3 words: Patriotism, Nationalism, and Jingoism. They’re three completely different concepts, but in the U.S., for many white people, they’re one and the same. And they shouldn’t be the same. Let’s look at all three.
Patriotism, love of one’s country. Now it’s really hard to show love of one’s country when that country wasn’t built with you in mind, which is for the U.S., a ton of BIPOC and People of Color. It’s possible, but it makes it really really hard when the laws are written against you and when a lot of forces are working against your very existence.
Nationalism takes it up a notch because it means that you’re competitive with other countries.
And then Jingoism takes it even up another notch because it means you want to dominate other countries.
White supremacy conflates those three as one, which is really dangerous, which is why you have anti-immigrant sentiment, which is why you have anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity.
For white supremacists this is about a competition. For Black, Indigenous, People of Color this is about survival as a community, it’s about living every day together. There’s a big difference there.
Comments are closed.