White Supremacy and the Ontological Architecture of Modernity

• In Event: "It's Not Just Theory": Toward Theory as Method in Critical Theoretical Research Methods in 21st Century Equitable Education

Abstract

Objectives
This essay provides an introduction to white supremacy as integral and necessary to the ontological architecture of Western Civilization since the rise of modernity in the 1500s-1600s in Europe.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Make no mistake: white supremacy has been and continues to be the source of enormous devastation, destruction, and death for people of color in the U.S. (e.g., Alexander, 2012; Bell, 2005; Coates, 2015; DuBois, n.d.; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2018; Feagin, 2018; Kendi, 2017; Massey & Denton, 1993, Ostler, 2019; Yancy, 2008; among many, many others). The genocide of the indigenous peoples; the slavery of Black people followed by Jim Crow; public hangings of Blacks (often treated by whites as community celebrations); the illegal hangings/murder by Texas Rangers and theft of the land of the Latinx in the Southwest; and “the [ongoing] neo-institutionalized extermination of Black men” (Matias, 2016, p. 3), including death by white cop with impunity are only a few of the most visible markers of this ongoing horror. Simultaneously, there are the less obviously visible markers of a thoroughly racist educational system (e.g., Author, et al., 2016); Leonardo, 2009), employment system (e.g., Marable, 2015), housing system (e.g., Massey & Denton, 2016), banking system (e.g., Morris, 2008), media system (e.g., Van Dijik, 1995), and law enforcement system (e.g., Alexander, 2012), all supported by local, state, and federal policies, laws, and society-wide behaviors, assumptions, ideologies, and norms (Feagin, 2018; Goldberg, 1993; Haney-López, 2015; Lipsitz, 2006; Omi & Winant, 2014; Pistor, 2019; Rothstein, 2017, among many others). These scholars have shown that whiteness, white racism, and white supremacy are not just some superficial aspect of or an overlay on U.S. society nor just some individualized conscious choice, but that they are deeply interwoven into the blood and bone of U.S. society. Indeed, whiteness, white racism, and white supremacy are literally foundational for the West since the European enlightenment and its co-emergence with European colonialism (Goldberg, 1993; Grosfoguel & Cervantes-Rodriquez, 2002).

Methods/Data Sources
This is a theoretical paper based on a range of relevant scholarly literature.

Results/Significance
The essay begins with a rationale for why the excavation of this ontological architecture is a needed addition to the current literature on white supremacy. In the second section, I explain what I mean by ontological architecture. In the third section, I focus on the nature of this architecture. In the fourth, I delineate three key elements of this architecture—individualism, private property, and capitalism—and show how white supremacy is deeply interwoven into these architectural elements. In the fifth, called “Colorful Living in the House of Whiteness,” I address how the ontological architecture of white supremacy is experienced differently by folks of color than it is by whites. In the sixth, I discuss my racial positionality, put off til near the end so that my explication of the ontological architecture can frame my discussion of my positionality. Finally, I end with my answer to the question, “What is to be done?,” in research and social life, particularly by white people.

Author

• James Joseph "Jim" Scheurich, Indiana University - Indianapolis