Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people are superior to, and should have authority over, all others. The presumed superior group can be defined by
age,
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
,
race,
ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...
,
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
,
sexual orientation,
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
,
social class,
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...
,
nationality,
culture
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
,
generation, or any other human characteristic.
National
Indian supremacism
In
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
, Indians in
Ancient India
Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentism, Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; ...
considered all foreigners
barbarians. The
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
scholar
Al-Biruni wrote that the Indians called foreigners impure.
[''The First Spring: The Golden Age of India'' by Abraham Eraly p. 313] A few centuries later, Dubois observes that "
Hindus
Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
look upon Europeans as barbarians totally ignorant of all principles of honour and good breeding... In the eyes of a Hindu, a Pariah (
outcaste) and a European are on the same level."
The Chinese also considered the Europeans repulsive, ghost-like creatures, and they even considered them devils. Chinese writers also referred to foreigners as barbarians.
Russian chauvinism
Sinocentrism
Racial
White supremacism
Centuries of
European colonialism in the Americas,
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
and
Oceania were justified by
Eurocentric attitudes as well as sometimes by
white supremacist attitudes.
During the 19th century, "
The White Man's Burden", the phrase which refers to the thought that whites have the obligation to make the societies of the other peoples more 'civilized', was widely used to justify colonial policies as a noble enterprise. Historian
Thomas Carlyle, best known for his historical account of the
French Revolution, ''
The French Revolution: A History,'' argued that western policies were justified on the grounds that they provided the greatest benefit to "inferior" native peoples. However, even at the time of its publication in 1849, Carlyle's main work on the subject, the ''
Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question,'' was poorly received by his contemporaries.
According to William Nicholls,
religious antisemitism can be distinguished from
racial antisemitism which is based on
racial
Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...
or
ethnic grounds. "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion ... a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon
baptism." However, with racial antisemitism, "Now the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism ... . From the
Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews... Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear."
One of the first
typologies which was used to classify various human races was invented by
Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), a theoretician of
eugenics, who published ''L'Aryen et son rôle social'' (1899 – "The
Aryan and his social role") in 1899. In his book, he divides humanity into various,
hierarchical races, starting with the highest race which is the "Aryan white race, dolichocephalic", and ending with the lowest race which is the "brachycephalic", "mediocre and inert" race, that race is best represented by
Southern European,
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
peasants". Between these, Vacher de Lapouge identified the "''
Homo europaeus''" (
Teutonic,
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
, etc.), the "''
Homo alpinus''" (
Auvergnat,
Turkish, etc.), and finally the "''
Homo mediterraneus''" (
Neapolitan,
Andalus, etc.) Jews were brachycephalic just like the Aryans were, according to Lapouge; but he considered them dangerous for this exact reason; they were the only group, he thought, which was threatening to displace the Aryan aristocracy. Georges Vacher de Lapouge became one of the leading inspirations of
Nazi antisemitism and
Nazi racist ideology.
United States
White Americans
White Americans (sometimes also called Caucasian Americans) are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as " person hav ...
who participated in the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
believed and justified their economic exploitation of African Americans by creating a
scientific theory of white superiority and black inferiority.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...
, who was a believer of scientific racism and enslaver of over 600 African Americans (regarded as property under the
Articles of Confederation), wrote that blacks were "inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind."
A justification for the
conquest of
American Indian tribes emanated from their
dehumanized perception as the "merciless Indian savages", as described in the
United States Declaration of Independence.
Before the outbreak of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
, the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an List of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United State ...
was founded with a
constitution that contained clauses which restricted the government's ability to limit or interfere with the institution of "negro" slavery. In the 1861
Cornerstone Speech, Confederate vice president,
Alexander Stephens declared that one of the Confederacy's foundational tenets was White Supremacy over African American slaves. Following the war, a hate group, known as the
Ku Klux Klan, was founded in the
American South, after the end of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
. Its purpose has been to maintain White, Protestant supremacy in the US after the
Reconstruction period, which it did so through violence and intimidation.
