White Supremacy By Any Other Name

When now-disgraced comedian Michael Richards screeched into his microphone "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass!" followed shortly by "He's a n----r! A n----r, look, there's a n----r!" he was obviously attempting to drum up the vibe of a lynch mob closing in on its target. That's some funny shit, eh?

Here's how hilarious it is: To your left, Lige Daniels, lynched in Center, Texas, on August 3, 1920. To your right, Rubin Stacy, lynched in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on July 19, 1935. Here are but two among tens of millions of murders attributed to America's long history of genocidal white supremacy.

As you can see, these are mirthful family affairs. The children are smiling innocently. The parents are proud and upstanding.

I guess this is Michael Richards' comedic vision of America, and that of all those who are defending his invocation of the twisted pathology of sexualized white supremacist violence.

Yes, the n-word is "just a word": a word that has historically led to scenes such as these. If you're cool with such scenes, by all means continue supporting this word's use by "edgy" white folks (you say "edgy", I say "coward hiding in a mob"). You know why black folks "are allowed" to use the n-word (though it remains deeply controversial in the black community)? Here's a hint: look at the pictures and see if you spot any black folks among the living. Okay I'll fill you in: they're the ones being murdered; white folks are the ones doing the murdering. Get it? In the context of the n-word's countless unpunished crimes, black folks are not the accused.

"Just a word": what a moronic defense. I suppose "war" is "just a word" as well — unless you happen to be among those getting bombed and shot. "I intend to kill you and your family" are just words too, but if someone were to say those words to me, my response would be very unwordy. I think it's bizarre that middle-class American liberals appear to have become so comfortably, mentally astral that they believe that language and reality are somehow disconnected; as though words and thoughts are powerless postmodern playthings that have no consequences in the real world; as though every actual atrocity in human history didn't begin with "just a word".

Michael Richards and his ruined career are not the point here. The point is that if we're ever to move beyond our current racial strife, we need to begin with enough intellectual honesty to acknowledge and understand America's glaring legacy of white supremacy. As this popular comedian's tirade shows, that legacy is alive and kicking in the American psyche. Shrugging it off as a "politically incorrect" use of an insensitive "racial epithet", or as some mysterious "hostility" that bubbled up out of nowhere, demonstrates a profound ignorance and denial of this country's past and present. And as long as such ignorance and denial dominate our national discourse, we will remain unable to accurately and meaningfully talk about, think about, and transcend the blood-soaked, heavy-hearted legacy of the American Color Line.

Comments

[Y. Carrington]

Kai, thank you for reminding folks what lynching is.

Everytime I read or hear someone say "Black folks say n****r too!"---I want to scream.

[Kai]

Y: Yeah, and forget about "racial epithets", what about threatening to lynch a dude?!

Actually for me the creepiest part of the whole meltdown is at the end, when the crowd is walking out and the comedian is gradually becoming cognizant of what he's done and he oozes, "You see? You see? There's still those words, those words, those words..." By which he's obviously referring to the linguistic legacy of white supremacy which he was able to summon and deploy to his own satisfaction. What a freakin chump. Lacking the creative and intellectual firepower to fend for himself, he cowers behind the utterly unimaginative language of white supremacy, just as his ancestors probably hid behind mobs when they acted out their white pathological sexual frustrations upon black men. How noble.

[caucasoid man]

Question: isnt Richards jewish, and wouldnt that make his grandparents jews, who really werent a factor in the lynch-happy and perhaps pathologically sexually frustrated south (especially improbable if they were say from Poland or Tunis or Austria) ?

[Kai]

caucasoid man: Richards is not Jewish. Not that this would have any effect on anything, but fyi.

[caucasoid man]

duly noted, sir!

(my granma esther will probably be shocked by kramer's behaviour and yet relieved he isn't a fellow jew!)

[Nanette]

An excellent laying out of the issues, Kai. So many points that some want to ignore in all this.

I haven't watched the video yet. First article I read on it was the USA Today one, and the comments on that one... my god, that was depressing enough, lol.

This reminds me of that conversation at Wampum, with the "a person", on the use of the "N" word. I wonder if s/he understands better now. There really is no divorcing the word from its history (which is what I believe that white people who insist on using it - not as a weapon - are trying to do), no matter how many black people say it in an attempt to defang it. Although, thinking about it, maybe that's worked somewhat because I was really surprised that Richards was still standing at the end of his tirade.

