What is White Supremacy Culture?
White Supremacy Culture is a 1999 essay by Tema Okun that proposes certain values and behaviors—such as perfectionism, objectivity, and “worship of the written word”—are instantiations of white supremacy that may manifest in organizations and institutions, often unconsciously. Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun examine the pervasive organizational culture that many workplaces exhibit under the current status quo, condensing this prevailing organizational culture into fifteen characteristics that are frequently exhibited, calling them the “15 Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture.” Importantly, Jones and Okun found that these characteristics were exhibited by both white-led and people of color-led organizations.
Culture is powerful precisely because it is so present and at the same time so very difficult to name or identify. The characteristics listed below are damaging because they are used as norms and standards without being pro-actively named or chosen by the group. They are damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking. The framework distinguishes between violent white supremacist movements and the subtler cultural norms that center whiteness as the unquestioned standard in institutional settings.
Origins & lineage
White Supremacy Culture is a 1999 essay by Tema Okun, an anti-racist educator, consultant, and social justice activist. Okun wrote the document in 1999 after attending what she described as a “frustrating and horrible” workshop, creating a list that drew on the work of Daniel Buford, a lead trainer with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond who has done extensive research on white supremacy culture. The essay appeared in Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, published by ChangeWork in 2001.
In May 2021, she published “White Supremacy Culture – Still Here” on her website, a revised version of the document which includes discussion of additional topics such as social class, capitalism, and Christian hegemony. The essay and its notion of “white supremacy culture” have become influential in the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) field, and have been used for diversity training by educational institutions, governments, progressive nonprofits, and other organizations. The article has been used by organizations as far flung as the Sierra Club of Wisconsin, the Los Angeles branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Smithsonian, and the Washington State Governor’s Office.
How it’s practiced
White supremacy culture manifests as unexamined organizational norms. The 15 characteristics that Okun identifies as contributing to white supremacy culture are: Perfectionism: Focusing more on mistakes and inadequacies than on things done correctly. Sense of urgency: Emphasizing speed and immediate results at the cost of thoughtful reflection or long-term solutions. Defensiveness: Attempting to “protect power as it exists” with hostility to new ideas and charges of racism. Quantity over quality: Prioritizing “things that can be measured” over things that cannot, such as relationships and conflict resolution. Additional characteristics include worship of the written word, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, progress defined as “bigger/more,” objectivity as the only valid perspective, and the right to comfort.
One of the purposes of listing characteristics of white supremacy culture is to point out how organizations which unconsciously use these characteristics as their norms and standards make it difficult, if not impossible, to open the door to other cultural norms and standards. As a result, many of our organizations, while saying we want to be multicultural, really only allow other people and cultures to come in if they adapt or conform to already existing cultural norms.
White Supremacy Culture today
The community organizing journal The Forge wrote in 2023 that “White Supremacy Culture” has “become ubiquitous across the progressive movement in recent years.” The framework has been adopted by spiritual communities, wellness organizations, and conscious event spaces examining their own power dynamics and accessibility.
Starting in the late 2000s, the paper began to be circulated widely in progressive spaces. After George Floyd’s murder, it was everywhere, and it started to morph into something different, often wielded by employees during performance reviews, or when pressed about a deadline, or it was otherwise weaponized in the internal battles that continue to engulf institutions. In a 2023 interview with The Intercept, Okun said that “White Supremacy Culture” had been weaponized and misused in various settings by employees of various backgrounds—both people of color and white people—against their bosses. She clarified that the characteristics defined in the essay, such as perfectionism and worship of the written word, were distinct from standard organizational activities, such as performance reviews and writing reports.
Common misconceptions
The framework is often misunderstood as suggesting that basic organizational functions—deadlines, editing, accountability—are inherently racist. The way it’s misused is that people turn it into a checklist to assess or target someone and say: Look, you’re exhibiting these characteristics. And that means you’re colluding with white supremacy culture, and you’re a bad person, you’re a terrible person. Okun has clarified this was never the intent.
These characteristics are not meant to describe all white people. They are meant to describe the norms of white middle-class and owning class culture, a culture we are all required to navigate. The characteristics can show up in any organization regardless of racial composition. “White Supremacy Culture” has also attracted criticism regarding its validity, lack of supporting evidence, and potential to cause organizational dysfunction.
The term “white supremacy culture” differs from “white supremacy” as a violent political ideology. It refers to dominant cultural norms in institutions, not to individual moral character or extremist movements.
How to begin
For organizations interested in examining these dynamics, the primary resource is the Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun (ChangeWork, 2001), available through dismantlingracism.org. The updated 2021 version, “White Supremacy Culture – Still Here,” is available at whitesupremacyculture.info.
Another accessible entry point is Layla Saad’s Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor, which offers a 28-day self-inquiry process for individuals with white privilege. Organizations can work with facilitators trained in Dismantling Racism Works methodology or the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond’s Undoing Racism workshops. The framework is meant for collective examination of organizational culture, not individual accusation.