Getting straight to her point, Andrea Smith thoroughly explains what the three pillars of white supremacy. In an effort to not only recognize the three pillars of white supremacy, Smith effectively describes how these three pillars connect to heteropatriarchy. The main argument that Smith attempts to make is that the three pillars of white supremacy connect with the heteropatriarchy because majority of the time, the three pillars occur due to actions of the heteropatriarchy regarding the logics of slavery, genocide, and Orientalism.
The first pillar of white supremacy is the logic of slavery. In order to differentiate from Civil War era slavery, Smith emphasizes that “[t]he forms of slavery may change — whether it is through the formal system of slavery, sharecropping, or through the current prison-industrial complex — but the logic itself has remained consistent” (Smith 67). Subsequently, one must question what is the logic of slavery that the writer …show more content…
She again defines this pillar as another logic rather than a legitimate case of genocide, “[t]his logic holds that indigenous peoples must disappear” (Smith 68). Smith demonstrates this logic by explaining that non-Native people merely assumed that if they were to terminate the existence of Native Americans, then that land would simply be entitled to them. Andrea Smith’s final pillar regards the logic of Orientalism. Smith asserts the following: “The logic of Orientalism marks certain peoples or nations as inferior and as posing a constant threat to the well-being of empire” (Smith 68). Throughout this section, Smith connects this pillar of white supremacy to the anti-immigration attitude of some Americans, as this gives the United States the opportunity to excuse their Orientalist logic when it comes to the racial profiling of Arab Americans (Smith 69). All three of these pillars connect not just to white supremacy, but also the