The lynching thing... I think those photos should be shown all the time, and in many places. In one post at alas a few months ago about empathy (a word I am liking less and less when it comes to stuff like this), Rachel put up a photo of a lynching... I think actually it might have been the one you have there, on the right (it's not with the post any longer). Anyway, one of the commenters objected on the grounds (in part - she said a lot more) that it might be offensive or painful for black people to see it, because it might be someone's relative that is dead and so on.

A very well-meaning objection that I might have agreed with had the only person in the photo who might have relatives who would be (or should be) pained at the sight been the dead one. That's not the case though, and I think the people surrounding the murdered man should be seen and remembered and claimed.

On the Richards thing, I watched a CNN video clip of Sinbad,(who was there), discussing the incident. One of the things he said was that even before Richards went on his racist tirade with the hecklers he tried to shut them up by talking about how much richer he was than they were and stuff... supremacy issues all around, there.

As we've seen recently online, the white supremacy road (in various forms) is a distressingly easy one for some to go down when they are confronted with less than perfect love and agreement, and what they apparently feel is their due respect, from people of color.

[Kai]

Nanette,

Yeah the lynching photos are rough, and I went back and forth awhile on whether or not to use them. As you hopefully know by now :-) I'm fond of keeping the imagery at Zuky on the beautiful and positive side of things. I rarely post negative pics because I'm not into spreading toxicity. But in this case I went with the graphic stuff because it's obvious to me that lots of people aren't getting what we're discussing. Richards brought lynching into the national discourse and a lot of people think it's no big deal. And if it's no big deal, then these pics are no big deal. Of course, personally I think they're a big problem because I think wantonly killing people is a big problem; but then, I also think for a popular TV actor to speak positively about lynching into a microphone on stage is a big problem.

I don't think you can forcefully divorce a word from its history. As I see it, words derive their power from the collective consciousness, and while individual usages and interpretations may vary, individuals can't just go in and change the collective consciousness any more than a rowboat can change the ocean tides (notwithstanding the butterfly effect). It's even lamer when an individual or group of individuals attempt to forcefully change the meaning of a word with a convenient outcome in mind; say, glossing over their own historical crimes.

To my ears, usage of the n-word among black folks is far more nuanced. Chris Rock uses it to berate socially irresponsible behavior within the black community ("I love black people, but I can't stand n----z"). Dave Chappelle uses it to caricaturize the absurdity of modern race relations. Many hip hop artists use it as a symbol of fraternity among people with a shared underdog history. I don't have a position on these usages, but they certainly strike me very differently than any usage I've ever heard from white folks, including Michael Richards.

Peace.

[belledame222]

Thanks for covering this story; i saw it in passing last night and was appalled, but too tired to make it into a post then and there. never did get into Seinfeld. can't say i'm sorry. i've heard stories about seinfeld himself as well wrt casting issues and so on. This is just out of control, though.

is it just me, or does it seem like more and more people keep losing their shit and bringing the (barely, but still) repressed out into the open?

[Julian Real]

Hi Kai.

Thanks for posting this. I'm gonna work on a piece about Aryan and whitemale supremacy and how it ties in with anti-Semitism and various forms of racism, in "light" of this most recent display of whitemale supremacy.

As a white Jew, I always found Seinfeld, the series, to be overtly racist. That some whitemale analysts of "great television" have proclaimed it "the best show ever", only confirms my deepest concerns: whitemale supremacy is so ubiquitous and entrenched as to be generally unremarkable, unless someone does something especially blatant on a stage--and gets caught on video doing it, or in front of a Jewish cop (a la Mel Gibson).

Some on-going analyses and confrontations are in order...

[Nanette]

Kai, it's because you mainly keep the imagery on the beautiful and positive (and thought provoking! I'm still learning about the "Pictures of the Mind") that the other stuff packs such a punch. I think many people forget that much of that stuff happened within living memory, too.

I'm not fond of the word regardless of the nuance, but I do understand why some young and not so young black people use it. Still, as you said, that's different.

is it just me, or does it seem like more and more people keep losing their shit and bringing the (barely, but still) repressed out into the open?

belle, it's definitely not just you. I know it seems sort of counter-intuitive, but it's my opinion that Katrina unleashed something within people (whether they were traumatized or shamed or angry or what) that gave them (in their minds) sort of a license to hate (mostly) black people, but also others.

