joining white-dominated organizations. That's of course a very real issue that brings a lot of people a lot of grief, but it's clearly not something that can be resolved by changing white culture in such a way that culture clashes no longer happen. Those will be with us as long as cultural diversity is, and are best dealt with by promoting tolerance and cultural competency, not trying to problematize one of the cultures in question. Cultural differences can of course be a tool of white supremacy in that they're way to pick out and discriminate against non-whites, but only in the same sense that skin color differences can be a tool of white supremacy for the same "helps with picking out and discriminating against non-whites" reason.
On the other hand there are some issues like perfectionism or the concentration of power that are problematic ways for organizations to operate, but aren't particularly associated with one culture or another. We should definitely oppose those... but it's weird and likely counterproductive to frame that opposition through the lens of racial stereotypes and ethnic conflict.
I appreciate this assessment and your courage to share your honest thoughts! Also, I resonate with your characterization of realizing how institutional change works. I had the same experience doing equity and justice work in the independent school context.