what is white supremacy?

I once expressed to a professor that I thought America’s systems were broken. She responded that a system that continues to negatively impact the most disadvantaged was working as it was created to. The question she responded with was, “ Then who is benefiting from it?”

White supremacy is a white body dropping in America, and it is being treated as though it holds more weight than the bodies dropping in Palestine and the Congo. 

I wish I could say that the current state of the United States surprises me, but it seems like every few years, something drastic happens to remind everyone of the true ideals and values America was founded on. It feels privileged whenever I hear someone react in surprise, especially since I have never seen America as anything other than a facade that dresses up as freedom, masking its true face of oppression, forced labor, and false promises. 

White supremacy is policing Black people's conversations surrounding Charlie and Erica Kirk while simultaneously leading the narrative discussing black bodies. It is a politician's ability to discuss a Black body politically but a white one emotionally. It's jumping to protect white women's tears, but constantly causing Black women's tears to fall.  

For years, I struggled to see the parallels between the layered -isms ( racism, sexism, colorism, etc) and -ias (homophobia, pedophilia, etc), but in 2026 the parallels became a lot more clearer. I truly feel like attending a PWI for college allowed me to see a front seat row of the discussions we read in history books, and even though I frequently struggled to put how I felt into words, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to find my words is to write.  

White supremacy is using Christianity to justify acts of hate while ignoring God’s lessons of love. It is picking and choosing which lines apply, because the God you claim to serve is who you believe yourself to be. Controlling the narrative, fates, and lives of Black and Brown bodies out of fear that it is the only way your place in society will remain secure.

White supremacy says that you should shed tears for a modern clan member but not for the innocent Black men facing mass incarceration at the hands of a system that has never seen them as more than a body to produce free labor. It attempts to explain a world without color at the forefront when the social construct of color is woven into every policy, bill, and debate. It is dollar bills being covered in the blood of Black, Brown, and immigrant bodies. It is trying to speak up and being sliced by the knife of your identity being used as a disadvantage rather than as a vehicle for truth. White supremacy tells you that your experience isn’t a true reality unless it supports the narrative they feed to you through media, movies, caricatures, and books. 

It is targeting HBCUs even when Black communities and HBCU students had nothing to do with Kirk’s death. We never have anything to do with their problems, but we are always reprimanded. Because every story needs a villain, and the real villain will never label themself as such. 

White supremacy is the rooted fear that DeMartravion “Trey” Reed’s death wasn’t a suicide. It‘s advocating to make sure his family receives true justice and still remaining uneasy, because the story of Emmett Till happened a few years prior. A heart wrenching truth that I learned my junior year of college that many of my white counterparts did not learn, but is one I heard from the moment I was old enough to understand that I was a little Black girl navigating through a white world. 

White supremacy is the deeply rooted fear that upholds the stereotype that Black people are a danger, even when our hands are still and chained. It ignores accountability for the actions of anyone who lacks melanin, marking their actions as “mistakes” to be forgiven in God’s name. The same God my ancestors cried to while they picked cotton and built a country that still doesn't few their children's children still fight for freedom in. 

White supremacy is the intoxication of comfort and the fear of losing it all. It convinces people that materialistic possessions are more valuable than freedom. It creates room for capitalism and entertains materialism. To convince you that a job that offers no security is more secure than collective destiny and direct action. It convinces white supremacists that suffocating the rights of others ensures their own for generations. A guidebook that they’ve used and benefited from for generations.

White supremacy continues to allow capitalism to create wealth for a few and poverty for the rest, creating a blanket of fear and uncertainty for everyone involved. It preaches individuality while it drains all of their energy, resources, and power collectively. It seems like they understand the impact of the community better than we do.   

White supremacy is a racist belief that one race is superior to others, which is fueled by the fear that all you’ve done to others for survival will come back to you. It is the constant need to protect yourself from the evils you were able to create while you project the truth of who you are onto everyone else.

As a little girl in the Mississippi Delta, I learned that our pain is labeled as deserved. Our tears are marked as dramatic. Our circumstances are perceived as our fault and ours only. Those in oppression only realize a very small portion of how it impacts their being and how each event rewires their nervous system. Growing up, I was taught that the world was something to fear. That the devil in your backyard is easier to stomach than the devil that the world is. But I’m starting to see that devil as the same, even though his masks can look different.

Because no matter how different the mask may look, I’m still convinced that the mask will always fall and reveal the true evil to be white supremacy and power.