Nikki Giovanni Dismantles the Use of the Word ‘White Supremacy’

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PS: Professor Giovanni, you’ve never had an issue with explicitly condemning racism and white supremacy, and I think your new text, Make Me Rain, is evidence of that. Can you speak more on the making and remaking of white supremacy in our contemporary society?



NG: If I may, I’m going to correct you on that word you used: white supremacy.

I’m not trying to say you can’t use that word. But there’s nothing supreme about being white. There’s nothing supreme about getting on a bus in 1955 and paying the same dime that Ms. Rosa Parks paid to get on that bus. What are Black and white seats? Seats are seats. What was that white man thinking? I’m supreme? What did he go home and say to his wife? What did he say at church on Sunday? I got a Black woman arrested? What’s supreme about that? So that I can beat a 14-year-old boy to death? So that I can shoot into the window of a woman in bed named Breonna Taylor and kill her? How did that get to be supreme?

That word has to go. There’s nothing supreme about being white. Being white is a burden because you have to learn to hate. You have to continue to remember to hate. You have to continue to remember that you’re better than me. But guess what? You’re paying the same dime.
Nikki Giovanni on Rest, Love, and Care - Public Books
 
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