by Jeff Hitchcock

Ever since Hitler's race-based, genocidal empire was defeated, an explicitly articulated white supremacy has been discredited in the United States and Canada. It lingers even today, but in its place mainstream white America has adopted a different set of rules. White supremacy has gone underground, yes, but white advantage, the essence of white supremacy, remains.

White advantage (supremacy) is maintained by two simple rules:

1. You can do anything you want to maintain and enhance white advantage so long as you do not name race.

2. When a person names race, you must immediately admonish and discredit that person as a racist.

These are cultural rules. No one has written them down. Most white people don't even know when and how they learned these rules-they seem so intuitive to white folks. People of color often do not understand where the rules came from either, and find themselves baffled by the logic white people trot out in opposition to racial dialogue and change.

But the rules have a subtle genius that only folk wisdom can produce. At one and the same time they discredit avowed white supremacy and undermine the moral authority of movements for racial justice by people of color, all the while preserving white advantage (their very purpose) and keeping white people satisfied they represent all that is good and right, racially speaking.

Want to use tax dollars to build a new recreation center in your town? Simply locate it where there are good transportation routes and nearby restaurants and shops. If someone points out it's in the "white section" of town, brand that person a racist and deny any such motive on your part.

Are you a novice teacher who treats every child the same in your inner city classroom because you don't see color? In a few years when you live in a big house and send your own kids to a good school in the suburbs, after your teaching experience gains you a transfer to a suburban school system, you probably will continue to not see color. Why should you?

Not everyone is buying this approach nowadays, not even every white person. WACAN members violate these rules simply by joining WACAN. You get your first white anti-racist stripes by having another white person call you a racist for bringing up the topic of white privilege.

Still, it helps to know what's going on. We react because we see injustice, but we may not understand the rules used by the opposition to keep racial justice movements in their place. Knowledge is power.

Memorize these two rules, watch them operate, and then expose them. Repeat them to anyone who uses them. Repeat them to anyone whose philosophy (colorblindness, for instance) tacitly supports them. Repeat and expose them until they become common knowledge because then they will no longer work.

Cultural rules can only operate when unnamed. Once exposed, they lose their potency and become ineffective. Expose them. Then maybe we can talk about who the real racists are.

* Permission granted to reprint this essay anywhere provided it contains the following credit: Copyright 2008 Jeff Hitchcock. Originally printed in WACANupdate, 2/6/2008.

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Racial harassment in the workplace is on the rise. In Maine, a white man threatens to shoot any and all black people. The St. Louis fire department experiences racial tensions. Complaints by parents force a Michigan school district to undergo diversity training. Meanwhile, the US Justice Department is criticized for lax enforcement of civil rights laws. La Raza takes things into its own hands with an anti-hate campaign. Baseball gets weird, for no apparent reason investigating southern umpires for possible Klan connections. But racism may be a very real factor in the elections.

Israel wants the US and western countries to scuttle the pending World Conference Against Racism tentatively scheduled for 2009. Some key anti-racist and human rights NGOs are listening. Canada thinks it over, and then makes a decision to pull out ( Article 1, Article 2, Article 3). In the meantime, the US, which has already signaled its disapproval, continues racist business as usual.

In Minnesota a seminar attended by school employees discusses white privilege. A Montana YWCA launches an anti-racism campaign among a population 94% white.

White supremacists did in fact descend on Jena, LA on M L King Day for a protest. They were met and outnumbered by counter-demonstrators. See articles by Workers World, Associated Press, and thetowntalk.com. Fair.org took issue with USAtoday's reporting on this event.

Eddie Moore, Jr. returned to Iowa for a talk at Grand View College. Tim Wise spoke in Genesee County, Michigan at an annual event sponsored by area colleges and universities, and then later at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Cornell West called out white supremacy when speaking at DePauw University. York University, Ontario, held an anti-racism rally in response to anti-black graffiti. Also in Ontario, Queens University held an anti-racist protest in response to an assault on a female faculty member of color last fall. A Penn State student calls for discussion of white privilege. Other students reply unfavorably. A white Columbia University student feels being called white is insensitive, but owns up to white privilege. At Southern Utah University a student from China discusses how she feels living amongst Americans. Are we really such a friendly people?

Are white South Africans really so stupid, one complains. Life in South African among "coloreds" is hard. Taiwanese do not take well to foreigners. Japan makes a self-serving video claiming Australians are racist. Meanwhile, Australia prepares to officially apologize for a real and tragic era of racist action involving the "Stolen Generations." In the United Kingdom, two towns react to incidents of racism ( Article 1, Article 2). A survey shows white Brits feel less empowered compared to Brits of color. White flight, old hat here in the US, appears as a new phenomenon in the United Kingdom. In Ireland, white men complain of their victimization.

The M L King Holiday brought a spate of stories about black people living among white folk in Dallas, Wisconsin, Wisconsin again, and Utah.

The Nelsons, a black/white couple married 50 years, were featured in Arizona.

Alan Bean, a little known white man who had a big impact in Jena.

Frank Meeink, skinhead, finds redemption from a life of hate.

Two Methodist churches a mile apart, black and white, hold joint services.

Anti-racist programs are held by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Episcopalians.

Christianity was not always centered in Europe, and may never be again.

An apology and call for reparations by Episcopal Bishop Catherine S. Roskam at a reportedly very moving ceremony in New York City.

" The exchange rate of whiteness," by David Schrab. The Debate Link, December 26, 2007.

" We must talk about race, despite the difficult emotions it stirs," by Louis Stanley Schoen. StarTribune.com, December 29, 2007.

" A Black response to crack offender sentencing," by Harry R. Davidson, Ph. D. FinalCall.com, January 9, 2008.

" White privilege, white progressives, and the audacity of Obama's definition of hope," by Dr. Edward Rhymes. Blackagendareport.com, January 16, 2008.

" Why do we continue to see signs of hate?" by Kwame Leo Lillard. Tennessean.com, January 21, 2008.

" Get Whitey!" by Collin Sick. InfoShop News, January 22, 2008.

" Who owns the noose?" by Jim Downs. History News Network, January 28, 2008.

" Worst person in campaign 2008," by Prof. Vernellia Randall. Race and Racism, January 30, 2008.