White Supremacy
"For Those Who Can Handle The Truth"
august 2024
TO COMMENT CLICK HERE
race, cultural construct based on the popular, but mistaken notion that humans can be divided into biologically distinct categories by means of particular physical features such as skin color, head shape, and other visible traits that are transmissible by descent... Genetic studies undertaken in the last decades of the 20th century confirm that "races" do not exist in any biological sense.
encyclopaedia brittannica, 2002
James A. Baldwin: The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.
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jordan maxwell: “This is a white man’s country. This is a white man’s world. White men from Europe dominate the whole planet — goes into any country and kills everybody — and takes over anything they want … I am not bragging about it. I am just stating it … England has exploited the people and the races of the world. The white man has been using commerce to manipulate and exploit the whole human race. I do not believe that some young Black guy is going to waltz in and take over the old white man’s establishment… it ain’t going to happen. He is not in control.”
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William C. Anderson, Truthout: White supremacy is a conglomerate forged through fear, colonialism, imperialism and anti-Blackness, not through the purity of blood.
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White America has done much to protect its image; history is told from the perspective of the winners, we are taught, and clearly, white Americans have been the winners. We learned little of the vicious racism of white people arriving here from Great Britain, occupying the land which belonged to Native Americans, and exterminating innocent people. We learned that there was slavery but our history lessons didn’t get too deep about it; there was no attempt to teach the horrors of that institution. We learned that there was Reconstruction but we didn’t learn that white people were angry about the gains made by black people during Reconstruction and that Jim Crow was put into place in order to reverse those gains. We didn’t learn about the means white people took to keep black people from voting. We didn’t learn about the lynchings that took place regularly; Emmet Till’s name was never mentioned. We didn’t learn American history. We learned white American history from the perspective of those who were in power.
No, I don’t believe racism in this nation can be eradicated. It will be the ruination of this great nation, called “exceptional.”
Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith
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White Supremacy is:
White supremacy is, essentially, an ecosystem built around the idea of never having to fight fair. A full-bodied commitment — culturally, politically, spiritually — to the retention of the privilege to be cowards.
They’re learning to read? Let’s kill them. Can’t (legally) kill them anymore? Let’s burn down the schools. Can’t burn down the schools anymore? Let’s ban books.
They want to vote? Let’s kill them. Can’t (legally) kill them anymore? Let’s make them take “literacy” tests. Literacy tests are outlawed? Let’s gerrymander the districts. The gerrymandering wasn’t enough? Let’s say the elections are rigged.
They’re building community wealth? Let’s kill them. Can’t (legally) kill them anymore? Let’s redline them and deny them loans. Can’t (legally) deny them loans anymore? Let’s give them loans at subprime rates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/05/26/damon-young-buffalo-shooting-cowardice-is-point-white-supremacy-too/
REIGN OF IDIOTS - BY CHRIS HEDGES
"..This moment in history marks the end of a long, sad tale of greed and murder by the white races. It is inevitable that for the final show we vomited a grotesque figure like Trump. Europeans and Americans have spent five centuries conquering, plundering, exploiting and polluting the earth in the name of human progress. They used their technological superiority to create the most efficient killing machines on the planet, directed against anyone and anything, especially indigenous cultures, that stood in their way. They stole and hoarded the planet’s wealth and resources. They believed that this orgy of blood and gold would never end, and they still believe it. They do not understand that the dark ethic of ceaseless capitalist and imperialist expansion is dooming the exploiters as well as the exploited. But even as we stand on the cusp of extinction we lack the intelligence and imagination to break free from our evolutionary past."
Tim Wise: The development of the class structure in the United States has been, from the beginning, interwoven with the development of white supremacy. Indeed, a fair reading of those dual histories suggests that white supremacy and the elevation of whites as whites above persons of color, even when both shared similar class positions, has been critical in the shoring up of class division. Race, in other words, has been a weapon with which elites have divided working people from one another and prevented white working folks from developing a strong identification with their counterparts of color.
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Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States": The Constitution, then illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of the wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a base of broad support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law - all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.
