UWAS-C0010 - UWAS Currents: Decolonize your studies, 04.03.2021-15.04.2021

Western colonialism, a political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world.

The term white, referring to people, was created by Virginia slave owners and colonial rulers in the 17th century. It replaced terms like Christian and “Englishman” (sic) to distinguish European colonists from Africans and indigenous peoples. European colonial powers established white as a legal concept after Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 during which indentured servants of European and African descent had united against the colonial elite. The legal distinction of white separated the servant class on the basis of skin color and continental origin. “The creation of ‘white’ meant giving privileges to some, while denying them to others with the justification of biological and social inferiority. (Margo Adair & Sharon Powell, The Subjective Side of Politics. SF: 1988. p.17.)

A privilege is a right, favor, advantage, immunity, specially granted to one individual or group, and withheld from another. (Websters)

White privilege is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of: (1) Preferential prejudice for and treatment of white people based solely on their skin color and/or ancestral origin from Europe; and (2) Exemption from racial and/or national oppression based on skin color and/or ancestral origin from Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Arab world. U.S. institutions and culture (economic, legal, military, political, educational, entertainment, familial and religious) privilege peoples from Europe over peoples from the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Arab world. In a white supremacy system, white privilege and racial oppression are two sides of the same coin. “White peoples were exempt from slavery, land grab and genocide, the first forms of white privilege (in the future US).” (Virginia Harris and Trinity Ordoña, “Developing Unity among Women of Color: Crossing the Barriers of Internalized Racism and Cross Racial Hostility,” in Making Face, Making Soul: Hacienda Caras. Edited by Gloria Anzaldúa. SF: Aunt Lute Press, 1990. p. 310).

White supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.