White supremacist capitalism is justified through a combination of the white racial frame and bourgeois ideology. The white racial frame and bourgeois ideology are connected and intertwined.
Capitalism and the Bourgeois Ideology
Bourgeois ideology describes capitalism as a system where if you work hard, are intelligent, virtuous, or industrious, then you will be prosperous. At the same time, the system states or implies that lack of prosperity is due to laziness, unintelligence, dishonesty, or shiftlessness. It is described by metaphors like a competitive game where the most deserving are winners and the least deserving are losers.
History of White Racial Frame
The white racial frame is the dominant worldview of whites today. It was adopted by white elites during the beginning of European global conquest, such as when Europeans encountered “Indians” in what was to become the Americas and when white elites enslaved Africans in the United States. The white racial frame continues to be used to rationalize and justify racial oppression today.
The white racial frame rationalizes racial oppression through racist stereotypes, such as African Americans and other people of color being inherently lazier, unintelligent, uncivilized, criminal, evil, and generally inferior. At the same time, white Americans are viewed as intelligent, holy, virtuous, good, hardworking and generally superior (Feagin 2010).
Capitalism and Racism
Racism/White Supremacy/Racial Oppression has always been central and fundamental to the global system of capitalism. The white racial frame started with, and thus justified, the genocide of Native Americans — in order to steal the land of North America — and enslavement of Africans, all in the interest of generating wealth for white capitalist elites. The genocide of Indians and enslavement of African Americans is foundational to the present system of capitalism we have today. Theft of land inhabited by people of color and exploitation of their labor was, and continues to be, fundamental to the global system of capitalism. White supremacist capitalism has thrived by “sucking the blood” of people of color in the United States and throughout the world — all in the interest of generating wealth for white capitalist elites.
Connection Between Bourgeois Ideology and The White Racial Frame
The exploitation of labor and land of people of color in the United States and throughout the world is central to the interest of generating wealth for white capitalist elites, and is the reason people of color are disproportionately poor. People of color are not disproportionately poor because they are inferior, like bourgeois ideology and the white racial frame says. On the contrary, they are disproportionately poor because they are the primary victims in the system of global capitalism. The primary predators or victimizers in the global system of capitalism throughout its history and today are white elites.
Reference:
Feagin, Joe. 2010. The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counterframing.
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