Knowra White supremacy White supremacy White supremacy is a system of beliefs, institutions, and practices that privileges white people and sustains racial hierarchy, through explicit ideology and unequal distributions of power and resources.
Racialization : The process through which people are assigned racial meanings and categories. Racialization creates and maintains the categories that white supremacy ranks.
European colonialism : The expansion of European states through overseas conquest, settlement, and rule. Colonial rule spread racial classifications and organized power around European dominance.
W. E. B. Du Bois : An American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist who analyzed the color line and racial inequality. His writing examined how racial hierarchy shaped law, labor, and political life.
White nationalism : A political ideology that seeks a nation or state defined by white identity and dominance. It is a more specific political project within the broader system of white supremacy.
Racial wealth gap : The difference in accumulated household wealth among racial groups. Generations of exclusion from property, credit, and high-paying work have shaped these disparities.
Institutional racism : Policies and practices within institutions that produce or preserve racial inequalities. Institutional racism embeds racial hierarchy in organizations and routine decisions.
Atlantic slave trade : The forced transportation of millions of Africans to the Americas and Europe from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Its racialized enslavement made white supremacy a foundation of wealth and law.
Ida B. Wells : An American journalist and activist who documented lynching and campaigned against racial violence. Her investigations exposed violence used to enforce white rule after emancipation.
Racism : Beliefs, practices, and institutions that assign significance to race and produce racial hierarchy or unequal treatment. White supremacy is a particular racial hierarchy, not a synonym for every form of racism.
Mass incarceration : The extensive use of imprisonment and related penal control, especially in the United States. Racial disparities in policing and punishment reveal how hierarchy operates through criminal justice.
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