I’m a bit confused when I hear people say white supremacy goes against american or canadian values. Both of these nation states were built on the blood of Indigenous peoples and folks taken by force from the African continent. And lest one think that this is “in the past and we ought to get over it”, remember that these nation states continue to amass riches on the backs of Indigenous peoples and that white supremacy is built into the entire system. We see this in many, many ways ranging from the eurocentrism of our educational, political, economic, judicial, and medical institutions to the systemic discrimination that is evident in these same institutions. Tell me again, then, how white supremacy goes against american or canadian values. If all you can say is that “we” built these nations based on values of respect and freedom, I will ask: “Who is ‘we’? Respect and freedom for who?” and invite you to read some history from Indigenous and Black perspectives and from the perspectives of other peoples here and elsewhere who have been exploited in the building of these “great” nations. Canada, in particular, likes to pay lip service to openness and “tolerance”. But these are superficial words accompanied by great photo opps and just enough action to make it look like “progress” is happening. At the end of the day, though, the people in power, who get to decide who has rights and what the speed of acquisition of rights and human dignity should be, are overwhelmingly white. And their decisions are based in the eurocentric ideologies engrained in the above-mentioned institutions. So tell me again….how is white supremacy against american/canadian values when these values are seeped in white supremacist systems to begin with?
I must acknowledge the many, many writings and presentations by Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour activists and scholars for helping me shape these thoughts. I didn’t make any of this up.