Three Pillars of White Supremacy - Elizabeth Harrison

This blog post will explore Andrea Smith’s “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” and its possible implications for disability studies, as well as coalition building across social justice struggles.

                Andrea Smith explains that white supremacy indeed affects all people of color, however it may operate in different ways for different groups. She describes three pillars of white supremacy:

1.       Slavery and Capitalism (Smith positions black communities as primarily affected by this pillar)

2.       Genocide and Colonialism (Indigenous communities primarily affected by this pillar)

3.       Orientalism and War (Asian and Arab communities, as well as other immigrant groups, primarily affected by this pillar)

The three pillars work simultaneously to uphold white supremacy. While each community of people of color may be primarily victimized by one pillar, they may also participate in the victimization of other communities through another pillar. For example, when refugees fleeing war come to the US in search of a safer life, land and security (Orientalism/War), they may participate in the oppression of indigenous people by accepting property and land stolen from native communities through genocide (Genocide/Colonialism). This conflict is represented well by a hashtag/online movement in response to the president’s recent immigration ban: #NoBanonStolenLand. This movement (in some ways in response to some white liberal activists’ false claims of “We are Immigrants”) acknowledges that refugees and immigrants should be welcome, but also that colonizers, settlers and immigrants from all parts of the world are capitalizing on the genocide of native peoples and the theft of native lands when they immigrate to the US.

Smith explains that all three pillars depend upon the system of heteropatriarchal oppression. The Christian right positions the heteropatriarchal family unit as the key to American society. Many communities of color also fall into this focus on the heteropatriarchal family (I am reminded of bell hooks’ chapters in Killing Rage criticizing focus on the patriarchal family unit in black communities). In reality, this system of enforcing gender binaries, oppressing women and marginalizing queers only supports the aims of white supremacy.

Smith’s arguments link to disability studies in several important ways. First and foremost, disability studies has a history being dominated by white scholars and leaders, and there is much work to do to stamp out white supremacy and uplift the voices of disabled POC in our discipline.

Second, the focus on the “private (heteropatriarchal) family” encouraged and enforced by the Christian Right (or perhaps now, more accurately, the Christofascist Right) can also be dangerous to disabled people. In her book Feminist Queer Crip, Alison Kafer points out how over-focus on parents and caregivers of persons with disabilities can enforce a belief that disability is a private matter to be kept in the family, behind closed doors. Individualizing disability in this way depoliticizes disability identity and stands in the way of collective organizing among disabled people. The disability rights movement would also do well to challenge the heteropatriarchal family structure – and in so doing we could aid the struggle against white supremacy.

The capitalist framework that promotes enslavement of black people and reduces the populous to productivity machines is also extremely harmful to disabled people. Disabled persons who cannot meet standards of productivity are often left in extreme poverty, homeless or institutionalized. In institutions, disabled persons can be further exploited by the capitalist state – for example in sheltered workshops where they perform labor for sub-minimum wages, or in nursing homes where the “treatments” forced upon their bodies are turned into profits for the medical industrial complex. I make these arguments not to co-opt black oppression or to state that our disabled oppression is in any way equal – but rather to say that disabled persons (of whom many are black)  and black communities could work together to undermine capitalism and slavery.

This piece strongly argued for the importance of coalition building. All communities of color, and even white persons in other marginalized communities (e.g. disabled, LGBTQ, women), suffer under white supremacy. The structures that uphold white supremacy are varied and will require coalitional action across multiple dimensions to undermine. This reading was extremely relevant given our current political climate, and inspired me to work across identity groups to dismantle white supremacy.

Questions:

What are some modern organizing goals that would be beneficial to all communities affected by the pillars of white supremacy (all POC, women, LGBTQ, disabled, etc)? How can we build more effective coalitions across identity groups to meet these goals?