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How to Build a Racism Machine
Whitetopia Addendum
I have often been drawn to the dynamism involved in dissecting systems and structures — not in the way of grids and architecture, but more like how democracy and capitalism seem to function on varying and opaque ends of a narrow spectrum; how one really does not equal or another. Or, power dynamics. I have been fascinated with these systems, the way they function and how. Look at how they exist on multiple planes, those dynamics with their ever-evolving caste systems and hierarchical prototypes, bending folks to their whim and will. It is these structures I am most intrigued by, enamored with—not obsessively, but enough to be engaged in the dialogue about them and how they are built. But mainly, my borderline obsession with them has more to do with my Blackness and how functioning on the fringes of that Blackness taps into a much larger contextual conversation about whiteness, white culture, and what those two degrees mean to the overall conversation on structures and race and power dynamics in America.
What is white culture? Is there a white culture? The young lady who once told me I “dressed like a white boy” because I had my chino pant legs pinrolled would argue that such a thing does exist. The students who told me I sounded like a white boy whenever I used dictionary-sounding kind of words would probably also concur. The chasm…
