White Supremacy Culture
White Supremacy Culture is a 1999 essay by Tema Okun, an anti-racist educator, consultant, and social justice activist. In the essay, Okun proposes that certain values and behaviors—such as perfectionism, objectivity, and "worship of the written word"—are instantiations of white supremacy that may manifest in organizations and institutions, often unconsciously. The essay and its notion of "white supremacy culture" have become influential in the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) field, and have been used for diversity training by educational institutions, governments, progressive nonprofits, and other organizations. "White Supremacy Culture" has also attracted criticism regarding its validity, lack of supporting evidence, and potential to cause organizational dysfunction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Supremacy_Culture
- The essay was included as "The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture" in the 2001 workbook Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, which Okun authored with her mentor Kenneth Jones.[3] In 2010, Okun expanded on these ideas in her book The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don't Want to Know. In May 2021, she published "White Supremacy Culture – Still Here" on her website, a revised version of the document which includes discussion of additional topics such as social class, capitalism, and Christian hegemony.
- She describes certain ways that these attitudes and behaviors can appear within an organization and suggests "antidotes" to counteract each one.[2] The 15 characteristics that Okun identifies as contributing to white supremacy culture are: Perfectionism; Sense of urgency; Defensiveness; Quantity over quality; Worship of the written word; Only one right way; Paternalism; Either/or thinking; Power hoarding; Fear of open conflict; Individualism; I'm the only one; Progress is bigger, more; Objectivity; Right to comfort. (Some of the full-sentence-versions are much less horrifying.)
- According to Okun, "White Supremacy Culture" gained attention after it was taken from her 2001 workbook and posted online.[2] In 2020, Jacobin wrote that Okun's essay "has long circulated among left-leaning NGOs and racial justice groups", and that it was "also increasingly appearing within major corporations and public institutions."[5] Ryan Grim of The Intercept said that the essay "began to be circulated widely in progressive spaces" in the late 2000s, and became pervasive in mainstream institutions following the 2020 murder of George Floyd.[2] "White Supremacy Culture" has been used or recommended as part of DEI and diversity training programs by organizations including the National Education Association,[6] Washington University in St. Louis,[7] the Society for Conservation Biology,[6] the Washington State governor's office,[8] the Minnesota Public Health Association,[6] the Sierra Club of Wisconsin,[8] Montgomery County Public Schools,[9] the New York City Department of Education,[5] the Seattle city government,[10] the Yale School of Drama,[11][12] the National Lawyers Guild,[2] and the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.[8] Academics have also used the essay as a framework to suggest how "white supremacy culture" is present in institutions such as university libraries,[13][14] nonprofit organizations,[15] and art museums.
- In 2020, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture published a graphic inspired by Okun's essay that listed traits such as "rational linear thinking" and "respect for authority" as elements of white culture. After criticism, the graphic was removed from the museum's website.[6][17]
- In 2021, San Francisco Unified School District renamed its arts department from VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts) to SFUSD Arts Department, explaining that acronyms are a symptom of white supremacy culture because they "alienate those who may not speak English".
- it was used more widely in that school district
- Matthew Yglesias wrote in The Washington Post that while the goal of "White Supremacy Culture" may have been "to subvert and disrupt malign hierarchies", it could also be weaponized by employees to "disrupt the normal conduct of work, where goal-setting, urgency and avoiding mistakes are in fact important."[25] Yglesias later expanded on this critique in a Substack post, writing that Okun "doesn’t put forward any evidence or arguments in favor of her claims". He argued that while many of the characteristics listed by Okun were negative, they had "literally nothing to do with race" and that the essay "instead comes from a place of extreme characterological aversion to hierarchy and structure."
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