Almost-Invisible White Supremacy: Racism, Silence and Complicity in the Interracial Interaction Order

Like all successful hegemonies, white supremacy functions in almost-invisible ways, profoundly shaping society yet remaining unseen. This article positions white silence during explicit interactional racism as a type of racism without racists because it defies scrutiny and conceals its beneficiaries while reproducing white supremacy. It introduces the interracial interaction order, merging Erving Goffman’s iconic but historically illiterate theorising with critical race principles. This epistemological justice-oriented theoretical reparation exposes white supremacy, its beneficiaries and its detrimental impacts on the psycho-social lives of disadvantageously situated individuals in the interactional domain. Reporting on a participatory qualitative study with 32 Muslims aged 16–21, the analysis identifies three insights about white silence during explicit racism: always complicit, it extracts all conceivable benefits towards whiteness; after-the-fact ‘anti-racism’ is often impression management; white speech as anti-racism ephemerally redirects racial privileges towards Muslims. In scrutinising an almost-invisible act in interracial settings this work illuminates fundamental sociological concerns about social (re)creation.