When you think about it, if victims of one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the US, that we watched beg for help and die on national TV, were so swiftly and easily turned into animals and thugs and criminals and, somehow, the ones responsible for the disaster in the first place and all the other stuff being said by the media and the relentless drumming of the right wing... then anyone and anything at all is fair game. In some minds. Once that line was crossed, how many more lines are left?

Something that should have generated sympathy instead opened up a huge well of anger... at the victims. And, by extension, the rest of us.

With all the racist anti-immigrant (or, really, anti Latin@ - citizen, immigrant, in or out of legal status), and the anti-Muslim/Arab stuff as well as all the other sometimes low-level, but often bubbling hates for other ethnic groups, well... we're just a mess.

[belledame222]

Huh, I hadn't been primarily thinking of Katrina, although that makes sense, too.

i was actually thinking in a sort of...it's hard to say it without coming off woo-woo. "things previously hidden coming to light." for better or for worse. not just wrt racism either, although that's part of it. all sorts of crap that's been bubbling just under the surface. you know what i mean, jelly bean?

[belledame222]

I mean, there was Katrina; there was 9/11; there's Iraq; there's been this whole fucking presidency...it feels like, i want to say, like the Clinton years, they never felt that great to me, for whatever combination of personal and politicized reasons, even though i wasn't doing badly, personally. just...yeah, ugly undertones under the supposed "boom," everything from the supra-irony to the explosion of tabloid and ugly right-wing talk radio and the "Republican Revolution" to the actual Clinton admin's regressive policies that obviously affected some people a lot more directly than others, but...it felt like something was on simmer just below the boil threshold, to me. and now it's finally boiling over, and all the caked-up crap that was clinging to the sides of the pot just out of visibility is spilling over as well. like that. -shrug.-

[Kai]

On top of it all, it turns out the guy’s done blackface, repeatedly called a woman the c-word, and went on an anti-semitic tirade. The guy's a piece of work.

Now he's hired a PR person and is arranging meetings with Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson. And to finish off this surreal scene, Jamie Foxx says he's gonna whup his ass.

What a circus.

I'm not sure I find this funny. But I've gotta admit, I do kinda find this funny: "Look there's a racist. He's a racist. A racist. A racist, look, there's a racist."

Peace, folks. Take care out there.

[Kai]

belledame, I'm with you on the woo-woo stuff, it does seem like a lot of peripherally astrologically emotively related stuff is hitting us these days...

Nanette, I hadn't thought of Katrina that way, it's pretty interesting. I'll need to turn that one over in my head a bit...

Cheers.

[belledame222]

I mean, what exactly is supposed to happen when he meets with Sharpton and Jackson? They're going to wave a magic anti-racist wand over his head and all will be well again? please, Mary.

[belledame222]

Nanette: i see what you mean. a comment from Vibe that reads like some sort of boilerplate:

>Maybe he lost his temper, but maybe he just said what many of us are feeling. As a white man I am tired of being labeled a bigot because of what is now history. I am tired of the sensitivity that must be shown to certain groups. Groups who use history as a crutch and because it is a taboo subject we especially white men have to smile in return with a nod of acknowledgement. I am tired of it. If you won't do anything for yourself then you should be left behind. Hold onto that anchor because that is the only chain binding you now the rest of it is what you make of it. It's a whole lot easier to make excuses than to make a difference. I don't condone Richards remarks but I feel his frustration. look at what has happened in New Orleans. I have Black friends who have been there and are frustrated by the lack of effort from the citizens to take charge of there own lives. Do something for yourself. People have and will continue to help as long as you are helping yourself. There is no amount of money from the government or elsewhere that can take the place of a little ambition. Ask Not!>

one possible translation:

"I am dimly aware that the American Dream isn't all it's cracked up to be for me, either. but i can't blame myself, because that would mean i'm a loser; and i can't blame the Dream, because then I would have nothing to believe in at all. so I blame the Usual Suspects, now more than ever, because I want them to quietly carry all my bad feelings and failures for me, like they're supposed to, and they won't do it, and it's so FRUSTRATING. If I can't vent my pent-up shit at black people, where -can- I vent it? Huh?"

