It’s not uncommon for Black and minority communities to talk about the “System” and “The Man.” These names for white supremacy and racial capitalism are common pseudonyms.
We’ve named the larger bodies, but it’s time to address the agents who sustain this system. When discussing disinformation, we focus on three sub-parts that comprise it: the pillars, the sanitizers, and the discriminators.
In America’s landscape of white supremacy, these three actors play pivotal roles.
The pillars provide support, ensuring the narrative foundation of white supremacy remains strong. Sanitizers manipulate history, erasing or altering facts to fit a narrative that excludes the achievements and systems put in place to actively oppress Black individuals. Discriminators are the most visible, aggressively working to degrade and deny the rights and experiences of Black people.
Pillars
The concept of “pillars” in the context of disinformation and white supremacy refers to those individuals and institutions that uphold and reinforce harmful social norms and racial hierarchies. These are not just passive supporters but active participants in maintaining a status quo that inflicts violence upon Black people.
Pillars of white supremacy operate by promoting and sustaining beliefs, laws, and practices that align with racist ideologies, often under the guise of tradition or social cohesion.
Breaking that down:
The same institutions that we trust to maintain our nation’s well-being often back beliefs and systems that hurt many, especially Black communities.
Think about our legal system. The Supreme Court, our lawmakers, and our judges are all complicit in the creation of laws that can sustain or deconstruct systemic racism. However, they often uphold outdated laws that don’t reflect the supposed “American ideals”. On the other hand, when they bring in new laws, they set examples for future lawmakers.
These precedents influence how laws can be interpreted to help the working class and minority groups. Some of these new laws and rules can put barriers in front of Black Americans.
This makes progress even harder. For example, redlining in Missouri not only created a legal form of financial segregation, but the precedent set by the now illegal practice persists in Missouri today. “The Dividing Line” is the nickname given to Troost Ave, which divides the East and West of Kansas City.
The North is considered by locals to be the nicer part of town, with better overall quality of life. The South is considered to be more rundown, and home to many minority communities. Anti-abortion laws and insurance for gender-affirming care have also been targeted in Missouri, which directly impacts members of the Black community who would benefit from that care.
These laws shape the way our community is allowed to interact with itself, inhibiting our quality of life and threatening the fight for liberation from an oppressive system.
The media can also be an example of a pillar when it chooses which stories to tell and which to ignore, shaping our views in subtle ways. Education is an influential form of domestic media; local education is a form of mandated media we’re designed to consume.
When we allow history books to leave out the achievements of Black heroes, or Black history in general, the books act as pillars of a flawed system. Controlling history means you control the perception of a people, which influences how they’re treated, and how they act. Education is one way that you control a society.
Society and the culture that comes from it are built off of history.
If you can manage to teach a group that they have always been passive and should always be passive, it makes it more difficult for them to want to correct the systemic wrongs.
Misinformation in America can be intentionally spread when the people in power continue to re-write history for the sake of their own guilt or self image. Think about the people who produce the sources you use to cite in your research papers. Look at the government bodies and employees we deem credible, and the local news stations. How they present the information is just as telling as the information they chose to present.
Financial systems, like banks that make it harder for Black folks to get loans, play their part in upholding these inequalities. The previously mentioned redlining was legal as a result of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which was only banned in 1968. These laws and changes to the order in our society are mandated by people, or “pillars”. The systems themselves aren’t inherently the problem, because the base idea was to increase the quality of life. However, when the people who built the systems are given complete control over who gets that help, and when, bias often allows the flaws in the system to shine. Pillars are the people backing these systems. The bank owners, producers of textbooks and the legislators that allow the misinformation to flow.
Sanitizers
A “sanitizer” seeks to rewrite history, both as it happened and as it unfolds.
