The more I learn about modern white supremacy, particularly the recent boom of the alt right, the more it appears to me as a narrative response to some basic cultural insecurity. The "king" and "superior" narrative is used to fortify a gap in confidence and self-worth. It's used in other cultures to get through hard times, looking back on "the good ole days" is actually a great coping mechanism. But doesn't usually include the imperialism part, the cultural appropriation part, the claim of progress creation part, the avoidance of blame part. There is a fundamental emptiness that imperialism and white supremacy seeks to fill with materiality of property ownership and other forms of wealth, where there is a disconnection from Earth and intuition that might otherwise provide the grounding you find in many POC and ethnic white communities.
You'll note these forms of wealth are all state backed, that is, protected by military, not a gold standard or even production measurement like GDP. Institutional wealth amounts to ones ability to protect their assets, not any inherent actual value of those assets. I see not just fear fueling white supremacy but a hunger, a greed, a longing. For this connection to cultures that actually have been erased by whiteness in America. Particularly, when I speak to my white friends who have no more a connection to their lineage than I do. They call must themselves a "mut" and guess the black incarnation of that is "nigger". We have both been stripped of our culture. The united experience we share, albeit in terrifyingly drastic ways is to have become cultural orphans. Both whites and people of color re the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breath free. Behind the golden door is our new identity, but that door has closed behind us.
The White passage into America came with so many on-the-spot name changes and cultural identity compromises at Ellis Island. So many more compromises come later, and still do, and where they don't even white people suffer for not abandoning their culture to be deemed "professional" or "patriotic". It seems the cost of the white supremacy is paid not only by people of color who victimized by it but also those white people who adopt it. What has been sacrificed to have access to this institutional power amounts to the historical destruction of the myriad of European histories, rich with their own culture that have been distilled into a singular, predominantly Anglo-American worldview. We traded bratwurst for hotdogs, and so forth. This abandonment of culture often looks like a commodification of culture, where we are forced to reduce priceless historical traditions, cuisine, and artifacts to what they can be sold for as "exotic" in a market. Irish, Greek or Germanic branding of their dishes avail it to the market for appropriation as specialty in the same way it does for Mexican, Asian, or African Inspired Cuisine.
It hurts me actually to see it. My own struggle has been hard, to find my identity amidst these conditions but the benefit of being at the margins has come to be that my identity was unable to be entirely swallowed by the mechanism of cultural destruction. What I resist is internalized white supremacy, it challenges my own self -worth, the beauty I see in myself and people that occupy bodies unable to fit into the mold I've subtly consumed as ideal. What I am resisting is this mechanism now, the desire to be validated by institutional powers because in so many ways, what from the outside looks like acceptance, is actually consumption. The youth should be reading Hansel and Gretel, I am still looking for my breadcrumbs back home... wherever that is.
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