[Y. Carrington]

Michael Richards. Blackface. Misogyny. Anti-Semitism. Surprise, surprise. But again, the media and most Americans are gonna individualize these incidents and suggest that maybe Richards is crazy, or addicted, or some other such nonsense. Rosie O'Donnell has already come to his aid by saying he was "depressed." Yeah---when I'm depressed I make genocidal threats against people of color too. Don't we all?

We know that the mainstream media's gonna retire the "controversy" soon, but those of us in blogland should keep this story front and center---not because it involves "Kramer" and Seinfeld---but because Richards' horseshit and the surrounding fiasco has pulled the mask off the myth of liberal mainstream media, and exposed its racist, homophobic, misogynist heart.

[Nanette]

belle, I know what you mean, on the woo woo stuff.

I don't know... I think it's just a pulling back of the curtains, a lot of it. And while I used to think it was due to incompetence (after all, most other presidents before this one managed to keep many Americans in the dark about a lot of US activities), but now I think it's more due to some sort of hubris.

One woman who I'd known for a couple of years before 9/11, lived in SF, seemed fairly liberal, nice, amusing and so on... after 9/11 she said to me "Thank god, we no longer have to pretend. The Right has taken over and we no longer have to even listen to wimpy liberals" and a bunch of other stuff. It was like finding a snake in the cake flour, or something.

I think some of what has been going on is just that sort of attitude, writ large. No longer having to pretend to care about laws, torture, human rights and so on, on the national or international stage, or personally. For some (including Bush and Cheney, et al), the atmosphere after 9/11 was the perfect time openly display, and most importantly, have validated their world view. Same with all the racist ranting and such, I think.

And yes, that quote you found at Vibe (which is actually extremely tame and even considerate, compared to some of the other things said even while people were still dying on rooftops during Katrina) shows the attitude perfectly.

Kai, it's a theory I'm developing, while making copious (mental) notes in preparation for no doubt never writing about it, same as with many other topics, lol.

No clue what Richards thinks meeting with Sharpton and Jackson is going to do for him... especially now with all this other stuff coming out.

[belledame222]

I mean, he probably -is- crazy (depending on one's definition) and/or addicted; it still doesn't mean he isn't a seething racist -also.- It's the same as with Gibson being drunk: yeah, he was drunk, and chances are that he wouldn't have acted quite that way if he weren't drunk, but -in vino veritas.- Getting drunk/wasted/losing your shit doesn't suddenly change your core beleif system. It just lowers your inhibitions.

actually it's particularly creepy, in that light, that "oh, he's obviously stoned" would be an -excuse;- the implication could also be that -everyone- would act like that if they were sufficiently off their guard.

[belledame222]

I mean, the business about how apparently he goes into meltdown whenever someone disagrees with him; that there goes beyond racism per se. on the other hand it sure as hell isn't -exclusive- of racism.

[Nanette]

I believe it is racism, no matter how drunk or crazy he is. Mind you, some researchers do think racism is a form of mental illness, but still. That stuff has to be in you in in the first place, in order for it to come out. If all the people offering these excuses do the same thing when they are drunk/stoned/angry, might be time to take a little tour of their own inner selves.

I also think that, unless one is totally mentally impaired (thru drugs or alcohol or illness), that it's a conscious choice to do that sort of thing. Simply being in a rage doesn't cut it - especially as he seems to reach for racist (or sexist) stuff when confronted by people (like the anti-semitic rant). Obviously a conscious choice.

And really... I don't watch much comedy, but how awful the routines must be these days, with so many people not being sure at first if that sort of behaviour was or was not part of the act. Apparently, all would have been well if he'd just had a proper punch line.

[belledame222]

I think maybe they just weren't processing exactly what was said at first, at least some of them. I hope that was it. sometimes shock causes a delay reaction.

my tentative theory wrt racism and personality/craziness is this: well, putting aside mood disorders and schizophrenia and so on, which are really neither here nor there. On the question of personality disorders, i.e. narcissism.

Well, the key component of narcissism is a lack of empathy. As in, across the boards.

Racism is a form of selective empathy deficit.

