For the past half a millennia, many people racialised as white benefited from a system that, whilst preferencing them, may also have caused a decline in their sense of community.
Community is defined here as a group of people who live in a particular area who are considered as a unit of togetherness because of their shared interests or background.
Sense of community is defined here as a caring, shared commitment to meet group members' needs; a friendly feeling that members belong in and matter to the group.
Leaving aside the probability of a more direct reason for a decline in reported sense of community specifically amongst those white people who are overtly racist and xenophobic i.e. discomfort and fear from their observation, perception, or assumptions about growth in diverse ethnic demographics and increasing multiculturalism, and the rhetoric about white minoritisation and the demonisation of the non-white / 'un-citizens' they consume from Right-wing, racist media, and their self-imposed isolation from 'others', perhaps this purported decline in togetherness might be shared to some extent by all ethnicities, due to advances in globalisation, digitisation, changes in working and living conditions, cities built and expanded in ways that inhibit engagement, and the decline of the high street amongst other factors of modern life that affect us all.
Maybe not, or not to the same extent because a key difference for majoritised white people is that active, inclusive community building hasn't been necessary for their survival, nor their success in the past few hundred years. Whereas, community is a fundamental characteristic within indigenous communities and has been necessary for global ethnic majority groups - especially minoritised diasporas impacted by colonialism - to survive white supremacy.
The invention of whiteness meant that, even without effort or intention, white people were advantaged by selective preference, and not placed at risk or disadvantage as a consequence of their racialisation.
So, have centuries of whiteness replaced the need to sustain community for white folk? Perhaps, given whiteness served as a hidden-in-plain-sight, systemic, institutionalised safety network - an exclusionary version of 'community' designed to unfairly allocate opportunity, resource and wealth (and rationalised by the made-up pseudobiology of races).
As such, whiteness could be viewed as a capitalist, in-group sanctioned version of 'community'. Perhaps a club (like Fight Club, in that it's inherently violent and the first rule is "we don't talk about it"). Membership of this club reduced barriers to success and safety relative to non-white peers (e.g. in education, employment, property, health, and criminal justice) up to the point at which club membership might threaten the status quo of class division and labour exploitation, loosen the grip of the top-most power holders on their electorate, or begin to shift mainstream accepted norms towards the Left.
But this substitution of club for community, despite it facilitating a significant but ultimately limited material privilege (notwithstanding intersecting systemic factors such as ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia etc), has arguably eroded an authentic sense of community and with it an accessibility for shared joy. For whiteness is not just a disconnection with community, it's also a disconnection with one's own humanity as well as others', a disconnection with inner peace and a thief of joy, and a disconnection with nature.
Is white supremacist capitalism therefore implicated in the decline of friendships, friendly neighbours and neighbourhoods, extended families of 'unrelated' aunties and uncles, the local shops, the local doctor, the village that could raise us, the standing together on picket lines..? Without white supremacy would we all be doing more collaborating with colleagues, working and sharing with students, children, patients and communities as equals? Thinking with compassion before cognition (and not sustaining a false binary between the two)? Resisting and challenging the cages of unhealthy masculinity and embracing intersectional queer feminism? Focusing on education for growth, sustainability and creativity instead of merely utility? Prioritising education over bygone eras of inherited career pathways, nepotistic networks and assumed entitlement?
Perhaps a pathway to community within and across groups could be cleared by unlearning and overstanding the legacy of colonial white supremacy and socialisation that elevates competition over collaboration, envy over celebration, separation over sharing. Would subverting whiteness and patriarchy help us join together across class and other differences in the struggle for social justice?
To do the above, and for social justice work to be impactful, one must be able to hold the following two truths at once:
(1) social justice work targeted at the oppression of specific groups is necessary AND embracing social justice work that helps everybody regardless of identity is necessary.
(2) change won't happen without internal work within individuals AND change won't happen without external action with others and with institutional policy/practice.
(3) shame is one of many emotions that can motivate a change in behaviour towards accountability, advocacy and allyship (if temporary, and processed) BUT shaming, and guilt in the longer term, are unhealthy, unhelpful and lead to avoidance and resistance (or self-healing saviourism).
(4) discomfort, anger, risk, critique and challenge are necessary in social justice work BUT compassion, healing and support for all are necessary too.
(5) social justice work must be reparative praxis and not just solitary internal personal growth BUT social justice work doesn't have to be public/public-facing, and people can start wherever and with whatever they feel sufficiently confident, even if that is some solitary learning/internal growth.
(6) identity and lived experience are vital and central to social justice work BUT the empathy of shared humanity means everyone can have a voice and has the potential to understand the specific oppression of others.
(7) we all need to embrace humility and keep growing AND we all have strengths and assets already within us.
Comments are open but please, if you disagree, begin with kindness. I do not mean all white people or you specifically. I am talking about systemic oppression, structural power, culture, hegemony and the legacy of Global North colonialism.
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