Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World

by Chandran Nair

Overview

White privilege damages and distorts societies around the world, not just in the United States. This book exposes its pervasive global reach and creates a new space for discourse on worldwide racial equality.


As Chandran Nair shows in this uncompromising new book, a belief in the innate superiority of White people and Western culture, once the driving force behind imperialism, is now woven into the very fabric of globalization. It is so insidious that, as Nair points out, even many non-White people have internalized it, judging themselves by an alien standard. It has no rival in terms of longevity, global reach, harm done, and continuing subversion of other cultures and societies.

Nair takes a comprehensive look at the destructive influence of global White privilege. He examines its impact on geopolitics, the reframing of world history, and international business practices. In the soft-power spheres of White privilege—entertainment, the news media, sports, and fashion—he offers example after example of how White cultural products remain the aspirational standard. Even environmentalism has been corrupted, dominated by a White savior mentality whereby technologies and practices built in the West will save the supposedly underdeveloped, poorly governed, and polluted non-Western world.

For all these areas, Nair gives specific suggestions for breaking the power of White privilege. It must be dismantled—not just because it is an injustice but also because we will be creating a post-Western world that has less conflict, is more united, and is better able to respond to the existential challenges facing all of us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523000005
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	01/04/2022
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow, an independent pan-Asian think tank committed to understanding the dynamic relationship between business, society, and the state and reshaping the rules of global capitalism. He is a member of the executive committee of the Club of Rome and was former chairman of Environmental Resources Management for Asia Pacific. Nair is a regular speaker at global forums including the World Economic Forum, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summits, and Organization for Economic Co-operation Development events.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Preface: White Privilege: It's Woven into the Fabric of Globalization xi

Introduction Black Lives Matter and the Tip of the Iceberg 1

1 Geopolitics of Dominance: The White Knights of Chess 22

2 The Retelling of History: This Version Ain't Mine 39

3 The World of Business: Uneven Playing Fields 55

4 Media and Publishing: Captive Minds 70

5 Education: Schooling and Grooming 83

6 Culture and Entertainment: Gone with the Wind 97

7 Sports: Match Fixing 110

8 Fashion: Little Black Dress 123

9 Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Change: Zero Carbon and Other Myths 137

Conclusion How Change Happens: No Whitewash, Please! 154

Discussion Guide 173

Notes 177

Acknowledgments 191

Index 195

About the Author 207

Working on Equity: The Global Institute for Tomorrow 209

Editorial Reviews

Nair argues that the imperial age has left behind a global racial hierarchy that is still very much in place...[and] forms of white privilege continue to be built into the structure of geopolitics, international business, culture, the media, education, fashion and sport.”
—Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

“Very highly recommended as a standout blend of history and a call to action that will require much change on social, economic, and intellectual levels in order to fully address the issues of the privileged status quo that currently drives the world.”
—Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

“With this book, Chandran Nair adds a timely, critical analysis of the impacts Western white privilege has had on the world outside the borders of the United States. Weaving together disparate threads, from apartheid South Africa to the global media system to the oligarchs of Wall Street and more, Nair dissects and exposes the system that has long benefited a minority at the expense of the rest. Chandran Nair’s Dismantling Global White Privilege is more than a cri de coeur—it offers the reader a practical path forward.”
—Amy Goodman, host and Executive Producer, Democracy Now!
 
“The racial nature of global power has been overwhelmingly ignored. It has been so taken for granted that white people dominate virtually all areas of global power that it has come to be regarded as the natural order of things: the way the world should be and always will be. But a light is beginning to be shone on the previously invisible. Chandran Nair’s new book is a major contribution to making the invisible visible. It could hardly be more timely and deserves to be widely read. This is one of the great coming issues of our time.”
—Martin Jacques, bestselling author of When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of a New Global Order.”
 
“White privilege is a complex and politically polarizing term that has cropped up more often in recent years as Western society at last begins—belatedly and only in part—to reckon with the toxic legacy of white supremacy. In Dismantling Global White Privilege, Chandran Nair provides a readable and wide-ranging analysis of this term and the way white privilege continues to shape lives around the world. A timely work by an original thinker.”
—Dr. Shashi Tharoor, former Under-Secretary General, United Nations, and bestselling author of Inglorious Empire
 
“This important book makes the case that “White privilege,” “Western privilege,” and “Western superiority” have been used interchangeably to justify the unjustifiable—the bigoted, prejudiced, and often brutal march to dominate world resources by White colonial powers. Written by an astute observer who has lived in both worlds, it analyzes the conscious and unconscious aspects of a system that has pushed the world to the brink of disaster and must be dismantled.”
—John Perkins, New York Times bestselling author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

From the Publisher