ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a different approach toward the study of whiteness. It argues that a critical look at white privilege, or the analysis of white racial hegemony, must be complemented by an equally rigorous examination of white supremacy, or the analysis of white racial domination. As such, a critical pedagogy of white racial supremacy revolves less around the issue of unearned advantages, or the state of being dominant, and more around direct processes that secure domination and the privileges associated with it. To the extent that domination represents a process that establishes the supremacy of a racial group, its resulting everyday politics is understood as “dominance.” Articulating the possibility of “universal” white supremacy necessitates strategies that unpack discourses in particular school places. One of its features that critical educators confront is the notion of investment. Discourses of supremacy acknowledge white privileges, but only as a function of whites’ actions toward minority subjects.
