The organized and accelerated forms of attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) across the far-right political architectures of the U.S. and radiating from the U.S. to global spaces where white supremacy has historically reigned, reflect white backlash.
White backlash, or backlash from historic and entrenched structures of white supremacy, is specifically crafted by white supremacists to silence and erase diverse voices of resistance witnessing the violence and hypocrisies of white supremacy.
White backlash is specifically designed to threaten and erase diverse voices from the margins that have been produced by white supremacy.
It is directed at the plural registers of excellence that are being built locally and globally by Indigenous, Black, and people of color communities rendering visible the workings of white terror and white violence.
Trace here the emergence of the anti-DEI disinformation and hate infrastructure as a reflection of the white backlash to the #BlackLivesMatter movement documenting the white supremacist violence enmeshed in the police and carceral structure of the US. The excellence of the BLM is witnessed in the global movement it has seeded and weaved together, centering narratives of connection and joy in the face of the violent oppressive structures of white supremacy. The excellence of Indigenous, Black and people of color activism across global spaces has created connections, built mutuality, and fostered a global momentum against white supremacy.
These registers of excellence witness the resilience, strength, and beauty of diverse communities that have continued to thrive in the face of the terrorizing violence unleashed by whiteness, the hegemonic values of white culture peddled as universals, upon us. These registers of excellence speak to our community-based collective capacities to thrive, to shine, and to grow in spite of the organized practices of cultural and material genocide perpetrated by white supremacy. In spite of the extreme forms of violence produced and recycled by white supremacy, diverse communities of color have continued to thrive.
In contrast, historically, whiteness has been built on mediocrity. These mediocre practices of colonial and imperial violence have been time and again disrupted and dismantled by diverse communities at the global margins. The techniques of repression and erasure perfected by whiteness, although effective in some scenarios, have been dismantled through the organizing of diverse people and communities. Consider here what we learn from the diverse anticolonial struggles waged across the Global South and the struggles of sovereignty waged by Indigenous communities. That our collective struggles have the capacity to dismantle the structures of white supremacy that seek to repress us is an ongoing lesson.
Elsewhere, I have argued that the organizing structures of whiteness that constitute the spaces of knowledge production uphold and reproduce white mediocrity. These structures of white mediocrity create rules and games that often privilege mediocre, white men, placing them in positions of power, based upon white networks. White men reward each other, recognize each other, and perpetuate the racist structures that reward themselves. These racist structures than narrate the story of the inherent racial superiority of the white race.
Often these white men in positions of power are incompetent, inefficient and ineffective, unable to meet the very objective criteria and metrics they create to evaluate excellence. When individuals of color exceed the requirements set up by white men, the rules of the game are surreptitiously changed. Often irrational and subjective accounts are offered by these white men for why they continue to reward other white men, some token white women, and some other token white rainbow people. Once the structures have been pushed enough number of times, they incrementally modify the games of reward and recognition to accommodate some token people of color, ticking the boxes of DEI while continuing to perpetuate whiteness.
The current architecture of global white backlash to diverse forms of merit is a white supremacist response, communicatively inverted, as a global campaign for the recognition of merit. This communicative inversion is further perpetuated by dressing up the white supremacist campaign as one for free speech and academic freedom. The far-right mobilization around academic freedom is designed precisely to uphold and perpetuate white supremacy, foregrounding white supremacist voices as reason and knowledge, while at the same time actively erasing calls for decolonization, incorporation, and transformation.