White identity politics is not merely a domestic pathology—it is a global logic. It travels with armies, development agencies, Hollywood studios, tech monopolies, and liberal NGOs. It shapes not just elections in the U.S., but borders, wars, sanctions, trade agreements, aid packages, and global policing regimes. If whiteness in America was born from the theft of Indigenous land and the enslavement of Africans, then its modern power is maintained through the machinery of empire and the global reproduction of racial hierarchy.

In this fourth installment of White Identity Politics Unveiled, we confront the international dimension of white identity politics: how it functions as an imperial force, sustains settler regimes, and mobilizes a transnational racial solidarity to suppress anti-colonial resistance. We also explore how decolonial and Black internationalist traditions provide the tools for dismantling it—offering a political horizon rooted not in reform, but in liberation.

Empire as White Identity Politics on a Global Scale

The U.S. empire is not a contradiction to white liberal values—it is their inevitable outcome. For centuries, white identity has been globalized through conquest, trade, and cultural imperialism. The myth of Western superiority, masked in the language of “democracy,” “development,” and “human rights,” has underwritten the colonization of entire continents. From the Philippines to Palestine, from Iraq to Haiti, white identity is reinforced by the belief that the West has the right—not just the power—to decide who governs, who develops, and who lives.

Every drone strike, every IMF loan, every military base, every sanction is not just a geopolitical maneuver—it is a ritual of global white identity. It reinforces the colonial logic that nonwhite life is disposable, that Black and Indigenous sovereignty is illegitimate, and that the Global South must conform to Euro-American visions of order, value, and civilization.

This is why American liberals can denounce domestic racism while cheering U.S. military “interventions” abroad. It is why settler regimes like the U.S., Canada, and Israel form deep alliances across party lines. Empire is where liberalism and fascism shake hands—where the defense of whiteness transcends borders and policy differences.

Settler Solidarity: White Identity Across Regimes

White identity politics finds its most explicit expression in settler colonial alliances. The deep relationship between the U.S. and Israel is a clear example—not just a geopolitical alliance, but an ideological one rooted in shared settler logics: divine entitlement to stolen land, racialized militarism, and the construction of “terror” as a justification for state violence.

In both contexts, the settler state defines its national identity through the erasure, displacement, and demonization of Indigenous peoples. Palestinians, like Black and Indigenous communities in the U.S., are rendered threats by their very existence. Their resistance is pathologized, and their history is denied. White identity, in this transnational sense, depends on maintaining settler innocence—no matter the body count.

This is also why global solidarity from Black, Indigenous, and decolonial movements is so heavily policed and criminalized. When Ferguson protesters declared solidarity with Gaza, when South Africans denounced Zionism as apartheid, when Caribbean and African leaders resist Western sanctions and neocolonial meddling—they are not just criticizing foreign policy. They are rejecting the very architecture of global whiteness.

Whiteness and the “Global Citizen” Myth

Modern white identity politics often dresses itself in cosmopolitan garb: the liberal traveler, the development worker, the foreign correspondent, the global philanthropist. These figures claim neutrality, compassion, and universal values—but frequently reproduce colonial dynamics.

The “global citizen” narrative flattens difference and erases power. It imagines global inequality as a tragedy to be managed, not a system to be dismantled. It recasts racialized suffering as an opportunity for white saviors to act. In doing so, it reproduces the logic of empire in humanitarian terms. Whether in refugee policy, climate finance, or global education reform, whiteness remains centered as the arbiter of knowledge, morality, and governance.

This is why institutions like the UN, the World Bank, and the humanitarian aid industry are often complicit in maintaining global apartheid. They export models of governance that marginalize Indigenous sovereignty, suppress radical movements, and enforce neoliberal economic policy—while offering symbolic representation and “capacity building” as a substitute for justice.

Toward a Black and Decolonial Internationalism

The only way to defeat white identity politics is to outgrow the narrowness of the nation-state and reclaim the revolutionary internationalism that has long guided the Black radical tradition. From the anti-colonial solidarity of the Bandung Conference to the Pan-Africanism of Malcolm X and Walter Rodney, to the internationalist feminism of Angela Davis and Claudia Jones, the struggle against racial capitalism has always been global.

This tradition understands that U.S. police training in Africa, Israeli surveillance technologies in Latin America, and Western economic warfare against Cuba or Venezuela are not isolated incidents. They are part of an international system of white power. It also understands that Black, Indigenous, and working-class movements—from the Niger Delta to the barrios of Brazil to the refugee camps of Palestine—are not just victims, but agents of history.

Internationalism is not charity; it is strategy. It is how we connect struggles, dismantle shared enemies, and build power beyond borders. It is how we refuse to let white identity politics divide us through nationalism, NGO politics, or imperial co-optation.

Conclusion: Exposing the Global Operating System of White Identity

White identity politics is not a glitch in the system—it is the system, operating globally. It shifts form, adapts to language, and moves across institutions and ideologies. From the U.S. liberal elite to European border regimes, from settler nationalism to humanitarian imperialism, whiteness functions as both a material force and a moral justification.

If Parts 1 through 3 exposed how white identity politics emerged through settler colonialism, reasserted itself through reactionary backlash, and disguised itself in liberalism, then Part 4 reveals its full scale: a transnational operating system sustained by war, finance, development, and cultural domination.

To dismantle it, we must organize beyond the ballot box and the nonprofit boardroom. We must build movements rooted in decolonial solidarity, anti-imperialist strategy, and a global commitment to liberation. That is the legacy of the Black radical tradition—and the future it demands.

Let me know if you’d like a visual layout, citations, or adapted versions of this for social media, zines, or curriculum. Part 5 could explore how white identity politics operates in the digital age (social media, surveillance capitalism, algorithmic bias, etc.) or in relation to the climate crisis and ecological apartheid.