Jennifer Harvey - Disrupting White Supremacy

The Pilgrim Press, 700 Prospect Avenue

Cleveland, Ohio 44115-1100, U.S.A.

2004 by Jennifer Harvey, Karin A. Case, and Robin Hawley Gorsline

All rights reserved. Published 2004

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

09 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1

Disrupting white supremacy from within : white people on what we need to do / edited by Jennifer Harvey, Karin A. Case, and Robin Hawley Gorsline.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8298-1607-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Racism United States. 2. Whites Race identity United States. 3. Whites United States Attitudes. 4. Social movements United States. 5. Christians United States Attitudes. 6. Racism Religious aspects Christianity. I. Harvey, Jennifer, 1971- II. Case, Karin A., 1958- III. Gorsline, Robin Hawley, 1946-

E184.AID53 2004

305.800973 dc22

2004053543

ONE OF THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS to America of this collaborative book is hope for a better future where all races can enjoy one another as human beings. In these pages, we sense a turn by progressive, if not radical, religious scholars digging deep into the Christian witness and surfacing a magnificent treasure that is, the truth that the humanity of white sisters and brothers lies in the humanity of people of color. Put differently, we discover writings strongly suggesting that segments of the white academy and church have the resources internal to themselves to change the structures and soul of white supremacy. Furthermore, because this text symbolizes white brothers and sisters of faith, it offers the white church an alternative way in making the United States a place systemically welcoming for all races. In a word, the authors offer the most cutting edge conceptual framework and most practical challenge for race, faith, and hope in the contemporary period.

However, the notion of white Americans having internal resources to racially overthrow the heresy of white supremacy is not, and has never been, a given. And the white church, at the foundational level, has not surfaced convincing evidence of its ability to redirect its proheresy policy. When pushed against the wall, the United States, like its parent countries in Europe, assumes itself a white country. When further crises of identity press harder, a great number of white Americans, if tradition persists, will even proclaim a white Christian nation. But a recounting of the historical growth of white folk on this side of the Atlantic results not from crass finger pointing or guilt whipping. On the contrary, unveiling interracial narratives assists in revealing one of the defining characteristics of what it means to be white (and a white Christian, in particular) in the fifty states of the Union.

Here we underscore the white identity of privileging historical amnesia. From the perspective of a person of color, it is amazing to watch too many white folks believe that this is their country, they worked hard to achieve what they have achieved, they labored on their own, and they deserve to monopolize wealth, income, power, privilege, and position. In accepted commonsensical terms, America at its core privileges white democracy. And it just so happened that the descendants of Christian Europe have become the normative population and dominant religion.

In contrast to this mythology induced by memory loss, California Newsreel (www.newsreel.org) has documented the norm of affirmative action for whites supported by white churches. Personally and/or structurally, all whites have the option of benefiting from the affirmative action of white supremacy. Perhaps 99.9 percent know they benefit. Perhaps 99.9 percent choose to remain silent. For instance, in the beginning, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence focused on whites, primarily elite white males with property. The thirteen colonies and, then, the nation, in 1787 were not founded for yellow, red, brown, and black human beings. In this history, the seventeenth century saw enslaved Africans replace European indentured servants. The latters payoff was to accept rights, entitlements, and opportunities in the divine covenant of antiblack racism.

The 1830 Indian Removal Act, carried out by the terrorism of the white U.S. Army, committed quasi-genocide by violently relocating Creeks and Cherokee to the Mississippi Rivers western shores. The white government then helped white settlers occupy these stolen lands of red peoples. The 1862 Homestead Act solidified in public policy the reality already existing in practice. Ten percent of the U.S. land mass, or 270 million acres of land stolen from Native Americans, became private homestead areas. The 1790 Naturalization Act opened the floodgates to European immigrants who could vote, be on juries, enjoy potential office, and maintain property. In California and other states, whites passed Alien Land laws to keep Asian immigrants from ownership while allocating farm land to white growers.

After the 1865 end of slavery, instead of reparations for blacks, the white federal government paid former slave masters for the loss of their human property. Here we discover a plumb line of the heresy of white supremacy the monopolization of material wealth crafted by God for all races. White slave masters, from 1619 to 1865, accumulated assets and privileges from unpaid black bodies. The overwhelming majority of white churches actively condoned the beating, castrating, and raping of black workers bodies. Once the racialized, monopoly accumulation of wealth took place, it was (and continues at this very moment to be) passed down to white offspring generation after generation. The sin of Christian white supremacy is that it uses language about God, democracy, freedom of speech, assembly, etc. and all other manifestations of bourgeois theology to hide white monopolization of Gods creation.

The 1935 Social Security Act guaranteed a retirement income for U.S. workers, but excluded millions of black, brown, red, and yellow Americans. So, instead of passing on wealth to their children upon retirement (and eventual death), these retiring parents of color had to draw on their childrens income. In contrast, centuries of white supremacist affirmative action enabled white parents to bequeath wealth and income to their next generations.

The 1935 Wagner Act, passed by a white federal government, facilitated organizing of the white working class and excluded peoples of colors. Today, in many trades, we still have the catch-22. To get a job, a person of color has to have a union card. To have a union card, one has to be white. When whites do allow nonwhites a card, better-paying trade jobs go to those with longer seniority. Furthermore, the American Dream consists of home ownership. Yet, the Federal Housing Administration, under the New Deal, linked mortgage eligibility to race. And finally, and perhaps the most materially damaging, after roughly four centuries of affirmative action for whites, today white families own about eight times the assets (i.e., wealth) of their black counterparts.