White supremacy
Executive summary
White supremacy is an ideology and a system that asserts the superiority of white people and seeks their dominance across political, economic and social life, a concept traced from scientific racism and colonialism to modern institutional forms [1] [2]. Scholarly and institutional sources frame it both as explicit movements—violent and organized—and as covert cultural and legal systems that sustain racial inequity long after formal segregation ended [3] [4].
1. What the term means: belief, system, and spectrum
At its narrowest, white supremacy denotes the belief that white people are inherently superior and should control people of other races; at its broader, systemic meaning it describes political, economic and cultural arrangements that produce and reproduce white dominance through laws, policies and everyday practices [5] [6] [2].
2. Historical roots and global reach
Historians and comparative studies locate white supremacy in European colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade and doctrines—such as scientific racism and the “doctrine of discovery”—that rationalized dispossession and enslavement from the 16th century onward, and these roots explain its manifestation in institutions from Jim Crow to apartheid and the White Australia policies [2] [7] [8].
3. How white supremacy adapted after legal defeats
Legal dismantling of segregation in the United States did not erase white supremacist power; scholars argue the ideology went “underground,” transforming from overt state-sanctioned hierarchy to subtler policy-driven and cultural forms that preserve racial inequity even as explicit endorsement declined among the general white public [3] [6].
4. Varieties of expression: from culture to terrorism
White supremacy ranges from cultural narratives embedded in textbooks and organizational norms to organized violent movements and terrorism: education and media have historically transmitted narratives of white superiority, while extremist groups and lone actors have carried out deadly attacks justified by supremacist ideas [9] [10] [6] [3].
5. Analytical perspectives and contested definitions
Scholars and institutions differ on emphasis: critical race theorists and antiracist educators define white supremacy as a structural system maintained by written and unwritten rules that function like “whiteness as property,” while encyclopedic and dictionary definitions foreground the belief in racial superiority and political dominance [4] [5] [1]. These differences reveal not disagreement over occurrence but over whether the term should primarily name ideology, legal structures, or cultural habits.
6. Who studies it and why labels matter
Universities, encyclopedias and education unions produce definitions that reflect disciplinary aims—historians map origins, legal scholars expose policy mechanisms, and educators identify cultural traits—so the choice to label practices “white supremacy” can signal commitment to structural remedies versus individual-level change, and also provoke political backlash from those who see the label as accusatory [9] [4] [10].
7. Limits of this report and unresolved questions
The available sources establish broad consensus on definitions and historical lineage but do not supply exhaustive data on contemporary prevalence in specific institutions or quantify how beliefs translate into policy outcomes today; for those empirical gaps, targeted field studies and government data reviews are necessary [2] [6].
8. Implications for public debate and action
Framing matters: defining white supremacy as a living system rather than only extremist groups expands responsibility for remediation to schools, workplaces and law, while narrower frames focus resources on policing and counterterrorism—both approaches exist in the literature and imply different policy and civic responses [4] [3] [10].