The
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and
Southern Poverty Law Center condemn writings about "Jewish Supremacism" by
Holocaust-denier, former
Grand Wizard of the KKK, and
conspiracy theorist David Duke as
antisemitic – in particular, his book ''
Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening to the Jewish Question.''
Kevin B. MacDonald, known for his
theory of Judaism as a "group evolutionary strategy", has also been accused of being "antisemitic" and a "white supremacist" in his writings on the subject by the ADL and his own university psychology department.
Nazi Germany
From 1933 to 1945,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, under the rule of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, promoted the belief in the existence of a superior,
Aryan ''
Herrenvolk'', or
master race. The
state's propaganda advocated the belief that
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...
, whom they called "Aryans", were a master race or a ''Herrenvolk'' whose members were superior to the
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Slavs
The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...
, and
Romani people
{{Infobox ethnic group
, group = Romani people
, image =
, image_caption =
, flag = Roma flag.svg
, flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress
, po ...
, so-called "gypsies".
Arthur de Gobineau, a French racial theorist and aristocrat, blamed the fall of the
ancien régime in France on
racial intermixing, which he believed had destroyed the purity of the
Nordic race. Gobineau's theories, which attracted a large and strong following in Germany, emphasized the belief in the existence of an irreconcilable polarity between Aryan and
Jewish cultures.
Black supremacism
Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual. West was an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election and is an ou ...
, an African-American philosopher, writes that
black supremacist religious views arose in America as a part of
black Muslim theology in response to white supremacy.
Hutu supremacism
Arab supremacism
In
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
, black Southern
Sudanese allege that they are being subjected to a racist form of
Arab supremacy, which they equate with the historic white supremacism of
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
's
apartheid. The alleged
genocide and
ethnic cleansing in the ongoing
War in Darfur has been described as an example of
Arab racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
.
For example, in their analysis of the sources of the conflict, Julie Flint and
Alex de Waal say that
Colonel Gaddafi, the leader of
Libya
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
, sponsored "Arab supremacism" across the
Sahara during the 1970s. Gaddafi supported the "
Islamic Legion" and the Sudanese opposition "
National Front, including the
Muslim Brothers and the Ansar, the
Umma Party's military wing." Gaddafi tried to use such forces to annex
Chad
Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...
from 1979 to 1981. Gaddafi supported the Sudanese government's
war in the South during the early 1980s, and in return, he was allowed to use the Darfur region as a "
back door to Chad". As a result, the first signs of an "Arab racist political platform" appeared in Darfur in the early 1980s.
Religious
Christianity
Academics Carol Lansing and Edward D. English argue that
Christian supremacism was a motivation for the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...
in the
Holy Land, as well as a motivation for crusades against Muslims and pagans throughout Europe. The
blood libel is a widespread European
conspiracy theory which led to centuries of
pogroms and massacres of European Jewish minorities because it alleged that Jews required the pure blood of a Christian child in order to make
matzah for
Passover.
Thomas of Cantimpré writes of the
blood curse which the Jews put upon themselves and all of their generations at the court of
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate (; ) was the Roman administration of Judaea (AD 6–135), fifth governor of the Judaea (Roman province), Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official wh ...
where Jesus was sentenced to death: "A very learned Jew, who in our day has been converted to the (Christian) faith, informs us that one enjoying the reputation of a prophet among them, toward the close of his life, made the following prediction: 'Be assured that relief from this secret ailment, to which you are exposed, can only be obtained through Christian blood ("solo sanguine Christiano")." The
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
has also been partially attributed to Christian supremacism. The
Ku Klux Klan has been described as a
white supremacist Christian organization, as are many other white supremacist groups, such as the
Posse Comitatus and the
Christian Identity and
Positive Christianity movements.
Islam
Academics
Khaled Abou El Fadl, Ian Lague, and Joshua Cone note that, while the
Quran
The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
and other
Islamic scriptures express tolerant beliefs, such as
Al-Baqara 256 "there is no compulsion in religion",
there have also been numerous instances of Muslim or Islamic supremacism. Examples of how supremacists have interpreted Islam include the
history of slavery in the Muslim world,
Caliphate,
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, the early-20th-century
pan-Islamism promoted by
Abdul Hamid II, the ''
jizya'' and supremacy of
Sharia law, such as rules of marriage in Muslim countries being imposed on non-Muslims.
