White Supremacy Culture

From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, Changework, 2011

Some people react negatively to terms such as White Supremacy Culture – to others it is refreshing and liberating to see the term used and understood in a non-defensive way.

This article is useful for understanding different organisational cultures (whether volunteer or employee-led) and how they can be unintentionally alienating and disruptive.

It is worth mentioning that these characteristics impact people with disabilities as well as Black and People of Colour.

One of the purposes of listing characteristics of white supremacy culture is to point out how organisations which unconsciously use these characteristics as their norms and standards make it difficult, if not impossible, to open the door to other cultural norms and standards. As a result, many of our organisations, while saying we want to be multicultural, only allow other people and cultures to come in if they adapt or conform to already existing cultural norms. Being able to identify and name the cultural norms and standards you want is a first step to making room for a truly multicultural organisation.