In earlier times, materials ranging from pamphlets to textbooks portrayed Black individuals as pre-destined servants. These teachings, prevalent in schools and daily life, instilled the belief that Black people weren’t truly equal in their humanity to white individuals. Although there appeared to be a gradual move towards more progressive education, recent shifts in legislation have reversed that progress. Some states are now attempting to silence discussions on Critical Race Theory (CRT), arguing it promotes shame in white children and brands America as inherently racist. At least 44 states have begun discussions on banning CRT and of those, 18 states have already placed bans or some sort of restrictive legislation on CRT teachings.
Rewriting American history in an attempt to ignore the racist foundation it was built on, not only absolves white people of the accountability necessary for deconstructing white supremacy’s roots in this nation, but it diminishes the lasting effects colonialism has on America today. This isn’t about teaching white children self-hate or distrust for their nation. It’s about highlighting the importance of understanding the broader narrative of racial capitalism, especially focusing on the roles white supremacy historically played.
Sanitizing history using disinformation manifests in acts like the prohibition of CRT, the presentation of disinformation across social media and the minimal response government entities have to its presence. This method of disinformation deliberately ignores American history by attempting to clean it up and make it pretty. It misleads Black children into thinking their oppression was necessary, and disregards the work white people need to play in the rehabilitation of American values.
It can also look like failing to document what is happening in the moment, without bias. When history books fail to emphasize the importance of events and the way they shaped the growing world, they fail to educate on the power these actions held. For example, it’s good the history books mention the boycotts that happened throughout American history. However not emphasizing the amount of time and sacrifice it took to stand on a boycott has led to newer generations underestimating the power they hold as a people. Sanitizing history has levels, and it is important to urge readers to truly assess the information we’ve been given to the fullest.
Discriminators
Discriminators are the overt operatives of disinformation, directly engaging in actions and rhetoric that degrade and devalue Black lives. Unlike pillars and sanitizers, whose impact can be insidious and systemic, discriminators are often more visible and confrontational in their efforts to uphold white supremacy. They manifest in various forms, from individuals espousing racist beliefs to institutions implementing policies that disproportionately harm Black communities.
They can also act as pillars, and some might aid in sanitation but the distinct difference between discriminators and pillars or sanitizers is that they are followers. They do what they do in an attempt to maintain an imagined status quo, or white picket fence life. Discriminators tend to fear an imagined far left hell-scape that condemns w
Discrimination might manifest as neglecting Black individuals’ health issues, the practice fueled by age-old myths about pain tolerance.
Such harmful stereotypes can prove fatal, especially for Black women. Black enslaved women were used as medical test subjects during slave times and little if any help was provided for pain. The knowledge that Black enslaved women survived the procedures paired with the idea of the “fragile White woman” and the adopted idea that Black people feel less pain promoted the idea that Black women needed less medical aid.
In 2020 Sophie Trawalter, a professor and social psychologist said the US department of health reported that Black and Hispanic people receive worse care on 40% of the department’s care quality measures. Allowing discrimination and prejudice against Black people to exist within a system designed to treat and cure pain is to say that Black people do not deserve care that would drastically improve their quality of life.
“Law enforcement” agencies are notorious propagators of disinformation. In our digital era, tools like body cameras are only as trustworthy as those operating them.
Manipulating or concealing footage alters the narrative, often unfairly casting Black individuals as the troublemakers. Those who control the narrative shape public perception. Even in instances where the narrative is not being edited, the sheer number of altercations between Black communities and police has desensitized Americans to the struggle Black people face.
They have successfully made Black pain and struggle a normalized part of daily life by creating traumatizing incidents and depicting that as the only newsworthy Black stories.
By recognizing these agents, we pull back the curtain on the machinery of disinformation. By understanding their roles, we can challenge and change the narrative. It takes accountability and attention to dismantle an institution, but it takes time and effort to put something else in its place.
As we work to educate the community on the things that target it, it is important to continue conversations about how to rebuild a better world. The point of this all, of everything an activist has ever done is to make the world better for those that come after them.
“Revolution and the art of world-making is a faith-based practice, in and of itself.”
Ismatu Gwendolyn
