White supremacy is the belief, and/or promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social, political, historical and/or industrial dominance by whites. White supremacy, as with racial supremacism in general, is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony and power, and has frequently resulted in violence against non-whites. Different forms of white supremacy have different conceptions of who is considered white, and not all white supremacist organizations agree on who is their greatest enemy.
White supremacist groups can be found in some countries and regions with a significant white population including Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and South Africa. The militant approach taken by white supremacist groups has caused them to be watched closely by law enforcement officials. Some have even been labelled as terrorists. Some European countries have laws forbidding hate speech, as well as other laws that ban or restrict some white supremacist organizations.
Read more about White Supremacy: Systemic White Supremacy, Academic Use of The Term, Ideologies and Movements, Alliances With Black Supremacist Groups
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or supremacy:
“Stands the Spring! heralded by its bright-clothed
Trumpeters, of bough and bush and branch;
Pale Winter draws away his white hands, loathed,
And creeps, a leper, to the cave of time.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)