So, while it is possible to be racist (due to cultural/whatever reasons) and not necessarily be a narcissist, my theory by me is, there is no such thing as a narcissist who isn't -also-...a bigot, in many ways. Because they have no empathy; and they're all about the image; and they love putting people down. And at heart they're quite reactionary; so they'll cling to whatever reinforces their worldview of their own inflated image uber alles. racism and other "isms" fill the job nicely, among other things of course.

but so as long as they think it'll get 'em in trouble, they'll mouth "correct" platitudes. Sometimes they can be quite convincing.

but when the mask slips (stress, what have you), or when they think they can get away with it...the real poison comes out. And it does have an extra-poisonous kick, because you realize that ultimately they never really will understand what's wrong with what they're saying, in the same way they'll never understand what's wrong with what they're saying and doing -any- time they're hurtful. Because they can't or won't; anyway, they don't. Because they have no empathy.- At best, it's only ever going to be in terms of: "Oh, shit, I'm in trouble. Everyone hates me now."

...which is what i think we were seeing with Richards on Letterman.

and what's really corrosive about this is, people see that and think, fuck, is -everyone- like that?

but they aren't.

which unfortunately isn't to say that most if not all people aren't in fact harboring toxic racist (and so on) crap. The difference is, more people than not, I do believe this, -are- *capable* of learning better. Through empathy. I don't imagine this one is, though.

[Kai]

Julian, I know what you mean about Seinfeld; personally, as a proud New Yorker, I could never bring myself to become a fan of a TV show purportedly about NYC in which the residents of Chinatown and Harlem don't exist except as fast food delivery men. I mean, the deli on the Lower East Side where much of the show apparently takes place is primarily a Latino and South Asian neighborhood these days. Is it really possible for white folks to live in such an insular world that they don't have to interact in any meaningful way with the city's people of color? I guess I just can't relate to that world at all; and clearly that world does not want to relate to me, so I guess it's mutual. Anyway please let me know if and when you finish your piece on Aryan supremacy, I'd love to have an early look.

Y. Carrington, well I do believe this Richards guy is not quite right in the head, racism aside. His eyes have a tremendously hollow shiftiness about them, like his mind is a broken TV on which the channel is continuously changing; there are clearly some burnt wires in there. You're right that the mainstream media is personalizing this incident, which is why I wrote that Richards and his career are not the point of this story. The point is that we live in a white supremacist society that consistently and predictably produces sociopathic patterns of thought and language and behavior, most of which is hidden from view but which bursts out into the open on occasion, as Richards kindly demonstrated with the help of a phone cam and the internet. Ya gotta love the role of technology in this story. In fact, I think technology is a small but important part of the reason for the "pulling back of the curtains" that Nanette and belledame222 are discussing.

Nanette, I'm actually not a fan of describing the Bush administration as "incompetent" (though it's better than, say, "righteous"), because I think that implies that they mean to do well but are simply bungling it up. I think "hubris" is closer to the mark; but ultimately, I think the neoconservative neo-colonial movement has put forth this administration in order to screw things up royally and get away with it, moving the goalposts of civilization and creating a wider berth for their global gangster state. Blow up a poor brown country, let a black city drown, shred international and constitutional law, blow off all semblance of civility, send thousands of Americans to their deaths without a care in the world; and act like all that is perfectly reasonable behavior with perhaps a few incompetent slip-ups.

As for the idea that lynching is something in the distant past, to me that's just crazy-talk. Maybe being Chinese gives me a slightly different view of time (e.g. most Chinese folks think that China has been in a bit of a slump for 500 years or so, but this slump is a short aberration in an 5,000-year history). In my view, 1920 is present-day; I mean, some of those kids in the lynching photos I posted are probably still alive. How can that be the distant past? As far as I'm concerned, slavery was just a few short generations ago, and you'd have to be willfully blind to not notice that its effects are very much alive today.

Even more to the point, hate crimes continue to occur on a regular basis in America. When I was growing up, Vincent Chin was beaten to death for being Asian. In 1998 alone, Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay and James Byrd was murdered for being black. For God's sake, just 2 weeks ago, Hai Vo was brutally beaten and remains in a coma after apparently trying to defend his sister from the racist sexist advances of white men.

Clearly, violent white supremacy is not in the distant past.

[skepticalbrotha]

To say that I am flattered to be included in your blogroll would be an understatement. I am absolutely in love with this post and your blog. I will be back often if I don't become too scatterbrained. The central theme of your post: the power of words and the racist ramifications they sometimes engender, is right on the mark. The explicit reference to lynching in Michael Richards tirade is what really freaked people out. Your post is what I really wanted to say but it is difficult for me to go there. I loose myself in a fog of fury when discussing lynching. A brotha ain't right for a few days. Thank you for going where I couldn't.

[Nanette]

belle: I think maybe they just weren't processing exactly what was said at first, at least some of them. I hope that was it. sometimes shock causes a delay reaction.

Yes, I can understand the people actually at the show being a bit confused as to whether it was part of the act, but even people watching the tape seem to want to make it into a skit gone wrong, or something. It seems the greatest sin, for some, was that it wasn't funny.

That's interesting, about the narcissism... I can definitely see that having a lot to do with it. And the resultant lack of empathy... although, thinking about it over the past couple of months, I am leaning away from the idea that one must have empathy in order to do the right thing, in this sort of matter. Dunno, am not done thinking about it yet, lol.

On the mask slipping though... this was a huge, unmistakable one, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were not also many small, lesser noticed slips along the way. Some want to deny even this meltdown was racist, let alone all the little stuff that happens daily (not involving famous people caught on tape).

Kai, this puts it perfectly:

Nanette, I'm actually not a fan of describing the Bush administration as "incompetent" (though it's better than, say, "righteous"), because I think that implies that they mean to do well but are simply bungling it up. I think "hubris" is closer to the mark; but ultimately, I think the neoconservative neo-colonial movement has put forth this administration in order to screw things up royally and get away with it, moving the goalposts of civilization and creating a wider berth for their global gangster state. Blow up a poor brown country, let a black city drown, shred international and constitutional law, blow off all semblance of civility, send thousands of Americans to their deaths without a care in the world; and act like all that is perfectly reasonable behavior with perhaps a few incompetent slip-ups.

That has been my feeling as well. That they want validation for it, they want it all right out there... "this is what we are, this is what we do, and we like it". It would all be actually less freaky if it was incompetence... I think some would actually prefer to think of it that way, out of a "it can't happen here" type of view.

The time thing too is fascinating to think about... a 500 year slump, lol. Yes, and we accord 100 year old buildings "historical" status. As a nation, we have no clue how to deal with thousands of years of history, or ancient civilizations or anything that doesn't become obsolete as soon as you buy it. Reminds me of one story told of a conversation between an Afghan man and US official/soldier, something... where the Afghan said something like "You have all the weapons and gadgets. We have the time."

Waiting something out for 2 or 3 years, or decades doesn't mean much when your collective memory reaches back centuries.

Funny tho... some of the same people who blithely commit slavery and lynchings and internments and genocides and so on to The Distant and Unredeemable Past have no problem at all understanding all the ins and outs of the centuries of the Serb/Croat/Balkans thing, or the Irish Troubles - or with attempting to make a very modern issue (Israeli/Palestinian) into something whose roots are in events of thousands of years ago instead of present day colonialism.

Actually, I think much of that comes from the refusal to even yet accord some non-white groups individual personhood.

[belledame222]

Yeah; empathy doesn't mean "I feel your pain" really deeply necessarily, you know; it simply means the ability to imagine yourself in the other's shoes, like, at all.

a bit more on where i'm coming from on this here:

http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/dsm-iv.html#emp

[belledame222]

also this:

http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/traits.html#cruel

[steamedteapot]

well white supremacy isnt the only thing out there, whites arent the only racist. lots of different races dog on each other, why not bring them up too. why just the white supremacy?

just curious,
me

[Kai]

steamedteapot, two simple points:

First, obviously white supremacy "isn't the only thing out there". For example, Tuvan throat singing is "out there", why aren't we talking about Tuvan throat singers and the discrimination against them in the Chinese recording industry? Answer: because it's not relevant to this discussion.

Second, there are these things called "history books" that will inform you that white supremacy has largely shaped the past half-millenium of human activity around the world with its imperialistic genocidal violence. That's why it's noteworthy. If Africans or Asians had, over the course of the past 500 years, been engaged in brutal exploitative overseas colonialism, packing European slaves into the bottoms of ships, committing genocide against indigenous peoples, lynching whites in the formalized manner of the photographs in this post, we'd surely be talking about that. But that didn't happen. White supremacy did.