[boapnuaput]

Hi! I'm further left than most progressives.

Our society is not homogenous enough to make a statement like "white supremacist society" substantial. However, there are three closely-related truths which are pretty obvious about our society:

* Our society is, itself, a fascist, classist, militaristic society.

* Pockets of people and parochial cultures in some specific regions are white supremacists.

This isn't definitional or axiomatic, but if you don't perceive these things as true in your day-to-day experience of our country, then you're not likely to feel that they're true. And that's fine! We don't have to agree. But it's useful to point out how and where we don't agree.

[0815test]

It's not that I don't perceive many things that might be described with some truth-of-the-matter as "fascist, classist, militaristic". What I might object to is the use of such terms as "fascist", "classist", "militaristic" as thought-terminating cliches deprived of any real content, which is astoundingly common. And the meme of "the white-supremacist society" is not significantly different in any real sense - though it does seem more likely to prompt attitudes such as Ravelry's, as reported in the OP.

[eesmith]

Rather than switch to a meta-conversation about "memes", could you address the more concrete questions I asked earlier? That is, I wanted to know if you think that "white supremacy and "supporting white supremacy" were meaningful terms at all.

Before doing that, I'll note that you were the first to use the term 'society' in this thread. My previous statements were along the lines of 'support for open white supremacy'. I think "society" is a distraction because there's always the "not all" objection - not all white people in Virgiania in 1850s were in favor of slavery, even though it was a slave society.

So when I mean "society", I mean "the main cultural views as reinforced by the government and others with political, economic, and physical power".

Going back to my earlier questions, which I'll augment:

1) can the 1970s South Africa be described as a white supremacist society? I think it can. For obvious reasons.

2) can the 1850s US be described as a white supremacist society? I think it can, for obvious reasons.

3) can the 1950s US be described as a white supremacist society? I think it can. Jim Crow laws. Sundowner towns, Redlining, Mississippi Burning.

4) can the current US be described as a white supremacist society? I have come to the conclusion that viewing the dominate power structures in the US as being strongly influenced by white supremacy is a valid, though incomplete one.

If you reject that 'white-supremacist society' is a useful term, then perhaps you shouldn't have introduced it?