16d (edited) • Whiteness
White supremacy culture is the water we swim
Activist Tema Okun popularized the concept of White Supremacy Culture (WSC) to refer to a system of characteristics used as cultural norms without being proactively named by society. WSC can be exhibited by individuals of any background in ways that privilege the White dominant culture over other cultural understandings. Okun (2021) states that “White supremacy culture is the water we swim...introduced by the power elite to hoard power and profit and to create disconnection that are grounded in a history.”
White people in particular are conditioned to see themselves as raceless and to remain blind as to how race structures social institutions (Bonilla-Silva & Ashe, 2014). Emotional and intellectual resistance against learning about the true history of BIPOC dehumanization is also a common reaction due to guilt, shame, and miseducation around U.S.-American identity (Browne et al., 2008). As a result, WSC continues to sustain social inequity through a range of informal and formal means of control.
This dialogue with Tema Okun promotes understanding about the effects of WSC on institutions, communities, and individuals. Importantly, it seeks to shed light on the daily impact of WSC on our well-being and relationships to one another.
Webinar moderators: SPSSI Graduate Student Committee Chair Tina R. Lee (Columbia University), Diversity Officer Chelsie Burchett (Stony Brook University), and SURJ organizer Sammie Sachs. This event was organized by the SPSSI Graduate Student Committee as part of its Spring 2022 webinar series.
Links shared at the end of the webinar: Divorcing WSC website: https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ Registration page for SPSSI's next webinar: http://www.spssi.org/dsp_emailhandler... SURJ National website: https://surj.org/
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White supremacy culture is the water we swim
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