Explaining the Threats of White Supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favours the maintenance and defence of white power and privilege. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism, and was a key justification for colonialism. It underlies a spectrum of contemporary movements […]
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favours the maintenance and defence of white power and privilege. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism, and was a key justification for colonialism. It underlies a spectrum of contemporary movements including neo-confederates, neo-Nazism and Christian Identity.
Different forms of white supremacy put forth different conceptions of who is considered white (though the exemplar is generally light-skinned, blond-haired, and blue-eyed, or ‘Aryan’ traits most common in northern Europe), and groups of white supremacists identify various racial and ethnic enemies, most commonly those of African ancestry, Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia and Jews.
As a political ideology, it imposes and maintains social, economical and historical or institutional domination by white people. This ideology has been put into effect through socioeconomic and legal structures such as the Atlantic Slave in the United States, the White Australia policies from the 1890s to the mid-1970s and apartheid in South Africa In addition, this ideology is embodied in the “White power” social movement. Since the early 1980s, the White power movement has been committed to overthrowing the United States Government and establishing a white homeland using paramilitary tactics.
White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are becoming a transnational threat that must be fought with global coordinated action, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said on Monday.
“These and other groups have exploited the pandemic to boost their ranks through social polarization, political and cultural manipulation,’’ he told the UN Human Rights Council.
The COVID-19 crisis deepens the divide between those who are privileged and those who are marginalized, Guterres said.
He also criticised that some governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to crush dissent.
“We are seeing a vicious circle of violations’’ amid the pandemic, Guterres stated.
