How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide

by Crystal Marie Fleming

In other words, living in a racist society socializes us to be stupid about race.

had no fucking idea that we in the United States live in a racist (and sexist and classist)

When you’ve been told all of your life that you’re special—and, implicitly, superior—it can be hard to give that up.

we encounter in everyday life derives from the fact that people think of racism as individual prejudice rather than a broader system and structure of power.

antiracists are people of any racial or ethnic background who take a personal, active role in challenging systemic racism.

White supremacy is about power. It’s about the intersections of racial domination, class domination, gender domination, and other forms of oppression. It’s about capitalism. It’s about colonialism. The bottom line is that white supremacy is about resources: who gets (and retains) access to them, who gets excluded, whose lives are made to matter, and whose lives are rendered disposable.