I’ve seen some people ask why should all white people denounce white supremacists when we also keep saying that Muslims shouldn’t have to condemn wrongdoings done falsely in the name of Islam. And the answer is systemic power: white supremacy holds it, people of color don’t.

White supremacy holds the reigns for the police, the military, and the laws. It holds the keys to the wealth, media, and means of production. It runs the schools, universities, and centers of culture.

White supremacy sets the rules of engagement for how everyone exists in society. It controls the Overton window. It sets the agenda and topic for what is allowed to be discussed in the civic space. When White people don’t denounce Nazis, it means that Nazis are allowed in the civic space.

And from a purely practical point of view, when White people say things, other White people are more likely to listen then if anyone else says it. White friends, the entire system is set up as such that your voice is amplified by default when POC voices are not.

White people, it doesn’t matter whether you want or acknowledges it, by being White your voice is trusted and amplified in a way that ours aren’t. That is the system.

That is not to say that you can’t be disadvantaged in another way: you could be from a marginalized gender or sexual community, poor, have disabilities or chronic illnesses, dropped out of school, an immigrant without a permanent residence, or a million other things that keep you precarious. But Whiteness protects and amplifies your worth and value everywhere in a way that being indigenous, Black, Brown, and any other race does not.

So yes, White people need to denounce White supremacy, because right now, White supremacy rules the world and silent tacit acceptance perpetuates it.