The Truth About White Supremacy: American History X

Andrea Smith in the “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” argues how women who are victimized by white supremacy should not be joined a union based on their oppression because they are oppressed differently. She describes the previous framework having five races, which are Native women, Black women, Arab/Muslim women, Latinas and Asian women all mix into one group of women of color. She proposes viewing oppression of women of color through a model known as the “Three Pillars of White Supremacy.” The three pillars are divided into Slavery/ Capitalism, Genocide/Capitalism, and Orientalism/War.

Unfair laboring and immigration in the United States has affected Latinas/os lives for decades. In the United States millions of Latina/o citizens, emigrants, and immigrants have dealt with bias, racially segregated, and limited positions in regards to labor. They have been limited to blue collar jobs with low wages, no benefits, and hardly any raises. In the article, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy”, Andrea Smith argues, “This framework does not assume that racism and white supremacy is enacted in a singular fashion; rather, white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logics.” (Smith 67). I believe that Andrea Smith’s two of the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Genocide/Colonialism and Orientalism/War fits with Latina/o labor and immigration. I also believe that her first pillar of Slavery/Capitalism could be displayed slightly differently to be more suitable with Latina/o labor and immigration. In this paper I will argue how the two out of the three pillars fit with Latina/o labor and immigration. I will also argue and propose a new pillar to represent Latinas/os labor and immigration. I will also argue how sexuality, power, and gender play a role in these three pillars.

Growing up in the United States, racism is an issue one cannot help but hear about at one point or another. Racial inequality and discrimination is a topic that comes up every February with Black History Month, and is often talked about in high school history classes around the country. But that is what it is considered to the majority of people: history. Most students are taught that, while there are still and will always be individual cases of racial discrimination and racism, nationally the problem ended with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. People of color, however, will often tell you differently. At least that is what they told Tim Wise,

In the year 1898 in the town of Wilmington, North Carolina a riot occurred between the African American inhabitants and the white minority of the city. Several historians accuse the origin of the riot on racism and white supremacy. Although these two beliefs have been around for countless years, and African Americans received the right to vote almost thirty years’ prior, no demonstration nor aggressive threats, to the point in which was seen in 1898, had occurred in Wilmington until that year. The Wilmington Race Riot was the reaction of the “sociopolitical conditions” that were being applied by the Democratic Party to win the election through a sequence of diabolical campaign tactics just like creating partial accusations about the “negroes” of the town thus, creating unconstitutional practices, and threatening their existence.

These negative portrayals of Mexicans fuels an already existing stigma. Griffin reinforces these archetypes through film and this in turn can lead to the

After the Reconstruction era, African Americans were granted citizenry in the United States through the abolition of slavery. As blacks sought to live among American culture, white citizens, primarily based in the South, came under rage. Thus, white supremacy became prominent in the United States after the Reconstruction era, a period also called the Nadir. This erupted into a series of violent attacks against the black community and many legislations to deny blacks the immunities and privileges granted to all people in the constitution.

Many white Americans are living with the fear that they didn't really deserve their success, and that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it, than brains and hard work. There are numerous reasons for the widespread discrimination at all levels, but the main reason for the existence of discrimination is a privilege to certain groups of people, and widespread social prejudice towards certain groups of people. Differences between people have always existed, but they gain in importance only when are different importance given to certain differences, so it creates privileges. People who are privileged in one society are often not aware of their privilege. It is very easy to be oblivious to the privilege. The problem of discrimination

An ideology or a belief system toward a group of people usually originates from economic need for labor and the distribution of resources. Who will provide the labor with little reward and who will benefit from that labor with little manual labor characterizes many cultural dynamics and institutions. Racism, especially in the U.S., isn’t exempt from this construction, for races is a social construction emerging from power fluctuations that results in an unequal resource distribution. Racial ideology provides reason for the race illusion and in turn strengthens it enough for it to become subtle and seemingly fundamental to American policy, both public and private. The three-part film RACE: The Power of an Illusion, an anthropology textbook Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age written by Kenneth Guest, Leith Mullings’ article Trayvon Martin, Race, and Anthropology, and Elson Boles’ entry Ruth Benedict’s Japan: the Benedictions of Imperialism all give voice historically and scientifically to explain, not justify, and hopefully inspire the public to work to erase racial prejudice. All of these works expose contemporary American society’s discrimination to combat the “color-blind” ideology that

The history of African Americans in early Hollywood films originated with blacks representing preconceived stereotypes. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, stirred many controversial issues within the black community. The fact that Griffith used white actors in blackface to portray black people showed how little he knew about African Americans. Bosley Crowther’s article “The Birth of Birth of a Nation” emphasizes that the film was a “highly pro-South drama of the American Civil War and the Period of Reconstruction, and it glorified the role of the Ku Klux Klan” (76). While viewing this film, one would assert that the Ku Klux Klan members are heroic forces that rescue white women from sexually abusive black men. Griffith

Cleaver, E. “The White Race and Its Heroes.” in Souls on Ice, 65-83. New York: Dell Press, 1968.

Imperialism and then colonialism opened the floodgates that are troubled race relations, racism, and misguided societal values. Race has played a vital role in how Americans view each other, and themselves, and the experiences that they have. We constantly hear about institutionalized racism, the school-to-prison pipeline and police brutality on the news. The topic of race has such an enormous presence in our society that it simply cannot be ignored. But what is rarely talked about is how these conditions are incredibly similar to those that people in Latin America have to endure as well. Racism does not end at the borders of the United States, and in fact, they only seem to get worse in countries that are less developed.

Domestic terrorism has been at the fore front of terrorism the same as foreign terrorism. The biggest number of terrorists attacks that have been successfully carried out in the United States, were by US citizens who had no ties to foreign terrorist groups. Currently in American society, the far right wing extremist groups is the greatest leading threat to American security. The leading group of the right wing extremist that pose the greatest threat is the white supremacist groups.

In the series X-Men, it is apparent that there a lot of social issues that could be comparable to the history, and even current realities, of minority groups in America. A main issue in every X-Men movie, which is especially noticeable in The Last Stand, is the negative attitudes and persecutions from the humans, that the mutants have to live with on a daily basis. In many ways this is similar to the negative stereotypes and prejudices that people of color, gays, women, and many other minority groups have dealt with in the past and right now in the present. What differentiates minority groups, making them an easy target of discrimination, is that they are simply born different from those in power.

Antifa is a social revolution, they reject turning to the police to stop the advance of white supremacy. Instead they turn to violence when trying to get a point across.For example, they are the cause for smashing storefronts, setting things on fire, hurting police and more. They claim to be anti-racists. They track local neo-Nazis. They have public campaigns. They support migrants and refugees. They also stress venues to drop white power events. Ever since President Trump’s election, they have become more active and have had many public campaigns. After Trump’s victory in 2016 more and more outbreaks of violence from these antifa activists have come about. Recently, antifa protesters threw glass bottles and bricks at police when watching a

What is white power? White power is “the belief, theory, or doctrine that white people are inherently superior to people from all other racial groups, especially black people, and are therefore rightfully the dominant group in any society”(Dictionary.com 2015). Some view this as racism and others view white power as just a belief, depending on the upbringing that an individual has had. The question lies do we as a society hold the right to take away a child from a home that is expressing hate or is this going against the Canadian Charter of Rights?