Is an Obama Victory a "mortal wound" to White Supremacy?

What is a "white" person? Is it only people of European descent who attach that mean-spirited moniker to themselves? My experience has been that, as well, many Asians and Latinos refer to themselves as "white"...

Dear friends,

While journalists and other such pundits, during this election period, ponder over identity monikers for Senator Obama like "black" and "bi-racial", not a single one of them has ever raised a question about the term "white". To be sure, "white" is a mean-spirited word that people use in order to join an artificial "majority" group that takes privilege over many of their fellow citizens (who are called "minorities").

However, all of those who identify themselves as "white" are not of European descent. For example, many Asians and Latinos call themselves "white", as well. Still, a person can come from Romania yesterday, declare himself or herself "white" and inherit the legacies of the Pilgrims, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, along with privilege over me and those who look like me. That is why this is a "white supremacist" nation.

Now, most, particularly European American, people in this country are offended by the idea that they are "white supremacists", because they only acknowledge people who hide under white bedsheets and Nazi flags as such. Yet, the article on the link below, by a renowned New York Times columnist named Nicholas Kristof, albeit unwittingly on his part, points out how white supremacist thinking is so embedded in the cultural/psychic structure of so many American citizens that they are not even aware of the injustices to which they contribute. Moreover, if you ask a European American to stop calling himself or herself "white" that person will be taken aback, because it is disempowering for a person to "lose" his or her ability to be identified by the phony claim of whiteness (which proves that all arguments against "affirmative action" are disingenuous).

Nevertheless, the question of the moment may be: What will the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States do to White Supremacy here? What will it do to Israel - or neo-colonized South Africa, two nations that are still ruled under the hubris of White Supremacy?

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/opinion/30kristof.html