Perhaps white supremacy's most absurd lie is that Europeans "discovered" lands that had been inhabited by indigenous peoples for centuries, a lie that roots the modern entitlement of "regular white men" like Brenton Tarrant, who believes that a nation of which he is not even a citizen is "his land." This is part of the broader presumption white supremacy has created over generations, particularly in settler-colonial states like New Zealand and Australia, namely, that whiteness itself triggers the presumption of belonging and ownership. On the other hand, nonwhiteness raises the very opposite beliefs: perpetual foreignness, transience, and with regard to Muslims, danger.

DEFINE: This articulates the core mechanism of settler-colonial white supremacy: whiteness itself triggers assumptions of ownership and belonging, while nonwhiteness triggers presumptions of perpetual foreignness and threat.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 908