#wanted to make this rebloggable but unfortunately i am still haunted by gxmxrgxtx

[majorbaby]

i have always flinched at the use of the terms ‘supremacist’ in a facetious way to announce ones fannish preferences because i’ve basically only ever seen that word used when describing the ideological basis for systemic racism: white supremacy and its subscribers, white supremacists. 

you’d be right to say that systemic misogyny (although i actually don’t see it called ‘systemic misogyny’ a whole lot even if that’s what it is) is a result of ‘male supremacy’ where that means a belief that men are superior to women but we don’t usually call it that, we commonly use ‘patriarchy’ or ‘toxic masculinity’ instead. in mentioning this, i mean to point out a pattern of re-appropriation of terms used to describe the oppression experienced specifically by racialized people for "harmless" purposes.

i’d been telling myself that i was being over sensitive and that no one meant anything by it and i still mostly believe the latter half. it’s true that ignoring and/or minimizing one’s own reactions to marginalization is both an inevitable consequence of being a underrepresented racialized person (or a woman, a queer person, a disabled person, a poor person or any intersections of these groups but this post is about being racialized) and also a frankly useful survival tactic... but it’s also true that i’m just more inclined to turn over rocks and look for the race angle. all of this had me thinking about writing this post and continuously coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t necessary or that i couldn’t really support it with facts.

but it turns out, I can:

supremacist, noun - plural, supremacists

1 an advocate or adherent of the supremacy of one group : a person who believes that one group of people as identified by their shared race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or religion is inherently superior to other groups and should have control over those other groups

2 WHITE SUPREMACIST

Synonyms: racialist, racist

perhaps using ‘supremacist’ colloquially, doesn’t share exactly the same weight as calling your s//b read/it of 7 million users, arr/pcmxstxrrxcx and thinking that is completely fine. The concept of the ‘master race’ was actually developed by the Nazis, but it’s been easily reappropriated as this harmless, cheeky name. I say “harmless” but i’m censoring the example because i have some concerns around that particular internet subculture. even in cases where it should be obvious why this is inappropriate, it’s still not seen as a problem.  -- edit because I used the example of the term “master race”, I should’ve mentioned here that while all racialized people have their suffering minimized, jewish people are particularly hurt by this for lots of reasons that i can’t succinctly address here but i want to at least say that people being largely (7 million subs) unbothered by this is a result of a willfully ignorance and denial of the seriousness of antisemitism - this is a result of white supremacy but all non-jewish people, particularly in leftist spaces need to take responsibility for this and include jews in social justice movements.  --

Maybe we think ‘supremacist’ is okay because it’s related to the words ‘supreme’ and ‘superior’, which have lots of benign uses:

(Lake Superior is so-named because it is the largest of the great lakes. A ‘Supreme Court’ is, in most cases, so-named because it has a higher level of authority than any of its counterparts that may exist in a particular region’s judiciary system. A Crunchwrap supreme is so-named because it’s marketed as being the answer to the question ‘hard or soft shell’ and therefore ‘the best of both worlds’ and also because it attempted to address the portability issues with tacos... burrito erasure if you ask me.)

i can’t account for every instance of the use of the word “supremacist” but i do think it’s worth mentioning that when i search the term ‘supremacist’ (not white supremacist, just supremacist) google images returns images of confederate flags, nazi imagery or anti-white supremacy protests. if i search the news i get the latest in white supremacist moves. and not that you absolutely must take my word for it, but i can’t really think of another way its commonly used. 

i’m sure people have thrown this word around in other hobbyist spaces, i’m just talking about fandom because fandom is one of my hobbies. i’m also not calling anyone racist and i’m definitely not calling anyone a white supremacist for declaring themselves to be a pancake supremacist or an air sign supremacist in their bio - i realize you’re having fun and identifying a preference or a love of something - i would assume it’s the same energy as calling yourself a cat person or a coffee enthusiast. but still i flinch, and after looking into it further, i think ‘micro aggression’ might apply here.