White supremacy

White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to other racial groups. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance of whites.

White supremacy, as with racial supremacism in general, is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony. It is associated with varying degrees of racism as well as a desire for racial separation. White supremacy has often resulted in anti-black racism and antisemitism.

Different forms of white supremacy have different conceptions of whiteness, and not all white supremacist organizations agree on which group is their greatest enemy. White supremacists frequently consider Jews to be the gravest threat to their cause, because Jews are thought to be able to assimilate much more easily than other ethnic groups.

History

Politically, socially and economically, white supremacy was dominant in the United States before the American Civil War and for decades after Reconstruction; a core, unifying part of the separate Southern identity at the outbreak of the War was an uncompromising commitment to white supremacy. The same is true of Apartheid-era South Africa and of parts of Europe at various time periods; most notably under Nazi Germany's Third Reich. The extent and nature of white supremacy's continuing influence in western culture is a subject of ongoing debate. In some parts of the United States, many people who were considered non-white were disenfranchised, barred from government office, and prevented from holding most government jobs — well into the second half of the twentieth century. White leaders often viewed Native Americans (known as First Nations in Canada) and Australian Aborigines as obstacles to economic and political progress, rather than as settlers in their own right. Many European-settled countries bordering the Pacific Ocean limited immigration and naturalization from the Asian Pacific countries, usually on a cultural basis. Many U.S. states banned interracial marriage through so-called "anti-miscegenation laws" until 1967, when these laws were declared unconstitutional. South Africa maintained its white supremacist-like Apartheid system until the early 1990s.

The white supremacist ideology has become associated with a racist faction of the skinhead subculture, despite the fact that when the skinhead scene first developed in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, it was heavily influenced by Jamaican rude boys and British mods. By the 1980s, a sizable and vocal white power skinhead faction had formed.

White supremacist movements and ideologies

White supremacist groups can be found in most countries and regions with a significant white population, including North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Latin America. In all of these locations, their views represent a relatively small minority of the population, and active membership of the groups is quite small. However, a backlash to the influx of non-white immigrants into various European nations has spurred a rise in membership in such organizations, as well as an escalation in militant white supremacist demonstrations. The militant approach taken by white supremacist groups has caused them to be watched closely by law enforcement officials. Some European countries have laws forbidding hate speech, as well as other laws that ban or restrict some white supremacist organizations but not all.

Pan Aryanism

Another variant, Pan Aryanism, accepts native Europeans from all of continental Europe and extends its acceptance to non-European Caucasoids, such as some Middle Easterners, North Africans, and Central/West/South Asians. Yet this is usually on an individual basis and not all people from these regions are accepted by Pan-Aryanists as white. The acceptance of Middle Easterners in Pan-Aryanist ideology, Syrians, Lebanese, Turks, and Persians are accepted as white, but Saudis and Yemenites as a whole are not.

South Asian Caucasoids (Pakistanis, Northern Indians etc) as a whole may generally not be accepted in this ideology as well, however some Pan-Aryanists acknowledge and have disputing beliefs on lighter skinned people descended from Indo-Europeans in this region. An example is a textbook for those taking entrance examinations for the British Civil Service in the early 1900s categorically stated that Afghans and Berbers were in the highest classification, along with Northern Europeans, but above the Spanish and Italians. .

Nordicism

Those who follow the ideology of Nordicism and Germanism consider Northern European people who are Nordic (Scandinavians, Germans, and Dutch) to be superior, shunning those of Southern and Eastern Europe (who may have darker features and different cultures) along with anyone whose ethnic heritage is not European. In Madison Grant's 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race, Europeans who were not of Germanic origin and had Nordic characteristics such as blonde hair and light eyes were considered to be a Nordic admixture and suitable for Aryanization.

Religious movements

Members of the second Ku Klux Klan at a rally in 1923.

The Christian Identity movement, which is regarded by other branches of Christianity as heretical, is closely tied to white supremacy. Although the Ku Klux Klan's reasons for supporting racial segregation are not primarily based on religious ideals, some Klan groups are openly Christian Protestant because of their northern European/Germanic roots. Some white supremacists identify themselves as Odinists, although most Odinists reject white supremacy, and white supremacists make up only a small fraction of those who support Odinism (belief in the gods of Norse mythology). Some white supremacist groups, such as the South African Boeremag, conflate elements of Christianity and Odinism.

The World Church of the Creator, now called the Creativity Movement, believed that a person's race is his religion. Aside from this central belief, its ideology is similar to many Christian Identity groups, in the conviction that there is a Jewish conspiracy in control of the United States government, international banking, and the media. They claim that a Racial Holy War (RAHOWA), is destined to happen, which would eliminate Jews and "mud races," like, Italians from the planet. In the early 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in membership, due to the growing belief in the apocalypse.

See also

• Apartheid, a system of rule by white people in South Africa
• Institutional racism, racism created and reinforced by institutional power structures
• Master race, the belief that one race is or ought to be dominant
• Race and intelligence, a body of research investigating the differences in intelligence between races
• White Australia policy, an immigration policy in 20th century Australia which discriminated in favour of white people
• Jim Crow laws, racist laws made in the Southern United States during the 19th and 20th Centuries

Further reading

• Dobratz, Betty A. and Shanks-Meile, Stephanie. "White power, white pride!": The white separatist movement in the United States (Twayne Publishers, NY, 1997).
• Lincoln Rockwell, George. White Power (John McLaughlin, 1996).

External links

• "White Power" by George Lincoln Rockwell
• Anti-Defamation League article on white power music