White supremacy remains global, just ask 60,000 gatherers at Polish pride event and Polish leadership who called it beautiful
Progressives like to believe white supremacy is contained, flows predictably from the usual suspects and expires when young people know better and do better. Anti-Blackness, anti-Brown sentiments, Islamophobia and xenophobia are for senile Americans who detest globalism, they believe. Maybe it’s just Trump and crew. Yet, without attacking the roots of white supremacy – how people who constructed whiteness (and their descendants) oppressed and oppress Black and Brown people, along with the related penal, pecuniary and practical effects – the cycle continues.
Many global citizens read in horror as mostly young European people protested immigration (because foreigners purportedly take all the jobs and opportunities), people of color, Islam and Judaism at a Polish Independence Day event during the weekend. The Wall Street Journal reported on the electrified racists on the other side of the world. Attendees carried signs that read “White Europe”, “Europe Will Be White” and, tellingly, “Clean Blood” [emphasis mine]. WSJ reported marchers traveled from Hungary, Slovakia and Spain, and the crowd included about 60,000 people. A tiki-torch with a different flame still burns.
While commentators and online users resoundingly denounced the gathering, some of Poland’s leadership expressed a Trumpian satisfaction with the expression of normalized white supremacy. By Monday, reports came out stating Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak called it “a beautiful sight.” Supporters, after all, do not welcome African and Middle Eastern refugees experiencing national crises deemed “Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.”
Further, many Europeans parse African and Middle Eastern people out using racist and orientalist geo-politics that increase the disposal of dark skinned people and/or people with non-Christian faith traditions. “It’s getting more and more vicious,” Jakub Skrzypek, 25, told WSJ. The counter-protestor stood behind a banner with the message “We Are Polish Jews.” “We are really in fear,” Skrzypek said.
The same white supremacy that connected dozens of thousands of Europeans for their own alt-right celebration let dozens of African girls wash up in the Mediterranean Sea – bodies Europe-bound — to resounding global silence.