White Body Supremacy

Individual and institutional attitudes, practices, and policies that elevate the white body as the standard against which all other persons’ worth is measured. White body supremacy is first described in the writings of Resmaa Menakem as a type of embodied trauma response resulting from the intergenerational transmission of oppressive race-based biases and fears held in the body. This construct is grounded in the belief that the reflexive responses that sustain racism are often unconscious and manifest at a physiological level. Menakem challenges the idea that such deeply embedded patterns can be transformed through cognitive processes alone, but rather must be addressed somatically.