| dc.description.abstract | White supremacy is often conceptualized as an ensemble of affects, attitudes, beliefs, practices, and/or institutions that directly or indirectly harm people of color by virtue of their social status as people of color. Less well understood, however, are the indirect disadvantages many White people have suffered as a result of this country’s persistent mistreatment of people of color. This dissertation draws on W.E.B. Du Bois to construct a conceptual framework for understanding one such disadvantage. My Du Boisian account focuses on White supremacist ideology, which I conceptualize as an action-guiding cultural framework for interpreting and coping with economic domination. Although White supremacist ideology has guided and rationalized practices through which many White people have benefited at the expense of people of color, I argue that these White supremacist practices have ultimately reinforced White working-class subjection to economic domination. In this regard, I maintain that many White people have a concrete interest in challenging and practically overcoming white supremacy. | |
