HETEROPATRIARCHY AND THE THREE PILLARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY RETHINKING WOMEN OF COLOR ORGANIZING by Andrea Smith – Cherokee intellectual, feminist, and anti-violence activist Scenario #1 These incidents, which happen quite A group of women of color come together frequently in “women of color” or “people of to organize. An argument ensues about color” political organizing struggles, are often whether or not Arab women should be explained as consequence of “oppression included. Some argue that Arab women are olympics.” That is to say, one problem we “white” since they have been classified as such have is that we are too busy fighting over who in the U.S. census. Another argument erupts is more oppressed. In this essay, I want to over whether or not Latinas qualify as argue that these incidents are not so much the “women of color,” since some may be result of “oppression olympics” but are more classified as “white” in their Latin American about how we have inadequately framed countries of origin and/or “pass” as white in “women of color” or “people of color” the United States. politics. That is, the premise behind much “women of color” organizing is that women Scenario #2 from communities victimized by white In a discussion on racism, some people supremacy should unite together around their argue that Native peoples suffer from less shared oppression. This framework might be racism than other people of color because represented by a diagram of five overlapping they generally do not reside in segregated circles, each marked Native women, Black neighborhoods within the United States. In women, Arab/Muslim Women, Latinas and addition, some argue that since tribes now Asian American women, overlapping like a have gaming, Native people are no longer Venn diagram. “oppressed.” This framework has proven to be limited for women of color and people of color Scenario #3 organizing. First, it tends to presume that our A multiracial campaign develops involving communities have been impacted by white diverse communities of color in which some supremacy in the same way. Consequently, participants charge that we must stop the we often assume that all of our communities black/white binary, and end Black hegemony will share similar strategies for liberation. In over people of color politics to develop a fact, however, our strategies often run into more “multicultural” framework. However, conflict. For example, one strategy that many this campaign continues to rely on strategies people in U.S.-born communities adopt, is to and cultural motifs developed by the Black join the military. We then become complicit Civil Rights struggle in the United States. in oppressing and colonizing communities from other countries. Meanwhile, people 1 from other countries often adopt the strategy commodifies most people – the logic of of moving to the United States to advance slavery applies a racial hierarchy to this economically, without considering their system. This racial hierarchy tells people that complicity in settling on the lands of as long as you are not Black, you have the indigenous peoples that are being colonized by opportunity to escape the commodification of the United States. capitalism. This helps people who are not Consequently, it may be more helpful to Black to accept their lot in life, because they adopt an alternative framework for women of can feel that at least they are not at the very color and people of color organizing. I call bottom of the racial hierarchy – at least they one such framework the “Three Pillars of are not property; at least they are not White Supremacy.” This framework does not slaveable. assume that racism and white supremacy is The logic of slavery can be seen clearly in enacted in a singular fashion; rather, white the current prison-industrial complex (PIC). supremacy is constituted by separate and While the PIC generally incarcerates distinct, but still interrelated, logics. Envision communities of color, it seems to be three pillars, one labeled Slavery/Capitalism, structured primarily on an anti-Black racism. another labeled Genocide/Colonialism, and That is, prior to the Civil War, most people in the last one labeled Orientalism/War, as well prison were white. However, after the as arrows connecting each of the pillars thirteenth amendment was passed – which together. banned slavery, except for those in prison – Black people previously enslaved through the SLAVERY/CAPITALISM slavery system were re-enslaved through the prison system. Black people who had been One pillar of white supremacy is the logic the property of slave owners became state of slavery. As Sora Han, Jared Sexton and property, through the conflict leasing system. Angela P. Harris note, this logic renders Black Thus, we can actually look at the people as inherently slave-able – as nothing criminalization of Blackness as a logical more than property.1 That is, in this logic of extension of Blackness as property. white supremacy, Blackness becomes equated with slaveability. The forms of slavery may GENOCIDE/COLONIALISM change – whether it is through the formal system of slavery, sharecropping, or through A second pillar of white supremacy is the the current prison-industrial complex – but logic of genocide. This logic holds that the logic itself has remained consistent. indigenous peoples must disappear. In fact, The logic is the anchor of capitalism. That they must always be disappearing, in order to is, the capitalist system ultimately commodifies allow non-indigenous people the rightful claim all workers – one’s own person becomes a over this land. Through this logic of genocide, commodity that one must sell in the labor non-Native peoples then become the rightful market while the profits of one’s work are inheritors of all that was indigenous – land, taken by someone else. To keep this capitalist resources, indigenous spirituality, or culture. system in place – which ultimately As Kate Shanley notes, Native peoples are a 2 permanent “present absence” in the U.S. indigenous peoples have disappeared. colonial imagination, an “absence” that rein- forces, at every turn, the conviction that ORIENTALISM/WAR Native peoples are indeed vanishing and the conquest of Native land is justified. Ella Shoat A third pillar of white supremacy is the and Robert Stam describe this absence as “an logic of Orientalism. Orientalism was defined ambivalently repressive mechanism [which] by Edward Said as the process of the West dispels the anxiety in the face of the Indian, defining itself as a superior civilization by whose very presence is a reminder of the constructing itself in opposition to an “exotic” initially precarious grounding of the American but inferior “Orient.” (Here, I am using the nation-state itself....In a temporal paradox, term “Orientalism” more broadly than to living Indians were induced to ‘play dead,’ as it solely signify what has been historically named were, in order to perform a narrative of as the Orient or Asia.) The logic of manifest destiny in which their role, ultimately, Orientalism marks certain peoples or nations 2 was to disappear.” as inferior and as posing a constant threat to Rayna Green further elaborates that the the well-being of empire. These peoples are current Indian “wannabe” phenomenon is still seen as “civilizations” – they are not based on the logic of genocide: non-Native property or “disappeared” – however, they peoples imagine themselves as the rightful will always be imagined as permanent foreign inheritors of all that previously belonged to threats to empire. This logic is evident in the “vanished” Indians, thus entitling them to anti-immigration movements within the United ownership of this land. “The living States that target immigrants of color. It does performance of ‘playing Indian’ by non-Indian not matter how long the immigrants of color peoples depends upon the physical and reside in the United States, they generally psychological removal, even the death, of real become targeted as foreign threats, Indians. In that sense the performance, particularly during war time. Consequently, purportedly often done out of a stated and orientalism serves as the anchor for war, implicit love for Indians, is really the obverse because it allows the United States to justify or another well-known cultural phenomenon, being in a constant state of war to protect ‘Indian hating,’ as most often expressed in itself from its enemies. another, deadly performance genre called For example, the United States feels 3 ‘genocide.’” After all, why would non-Native entitled to use Orientalist logic to justify racial peoples need to play Indian – which often profiling of Arab Americans so that it can be includes acts of spiritual appropriation and strong enough to fight the “war on terror.” land theft – if they thought Indians were still Orientalism also allows the United States to alive and perfectly capable of being Indian defend the logics of slavery and genocide, as themselves? The pillar of genocide serves as these practices enable the United States to the anchor for colonialism – it is what allows stay “strong enough” to fight these constant non-Native people to feel they can rightfully wars. What becomes clear then is what Sora own indigenous peoples’ land. It is okay to Han states – the United States is not at war; take land from indigenous peoples because the United States is war.4 For the system of 3 white supremacy to stay in place, the United and Asian peoples are promised that they will States must always be at war. economically and politically advance if they Because we are situated within different join U.S. wars to spread “democracy.” Thus, logics of white supremacy, we may people of color organizing must be premised misunderstand a racial dynamic if we on making strategic alliances with each other, simplistically try to explain one logic of white based on where we are situated within the supremacy with another logic.