White supremacy

White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and was a key justification for European colonialism.

As a political ideology, it imposes and maintains cultural, social, political, historical or institutional domination by white people and non-white supporters. In the past, this ideology had been put into effect through socioeconomic and legal structures such as the Atlantic slave trade, European colonial labor and social practices, the Scramble for Africa, Jim Crow laws in the United States, the activities of the Native Land Court in New Zealand, the White Australia policies from the 1890s to the mid-1970s, and apartheid in South Africa. This ideology is also today present among neo-Confederates.

White supremacy underlies a spectrum of contemporary movements including white nationalism, white separatism, neo-Nazism, and the Christian Identity movement. In the United States, white supremacy is primarily associated with Aryan Nations, White Aryan Resistance, and the Ku Klux Klan. The Proud Boys are considered an implicitly white supremacist organization, despite denying their association with white supremacy. In recent years, websites such as Twitter (known as X since July 2023), Reddit, and Stormfront, have contributed to an increased activity and interest in white supremacy.

Not all white-supremacist organizations have the same objectives, and while some may uphold a Nordicist ideal of whiteness, others are more broadly white supremacist, including members of Southern European and Eastern European descent. Different groups of white supremacists identify various racial, ethnic, religious, and other enemies, most commonly those of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous peoples, people of Asian descent, multiracial people, MENA people, Jews, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people.

In academic usage, particularly in critical race theory or intersectionality, "white supremacy" also refers to a social system in which white people enjoy structural advantages (privilege) over other ethnic groups, on both a collective and individual level, despite formal legal equality.