From Palestine to Haiti to right here in our backyard: the fight to end white supremacy is as critical as ever

“If you do not understand white supremacy – what it is and how it works – everything else that you understand will only confuse you.” - Dr. Neely Fuller

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcolm X

As the U.S. continues to fuel & fund the genocide in Gaza, it’s critical that we as white people, particularly those of us in the U.S., have political clarity about what is going on so that we can take appropriate action. We must understand how white supremacy is at play. Here we lift up an analysis from Jewish Voice for Peace, the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world: 

“Settler colonialism and white supremacy is the right, holistic frame with which to understand Israel and Palestine, as well as the U.S.— it helps us understand what we’re really struggling against, and holds us accountable to ways we may inadvertently be serving the status quo…

One question we often ask ourselves is why Americans so easily accept the dominant Israeli narrative without question, and I think the answer is obvious. We have literally been primed, for generations, by our own national narrative of manifest destiny, white supremacy and exceptionalism…

Remember that the original violence of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of the land of Palestinians, continues on a daily basis to this day. The process of colonization never stopped. Although today we call them ‘facts on the ground’, and Palestinians are talked about, not as equal human beings with the same hopes, aspirations and rights to freedom, but rather as a ‘demographic threat.’”

JVP goes on to state:

“[T]he Holocaust did not mark the sudden and inexplicable birth of the white European capacity to commit genocide.

No one knows this better than the indigenous people of this continent, or the descendants of enslaved Africans.

Or the people of the Congo, where 10 million died under the rule of King Leopold of Belgium.

I could go on. I could also go on about the U.S. Empire.” - Cecile Surasky, former Deputy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. Read full speech here.

CRC defines white supremacy as the ideology that says European nations, their nation state offspring, and white descendants should maintain power over the world's non-white majority. Thus, white supremacy is a global phenomenon – from the unfolding genocide & humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to the ongoing struggle for self determination in Haiti, where the U.S. is currently responsible for another invasion which will likely results in many more Haitian deaths. Here is an excerpt from a statement released on October 4 by the Haiti Action Committee:

“We remember the democratically elected governments of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas movement that were twice overthrown by US-supported coups d’etat. Had it not been for the coups, “Today, many of the beautiful dreams of the Haitian people would have already materialized,” a recent Fanmi Lavalas statement declared. “The anti-democratic forces have produced a hell on earth: kidnapping, insecurity, misery, hunger, corruption”—a failure that now requires a new occupying army to sustain it.”

As with Israel & Palestine, we must remember the historical context. Previously a French colony called Saint Domingue, Haiti was established in 1804 after the enslaved African population successfully overthrew the colonial government. Haiti became the first post-colonial independent Black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful rebellion of enslaved people. White colonial powers have punished Haiti ever since, such as France forcibly imposing a massive debt, demanding Haiti compensate former slave owners in France for their so-called “lost property.” (Let’s not forget: after emancipation, the U.S. government paid reparations to slave owners, reimbursing enslavers for a percentage of the value of their “lost property.”)

CRC teaches us that it is in white people’s best interest to join the fight against white supremacy. As their 5 Methods to Divest of White Power and Weaponize White Privilege remind us, whether we know it or not, we’ve all been hurt by white supremacy. While white people benefit from white privilege, this system has also traumatized us - costing us our cultural heritage, our grasp on reality, our connection to others, and our humanity.

CRC also teaches us that white supremacy has a beginning, a middle, and an end. White supremacy is going to end. It’s not a static thing. It’s not “just how things are.” It hasn’t always been here. It is going to end. It is in the process of ending. The question is, how are we as white people going to orient ourselves in relationship to the end of white supremacy?

We hope you will join us in practicing the 5 Methods, and in this moment practicing Intervention by calling on the U.S. government to stop this genocide in Gaza. Organize other white people to take action with you, today and every day.