The real big 4

Written By SoCo

Authors’ note: this is based on our everyday understanding and history of these concepts as of January 2024. We welcome commentary, discussion and nuance on these summaries, any way you may care to take the time to share.

So the world is quite shit yeah? Especially for ‘diverse’ folk. The less you look like / sound like/ live like the big dogs in charge, the more likely you might run into trouble in all its forms.

At the heart of this is that western society and its systems are based on the 4 concepts here to ruin your day and your life. We call them the ‘real big 4’. We’re talking about them now because we think it’s important to name what you want to move away from. We also know that everyone is on a different timeline of knowing, so we don’t want to assume that everyone has the same information stored in their brains as us.

The real big 4 are:

  1. white supremacy

  2. colonisation

  3. capitalism

  4. patriarchy

For a lot of people, these concepts and how they impact them daily and the people around them might be as invisible as water is to the fishies swimming in the sea. For others, they know these concepts in their bones, in their blood and for many generations. We might not all call it the same thing but we think it’s pretty clear that we live with the consequences of the real big 4 every day.

The pointy end of the real big 4 can be observed in this place through the hoarding of wealth for a few, resulting in a cost of living crisis for many, decades of Indigenous deaths at the hands of the justice system, government approving more fossil fuel extraction whilst facing extreme climate change weather events, and men murdering women they’re in relationships with every week.

Dreaming up and creating new worlds away from the real big 4 is what drives us at SoCo and why we focus so hard on building community as the centre of everything we do from here.

At times it can be very difficult to separate the real big 4 as separate concepts, as they weave together in almost all aspects of western society. We’ve done our best to summarise decades and centuries of work by people smarter than us, but all of these topics deserve their own air time in your hearts and minds.

In future posts - we will continue to connect you to people who have dedicated their lives to sharing their wisdom with us in the hopes of creating understanding, motivating action and moving away from these ultimately destructive systems.

At the bottom of this post is an invitation to extend your knowledge when you’re ready to rsvp yes.

The real big 4 - a veeeeryyyyy basic introdction

  • White supremacy describes the systems where power is given to people based on their skin colour. This is rooted in a historical condition of the western world. This condition favors and centers whiteness as both neutral and superior. It started in the 1600s and 1700s when some individuals used 'science' to create a hierarchy of humans, asserting the superiority of the white 'race' in all aspects of existence. This belief system played a significant role in colonisation and the establishment of white supremacy, leading to the dehumanisation and genocide of Indigenous Peoples globally and forming the basis for European colonies enslavement of African people. There have been limited attempts on reparations, reconciliation or even acknowledgment of how these events historically and presently impact western society and so this system persists today and shows up in big and small ways like:

    • every day racist micro-agressions everywhere from everyone - assuming you're not local, that you can’t afford nice things, being mistaken as staff at events etc.

    • oxygen monitors and other critical health equipment only working accurately on light skin tones

    • not being able to get bandaids, makeup or ballet shoes in your skin colour

    • everything in English and barely any other languages all the time.

    • funded projects and programs that aim to support diverse communities led by white people who are upheld as ‘experts’ with no community leadership or participation

    • non- white people being profiled in public spaces and treated as ‘other’, dangerous, threatening

  • colonisation - describes when one group violently invades and takes control of another group’s land, claims the land as its own, and sends people — “settlers” — to live on that land and destroy or make existing culture and society a fringe issue. in recent human history the groups who have been most prolific are… shocker, white people from Europe, including the English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian. some of what it looks like:

    • the English landing in this place and declaring it available for ownership, thanks white supremacy. this is despite there being over 500 First Nations groups totalling 750,000 people on the continent we now call Australia.

    • in the decades of English colonisation that followed 90% of First Nations people were murdered or killed in the frontier wars and attempted annihilation by the English, through violent dispossession of their lands at the hands of settlers or from introduction of new diseases. all popular tactics used globally to steal land from Indigenous people.

    • once invaded, white supremacy was again used as a reason for forced removals of children from community through to rejection of tens of thousands of years of deep wisdom in caring for country.

    • and today there is record investment in police force and correctional institutions whilst investment decreases in education and health, disproportionately impacting First Nations communities due to ongoing impacts of this colonisation and attempted genocide.

  • capitalism - describes the major economic system of our world. its main features are individuals or businesses owning things like land (often stolen from Indigenous people), factories and businesses which allows them to extract and sell raw materials and/or products and services to other businesses or individuals. the focus of capitalism is competition, profit and growth of this profit year in, year out, with little regard for the human or environmental costs. in the pursuit of this profit, especially in big corporations this looks like:

    • underpaying offshore workers - many of our clothes are made by garment workers in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and Cambodia, who often work 60-80 hour weeks and are still living in poverty on pay day.

    • modern day slavery - many raw materials for the latest products, including electronics, come from places like Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Nigeria. Local people are physically forced to work with no pay and mine often with their bare hands and no safety gear. there are regular deaths and many have long term illnesses like cancer and organ failure.

    • slow wage growth - locally, the minimum wage hasn’t increased to match the profits of companies or the rise in cost of food, housing or having a bit of fun! ironically because of this many workers in western countries have no choice but to buy products and services from companies who rely on exploiting workers locally and globally, creating demand and continual funding for these inhumane conditions to continue.

    • profits are king - all of the above is done to achieve profits that can either be given to shareholders - which overwhelmingly are other corporations (not individuals) or reinvested into the business to expand their market share. this is often pursued whilst ignoring social impacts like the ones above, and environmental decimation.

  • patriarchy - describes societies and systems where the power is given to men. both historically and in the present moment. this often looks like the elevation, preference, and centering of men and boys as either neutral or the best. this looks like:

    • women doing majority of housework and caregiving in romantic partnerships with men

    • more men than women in politics at all levels of government - local, state and federal

    • local sports grounds having no women or unisex facilities

    • gender neutral names and fashion being masculine

    • more men called david than women as heads of corporations

    • car safety tests only using male crash test dummies

an invitation

the knowledge on these topics and how they impact society is always growing. we invite you to grow your knowledge from this moment on. there’s levels to the information we’ve suggested -

  • dip your toe in - short form social media posts

  • have a little splash - read some articles and watch documentaries

  • swim some laps - deep dive into the complexity and the history of these topics by reading a book or two

dip your toe in

hot nerd tip: don’t worry if you don’t have social media accounts - you can access these videos on your internet browser (aka safari, chrome, firefox, edge)

have a little splash

hot nerd tip: exposing yourself to being in learner mode as an adult can be vulnerable making and remind you of the powerlessness you felt as a kid. we see you and believe in you to get through to the other side of this discomfort. because you are a learner, you might need a dictionary for some of these. others you just need the popcorn and an open heart.

swim some laps

hot nerd tip: borrow from your local library. if they don’t have it - every library has a fund to buy new books - so request that they add it to their collection and soon enough it will be in your hands!

authors’ ending note: thank you for getting to the bottom of here. we wanted to be brief but it turns out it’s hard to summarise the inspiration of most modern western fuckery in one go. but also eff being brief. if you have any other articles, books or videos that you think would be awesome to add to the list, plz drop us a line.

SoCo
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