While non-violent
proselytism of Islam (
Dawah) is not Islamic supremacism,
forced conversion to Islam is Islamic supremacism.
Death penalty for
apostasy in Islam
Apostasy in Islam ( or ) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by Religious conversion, converting to another religion ...
is a sign of Islamic supremacism.
Numerous massacres and
ethnic cleansing of Jews, Christians and non-Muslims occurred in some Muslim-majority countries including in Morocco, Libya, and Algeria, where eventually Jews were forced to live in
ghettos. Decrees ordering the destruction of
synagogues were enacted during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. At certain times in Yemen, Morocco, and
Baghdad, Jews were
forced to convert to Islam or face the
Islamic death penalty. While there were antisemitic incidents before the 20th century, antisemitism increased after the
Arab–Israeli conflict. Following the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, the
Palestinian exodus, the
creation of the State of Israel and Israeli victories during the wars of
1956 and
1967 were a severe humiliation to Israel's opponentsprimarily Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. However, by the mid-1970s the vast majority of Jews
had left Muslim-majority countries, moving primarily to Israel, France, and the United States.
The reasons for the Jewish exodus are varied and disputed.
Judaism
Ilan Pappé, an
expatriate Israeli historian, writes that the
First Aliyah to Israel "established a society based on Jewish supremacy" within "settlement-cooperatives" that were Jewish owned and operated.
Joseph Massad, a professor of
Arab studies, holds that "Jewish supremacism" has always been a "dominating principle" in
religious
Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...
and secular
Zionism.
Since the 1990s,
Orthodox Jewish rabbis from Israel, most notably those affiliated to
Chabad-Lubavitch and
religious Zionist organizations,
including
The Temple Institute,
have set up a
modern Noahide movement. These Noahide organizations, led by religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis, are aimed at non-Jews in order to convince them to commit to follow the
Noahide laws.
However, these religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis that guide the modern Noahide movement, who are often affiliated with the
Third Temple movement,
expound a
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
and supremacist
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...
which consists in the belief that the Jewish people are God's
chosen people and racially superior to non-Jews,
and mentor Noahides because they believe that the Messianic era will begin with the
rebuilding of the Third Temple on the
Temple Mount in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
to re-institute the
Jewish priesthood along with the practice of
ritual sacrifices, and the establishment of a Jewish
theocracy in Israel, supported by communities of Noahides.
David Novak, professor of
Jewish theology and
ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
at the
University of Toronto, has denounced the modern Noahide movement by stating that "If Jews are telling Gentiles what to do, it’s a form of
imperialism".
In 2002,
Joseph Massad said that Israel imposes a "Jewish supremacist system of discrimination" on
Palestinian citizens of Israel, and that this has been normalized within the discourse on how to end the conflict, with various parties arguing that "it is pragmatic for Palestinians to accept to live in a Jewish supremacist state as third class citizens".
In the aftermath of the
2022 Israeli legislative election, the winning right-wing coalition included an alliance known as
Religious Zionist Party, which was described by Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg as a political party "driven by Jewish supremacy and
anti-Arab racism".
Sexual
Male supremacism
Feminist scholars argue that in
patriarchy, male supremacism is upheld through a variety of cultural, political, religious, sexual, and interpersonal systems and relations.
Since the 19th century there have been a number of feminist movements opposed to male supremacism, usually aimed at achieving equal legal rights and protections for women in all cultural, political and interpersonal relations.
Social cleansing
Political cleansing
See also
*
Chauvinism
*
Colonialism
Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
*
Rule according to higher law
*
Legislative supremacy
*
Judicial supremacy
Notes
{{Racism topics, state=collapsed
Ethnic supremacy
Narcissism
Political theories
Prejudice and discrimination
Racism
Social concepts
Pejorative terms