The Psychology of Whiteness: How Colonialism Created the Illusion of Superiority


👥 The Black Waiter & the White Customer

Imagine walking into a high-end restaurant in Nairobi, Lagos, or Accra.

A Black waiter approaches a Black customer with politeness — but reserved courtesy.

Moments later, a white tourist walks in, and suddenly, that same waiter becomes more alert, more eager, more deferential — perhaps even cracks a nervous smile.

It’s not just about service. It’s conditioning.

Many African startups today mirror this — hiring or showcasing a white co-founder or board advisor not because of merit, but because investors in the West still associate whiteness with credibility, stability, and leadership.

And this isn't happening in the colonial era.

This is now.

🧬 Where Did This Come From?

This behavior — this subconscious favoritism — didn't come from nowhere. It's the psychological legacy of colonialism, a centuries-long global campaign to condition both the oppressor and the oppressed to believe:

White is better.

  • Better leader

  • Better communicator

  • Better thinker

  • Better investor

  • Better partner

And for non-white people to internalize:

You are secondary. Be grateful to be in the room.

🏛️ How Colonialism Manufactured White Superiority

Colonialism wasn’t just about land, labor, and resources. It was a full-spectrum system of mental, legal, economic, and cultural domination.

Here’s how it seeded white supremacist thinking into global consciousness:

1. 🧠 Mental Conditioning Through Power Dynamics

Europeans didn’t just conquer land. They redefined social roles:

  • Europeans were the rulers, the educators, the police, the priests, the bosses.

  • Indigenous people became the ruled, the students, the laborers, the “natives.”

Over time, this dynamic taught the colonized to equate whiteness with power and authority, and blackness with subordination.

2. 📚 Education Systems That Erased Self-Worth

Colonial education erased local history, languages, and systems of knowledge:

  • African children learned about Shakespeare, but not Shaka Zulu.

  • They studied the "greatness" of European empires while being taught that Africa had no history before colonization.

"The colonized learns to see the world through the eyes of the colonizer." — Frantz Fanon

3. 💼 Economic Systems Built on Racial Favoritism

Colonial economies were structured to:

  • Give white settlers access to land, capital, and institutions.

  • Relegate locals to manual labor and underpaid positions.

  • Make local businesses dependent on Western finance, validation, and partnerships — a pattern still seen in modern venture capital.

Even today, African founders often report:

“We only got serious investor attention after a white person joined our pitch deck.”

4. 🗞️ Media and Beauty Standards

  • Magazines, TV shows, and advertisements glorified European features, clothing, and accents.

  • African languages were deemed “tribal” while English or French was “elite.”

  • Dark skin was associated with poverty, crime, and backwardness; light skin with success and intelligence.

This isn't just marketing. It's indoctrination.

5. ✝️ Missionary Religion as a Tool of Supremacy

Missionaries often framed African spirituality as demonic or primitive.

  • God became a white man in the sky.

  • Salvation came through adopting European culture and moral codes.

  • Indigenous identity became something to be “saved from.”

The colonizer's god didn’t just save souls. He reinforced a racial caste system.

🧠 Internalized White Superiority: The Invisible Empire

What’s tragic isn’t just that white superiority was taught — it’s that it was deeply internalized by both the colonizers and the colonized.

This is why:

  • A Kenyan entrepreneur trusts a white consultant over a local expert.

  • A Ghanaian startup adds a white co-founder after building traction.

  • A Nigerian elite treats their own staff with contempt, but greets a white guest with reverence.

It’s not natural.
It’s not accidental.
It’s colonial software running on modern hardware.

🔁 Can It Be Unlearned?

Yes — but it takes deliberate decolonization of the mind.

  1. Relearn our history — not from a Western lens, but from our ancestors’ truths.

  2. Affirm our excellence — in thought, innovation, leadership, and vision.

  3. Challenge the white gaze — stop building, speaking, or dressing for validation from the West.

  4. Support and celebrate Black leadership — not as tokens, but as the default.

🛑 Final Thought

The greatest trick colonialism ever pulled was not just conquering Africa — but convincing Africans to doubt themselves.

So when a Black founder believes they need a white face to raise funds,
When a waiter over-serves a white guest and under-serves his brother,
When an African business still calls itself "world-class" only after approval from London or New York —

It’s not just business.

It’s the ghost of an empire still whispering:

“You’re not enough without us.”

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