The Power of Whiteness In This Years Election

As I continue to watch the returns, many of my friends have texted or called, wondering what I thought about the election as it proceeds from the night-to-day and possible tomorrow. In their voices, I could hear the anguish and the anxiety of what America would become if Donald Trump were reelected. As I listened to the predictions, pundits (on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC), and attempts to keep people calm, the one thing that is never discussed is the power of whiteness. The belief in the power of whiteness is the thing that assists white people in turning a blind eye to a plunging economy, soaring unemployment, and the continued rise of COVID-19 infections and deaths.

Many of Mr. Trump’s sycophants are ok with him being incompetent, ignorant, and blatantly stupid. These supporters understand that this election was never about Donald Trump’s competency but about preserving America’s whiteness. For Donald Trump put whiteness at the forefront of his presidency by telling other like-minded white men and women that he was here to maintain their status and power regardless of the cost, loss of America’s dominance, or its citizens to Covid 19 and economic destruction.

In an essay by Dr. France Cress Weising entitled, The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism, she states, “whiteness is a color deficiency. White people make up only a small percentage of the earth’s population. They tend to view people of color as a threat to their survival while treating them with hostility (including microaggression) while discounting people of color importance and contribution to society.

Part of Dr. Weising’s argument was based on the 1969 publication entitled The United Independent Compensatory Code: A Textbook/Workbook for Victims of Racism/White Supremacy. Dr. Weising focused on his view of racism as a “universally operating system of white supremacy rule and domination,” in which the “majority of the world’s white people participate.” He suggested that government forms, such as capitalism and communism, were created to perpetuate white domination. The white “race” is an “organization” dedicated to maintaining control over the world. Also, he argued that people of color have never imposed “colored” supremacy on anyone.

Dr. Fuller contends that “most white people hate black people [because] whites are not black people.” Weising takes his theory a step further. By suggesting that “any neurotic drive for superiority,” in this case, the white drive, is based on a “deep and pervading sense of inadequacy and inferiority,” i.e., Donald Trump’s continued dismissively of Barack H. Obama.

Weising cited journals, diaries, and books written by whites as examples of their “initial hostility and aggression” towards people of color and particularly towards black people. People “who have the greatest color potential and therefore are the most envied and the most feared in genetic color competition.” She added: “That whites desire to have colored skin can be seen by anyone at the very first signs of Spring or Summer when they begin to strip off their clothes, often permitting their skins to be burned severely in an attempt to add some color to their white, pale, colorless bodies, rendering themselves vulnerable to skin cancer in the process.”

Weising also asserts in The Cress Theory that many whites are unable to peacefully live among or attend school with people of color because it explodes “the myth of white superiority” and forces them to face their “psychological discomfort” and “color inadequacy” (meet the “Karens”). She also stated that “the difficulty whites have in according ‘non-whites’ socio-political and economic equality stems … from the fundamental sense of their unequal situation regarding their numerical inadequacy and color deficiency.” In other words, white women don’t have enough children.

To compensate for this inadequacy, Weising judged, whites strive to maintain a superior social position and manipulate non-whites and themselves into thinking that they are a worldwide numerical majority instead of the minority. In support of this conclusion, she cited statistics indicating that birth control is rarely emphasized for whites. At the same time, a great emphasis is placed on controlling the birthrates of people of color.

She concluded her Theory of Color-Confrontation by arguing that people of color must gain a better understanding of the “behavioral maneuverings” of whites to avoid being “manipulated into a subordinated position.” In her view, people of color need to “liberate” themselves psychologically from various forms of racism and white domination. She also suggested that whites need to understand the motivation behind their behavior and explore racism’s emotional and psychological foundations with an open mind.

Twenty years after publishing The Theory of Color-Confrontation, Weising’s in 1990, published, The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors. In the book, she uses America’s preoccupation with sports to illustrate what she perceives to be white supremacist behavior in action: “The whole of white culture,” she wrote in The Isis Papers, “is designed to say that whites have [certain] qualities. Everything possible is done to demonstrate this. First, you have [only] white players, then blacks come in, but a white has to be the quarterback. Western culture has to project white supremacy,” if the of power is to continue. Weising further contended that when blacks succeed athletically, whites are forced “up against the psychological wall” because white youngsters are “brought up to believe all white people are superior.”

Now, fifty years later, since the essay was written, and twenty years since publishing The Isis Papers, the rise of Donald Trump is not difficult to explain. He represents the thing white people have been waiting for; He is their great white hope, the one that unifies them so they can continue and maintain their whiteness, power, and position out in the open. Looking at the election returns, in the light of the day and into the night, a fair election was never on the ballot. What was on the ballot was saving whiteness, for if it wasn’t, this election would not have been this tight.