I recently listened to a podcast episode where the guest being interviewed was Tema Okun. I learned from the interview that back in 1999, while facilitating workshops about racial equity in the workplace, Tema Okun wrote an article where she listed the ways in which white supremacy culture is manifested at work. That article has been used numerous times since its publishing to help understand and dismantle white supremacy thinking. However, it has also been used in its defence.
There is now an updated version and a website to go along with it. I want to take a deep dive into the old and new versions of the article and talk about how and why it may be misconstrued and misused.
You can listen to the podcast episode where I first heard about Tema Okun on Deconstructed:
https://theintercept.com/2023/02/03/deconstructed-tema-okun-white-supremacy/
You can read the original and updated version of the article, “White Supremacy Culture,” on this website: