systemic oppression

By Ian Kennedy

Contemporary popular debates about race and racism are caught in a difference of assumptions. On the one hand, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article “The First White President” in the October 2017 issue of The Atlantic exemplifies the systemic view: white supremacy and racism are perpetrated by all members who share a particular identification, leveling racist violence on all members who share a different identification. To varying degrees, all white people contribute to white supremacy, and all non-white people are victims of this violence. For Coates, a pervasive identity of whiteness unites Trump […]