White Supremacy: Will the Present be Prologue?

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a rethinking of the concept of white privilege and a development of new concepts like white fragility. At the same time, discourse around ‘white supremacy’ has mostly remained stagnant. Some claim it is anachronistic and no longer applicable. Others fear it will discourage whites from supporting the quest for racial justice. In this article, I advocate for using the term ‘white supremacy’ to name the problem that racial justice theorists and activists seek to dismantle. More specifically, I utilize the work of Charles Mills to defend the use of ‘white supremacy’ against Marxist critics.