Nez Perce/DuBoisian Theory of Whiteness and the Global Color-Line

Using a researcher-collected archive of publications by the Nimiipuu/Nez Perce, this paper argues that Nimiipuu/Nez Perce observations of white people extend W. E. B. Du Bois’s world-systems analysis. The Nimiipuu/Nez Perce and Du Bois explicate a cannibalistic cycle of whiteness that emerged from competition among various imperial groups claiming whiteness for geopolitical advantage. This cycle helps explain the U.S. ascension from periphery to core in the capitalist world-system; its competition is epitomized by any rush (for gold, souls, land, etc.) that induces a state of anomie (by violence, isolation, boom/bust, etc.) and devolves into crises of social and ecological relationships (built on reciprocity, trust, symbiosis, etc.). This process creates a positive feedback loop whereby whiteness must be recalibrated as a legitimate source of advantage in the capitalist world-system, setting off new rushes to solve the problems created or compounded by whiteness. Likewise, crises sometimes present opportunities for Indigenous groups to reassert their political, economic, and cultural influence (e.g., environmental restoration)—exemplified by the 1979–1981 Nez Perce “fish-in” at Rapid River, Idaho—which simultaneously undermine white claims to superiority and progress and help people imagine and build worlds beyond the new world-order of capitalism and nation-states.