Why “Not All White People” Misses the Point: A Closer Look at Collective Accountability in White Supremacy

In conversations about racism, we often encounter the refrain “Not all white people.” It’s usually invoked as a defense, a way for white individuals to distance themselves from the structures of white supremacy. At first glance, this response might seem harmless. However, what it actually does is detract from a larger, necessary conversation about collective accountability and perpetuates an individualistic worldview that diminishes the reality of white supremacy’s far-reaching impact.

When white people assert, “Not all white people,” they are often seeking to distance themselves from the harmful, oppressive aspects of whiteness. But here’s the truth: this response fails to recognize that white supremacy is not solely about individuals. It’s a system—a collective, a shared culture of power and dominance that shapes everyone’s choices, behaviors, and assumptions, even for those who see themselves as “one of the good ones.”

The Illusion of Individualism in a Collective Reality

White supremacy thrives on individualism. It encourages white people to see themselves as separate from each other and from the harm the system inflicts on others. This individualistic framework is a privilege afforded primarily to white people; for people of color, especially Black people, the burden of collective judgment is a daily reality. When a single Black person is accused of a crime, the condemnation and judgment often extend to all Black people. But when a white person commits a racially motivated crime, they are often seen as a “lone wolf” or a “troubled individual.”

“Not all white people” draws from this deeply ingrained belief in the “good” individual white person, a belief that sidesteps how systems work. White supremacy has created a society that structurally advantages whiteness, whether or not individuals explicitly agree with it. The harm, therefore, isn’t always in what each individual white person does. It’s in what they participate in passively and rarely feel the urgency to dismantle. The reflex to declare oneself separate from “those people” serves as a comfort blanket—a way to avoid grappling with uncomfortable truths about complicity and privilege.

How “Not All White People” Diverts Attention From the Real Issue

When “not all white people” enters the conversation, it acts as a roadblock. Instead of a discussion that might open white people to examine their unconscious biases or the structural advantages they benefit from, the focus pivots to the feelings of the person making the statement. It becomes less about dismantling white supremacy and more about preserving white innocence.

This defensiveness is an expression of fragility, a desire to avoid guilt and discomfort. In doing so, it prevents any real work from being done on white supremacy. It halts discussions that could lead to growth, shifts accountability away from the privileged, and allows white people to remain within their comfort zones, untouched and unchallenged by the demands of anti-racist work.

The Collective Choices of Whiteness

Collective accountability is often framed as an attack, but it’s really about examining how whiteness is structured into everyday choices and norms. Most white people do not explicitly identify with racist ideologies, but that doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from a racial hierarchy that favors them in overt and subtle ways. From the policies they vote for to the social circles they maintain, white people collectively make choices that reinforce the power structures of white supremacy—even when they don’t consciously intend to.

“Not all white people” glosses over these collective choices. It’s an attempt to exist within whiteness without the weight of accountability, a loophole in responsibility. But to dismantle white supremacy, white people must confront the ways they collectively uphold this system, often without realizing it. For instance, the choices that suburban communities make to preserve “property values” through exclusionary zoning aren’t just neutral acts of personal preference. They’re decisions that keep racial inequities intact.

Moving Beyond “Not All White People”

Real change doesn’t come from distancing oneself from whiteness or trying to escape collective accountability. It comes from white people recognizing and interrogating the ways they are shaped by, and sometimes perpetuate, the very structures that they claim to oppose. Acknowledging that white supremacy is a collective force doesn’t mean that all white people are overtly racist; it means that white people as a group have the power to either maintain or dismantle these structures.

To be anti-racist requires rejecting “not all white people” in favor of a different response—one that begins with the uncomfortable acknowledgment of complicity and moves toward proactive accountability. Rather than saying, “I’m not one of them,” a more constructive response is, “I understand how my position in this society gives me privilege, and I want to work with others to change the systems that uphold that privilege.”

The point isn’t that all white people are the same, but that they share a relationship to power that benefits them and harms others. Until that relationship is critically examined, the refrain of “not all white people” will continue to function as a diversion. The work of dismantling white supremacy isn’t about absolving individuals; it’s about examining the choices white people collectively make to protect, sustain, or challenge the system that privileges them.

Final Thoughts

Every white person who wants to be an ally must shift from seeing racism as someone else’s issue to recognizing it as part of a system that they are connected to, whether or not they like it. This requires a willingness to move past self-preservation, past the desire to be seen as “good,” and toward a commitment to change that’s deep, challenging, and often uncomfortable. Saying “not all white people” might feel reassuring, but that comfort is a barrier to meaningful action. To dismantle white supremacy, white people must step beyond the individual and into a reckoning with their collective power.