Youâd think weâd have a much better handle on this bullshit by now
By Rebecca Peterson, Humour Editor
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Despite a relatively unilateral decision that white supremacist ideology is a Bad Thing⢠for pretty much everyone, reports are coming in providing evidence to suggest that white supremacy is back to some of its sameâand worstâold tricks.
White supremacyâas many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many decent human beings with even a single ounce of critical thought and oh I donât know, basic human empathy for others have wholeheartedly agreedâis a mindset of superiority that suggests you might just be really fantastic and special for having been born with a genetic mutation of the epidermis that makes you unable to spend any real amount of time outdoors before the sun literally tries to fry your skin off. Congrats. This was classically enforced by enslaving other races, stealing all their shit, killing a lot of people, trying to make up science to prove that white people are just better (we arenât), and essentially being an asshole to everyone.
In the modern era, it has been enforced by enslaving other races (and pretending that child labour in sweatshops is just a fantastic opportunity provided for young people to earn money for their family and jumpstart their careers), stealing all their shit (and pretending we came up with it in the first place while simultaneously massacring it; see âdabbingâ), killing a lot of people (and doing it a lot faster now because we have, like, guns and bombs), trying to make up science to prove that white people are just better (we definitely arenât), and essentially being an asshole to everyone, while simultaneously throwing in the added bonus of slowly and systematically destroying our own planet.
However, despite evidence strongly, loudly, and aggressively suggesting that white supremacy is still infecting the minds of many, and that white supremacists are still aliveâand in some cases, recently elected presidentâa lot of people seem to think itâs not a thing we should worry about.
âUm, sorry, but didnât white supremacy end in North America when Lincoln freed all the slaves, or whatever?â Pansy Steinway said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. âIâm pretty sure it did. Iâm pretty sure itâs not a problem anymore; we already solved that. And anyway, Iâm not a racist, so I donât see how anyone else could possibly be a racist. In fact, my friends and I, we donât even see race! It doesnât matter to us if youâre black, brown, red, blue, orange, purple, or green with pink polka dots, weâll treat you like a white person! I mean, unless you have an accent, in which case weâll try really, really hard to treat you like a white person, but weâll be really, really uncomfortable about it.â
âI mean, of course I think itâs a problem,â said resident Other Press strawman John White in a statement over the weekend. âBut I think the real problem revolves around how we deal with it, you know? Like, the more we talk about it, I think, the more publicity white supremacy gets. You kind of have to treat it like a toddler throwing a tantrumâjust kind of put it in a corner and ignore it till it plays itself out. Weâve been doing that for centuries and itâs working! White supremacy is like, so much less of a thing than it used to be, and thatâs because weâve been doing absolutely nothing about it, whatsoever.â
When it was pointed out that change has been affected by civil rights groups and the efforts of people of colour fighting for the basic acknowledgement of personhood, White blinked an awful lot for about a minute straight before replying.
âWell, okay, maybe, though Iâd like to see the evidence behind that, but think of it this way: Is white supremacy really a problem for white people? Honestly, to me it sounds like a problem for not white people, so theyâre probably the ones who should have to fix it. That sounds pretty fair to me.â
(The Other Press reporter interviewing White had to be subdued by others in attendance, as she proceeded to vault the table between herself and the strawman with every intent of strangling him.)