In 1999, artist and activist Tema Okun, published a document called “White Supremacy Culture” in collaboration with many other activists and community organizers. This document identified 15 central characteristics of white supremacy culture and described manifestations of and remedies to these characteristics in mainstream culture. Okun (1999) claimed that “[c]ulture is powerful precisely because it is so present and at the same time so very difficult to name or identify” (p. 1). Okun provided this tool in order to unpack and make visible the ways in which white supremacy thinking has been normalized through many of our personal interactions, systems, organizations, values, expectations, and standards of behavior, regardless of our individual identities.
Okun’s (1999) document has since evolved into an artistic and collaborative website that includes webpages on each of the white supremacy culture characteristics (WSCC). The purpose of this forum is to bring the lens of the WSCC’s to music education. By clicking on one of the WSCC’s, you can explore general content on the characteristic from Okun and others, reflect upon manifestations of this characteristic in music education, and brainstorm potential remedies within music education. Ideally, this should be a collaborative space where you can draw from your own experiences and learn from the experiences of your colleagues to interrogate and ameliorate white supremacy culture in music education.