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White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded—about themselves and about the world they live in. White people have managed to get through entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac.
by James Baldwin
by James Baldwin
Nathanial Rich observes:
Today, like sixty years ago, much of the public rhetoric about race is devoted to explaining to an incurious white public, in rudimentary terms, the contours of institutional racism. It must be spelled out, as if for the first time, that police killings of unarmed black children, indifference to providing clean drinking water to a majority-black city, or efforts to curtail the voting rights of minority citizens are not freak incidents; but outbreaks of a chronic national disease. Nebulous, bureaucratic terms like "white privilege" have been substituted for "white supremacy," or "micro-aggressions" for "casual racism."
articles on white supremacy
EXCERPT: IS THE PLAGUE OF GUNS A RACIST FEVER DREAM FOR “RESTORED” WHITE MALE SUPREMACY?(ARTICLE BELOW)
*URBAN PLANNING AS A TOOL OF WHITE SUPREMACY – THE OTHER LESSON FROM MINNEAPOLIS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*ABORTION, RACISM, GUNS AND THE RIGHT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHITE MEN AS VICTIMS: DANGEROUS FANTASY
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*INTERVIEW: WHY WHITE WOMEN EMBRACE WHITE SUPREMACY
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHITENESS AS A COVENANT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHITE SUPREMACY SET THE STAGE FOR TEXAS’ MISERABLE DISASTER RESPONSE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHITE AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS
(EXCERPT BELOW)
*TRUMP LOYALISTS WANT TO UPHOLD A LONG AMERICAN TRADITION: WHITE LICENSE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*White Supremacist Group That Wants America to Collapse to Establish Ethno-state Discussed Paramilitary Training In Newly Published Phone Calls(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Urban planning as a tool of white supremacy – the other lesson from Minneapolis
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Why are white supremacists protesting the deaths of black people?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s Antifa Conspiracy Theory Attempts to Erase Powerful Black-Led Organizing
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TIFFANY CROSS: WHITE SUPREMACY IS 'AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE'
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HISTORIAN: GEORGIA’S CURRENT ‘CITIZEN’S ARREST’ LAW HAS ITS ROOTS IN A 1861 RULE WRITTEN BY A CONFEDERATE SLAVEHOLDER(ARTICLE BELOW)
*White supremacists are taking advantage of anti-lockdown protests to recruit new members: report(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Funding hate: How online merchants and payment processors aid white nationalists
(EXCERPT BELOW)
*Tim Wise on Trump, the coronavirus and the pandemic of white privilege
(excerpt below)
*The Hate Store: Amazon’s Self-Publishing Arm Is a Haven for White Supremacists
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*White supremacists are encouraging members to infect Jews with coronavirus: FBI
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Thanks To The 'Trump Effect,' White Nationalist Hate Just Keeps Growing And Intensifying(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Long Arm of the American Nazi Party Reaches the 2020 Illinois Primary
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*NEW JERSEY DECLARED WHITE SUPREMACISTS A MAJOR THREAT. HERE'S WHY THAT'S GROUNDBREAKING(ARTICLE BELOW)
*REPORT: WHITE NATIONALISTS TURN FOCUS TO COLLEGE CAMPUSES, WITH TRIAL RUN AT KANSAS STATE(ARTICLE BELOW)
*White supremacist propaganda in US more than doubled in 2019, report finds
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Jonah Goldberg says conservatism isn’t supposed to be a tribal identity. But Trumpism has no consistent ideology aside from pro-whiteness
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*RIGHTWING ‘BILL MILL’ ACCUSED OF SOWING RACIST AND WHITE SUPREMACIST POLICIES
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*UNIVERSITY KILLS AT LEAST ONE JOB AFTER GIVING MILLIONS TO PRESERVE WHITE SUPREMACIST STATUE(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Anti-Semitic and Anti-Muslim Murders Are Latest in String of Fascist Attacks
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Arkansas: tree honoring 1919 Elaine Massacre victims cut down
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*White supremacists look to remake the map of America
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Alt-right women and the "white baby challenge"
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The deep roots of America's white nationalism
(EXCERPT BELOW)
*White Supremacists Are Infiltrating the GOP From the Ground Up
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Here are 10 ways white people are way more racist than they realize
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*White Supremacy Apologists Are Having a Field Day
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘White supremacy’ is really about white degeneracy
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*A historian busts the poisonous myth at the heart of white nationalist ideology
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Users of home DNA tests 'cherry pick' results based on race biases, study says
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHAT IS WHITE SUPREMACY?(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TIM WISE - WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WRONG FOR SO LONG? REFLECTIONS ON BLACK REALITY AND WHITE DELUSION(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HOW HISTORY AND REALITY MEANS MANY OF US HAVE TO FIGHT TO NOT BE A WHITE SUPREMACIST(ARTICLE BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
Climate crisis
Racism at heart of US failure to tackle deadly heatwaves, expert warns
Nina Lakhani Climate justice reporter
the guardian
Sun 6 Aug 2023 06.00 EDT
Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet.
Jeff Goodell, an award winning climate journalist, told the Guardian that people of color - including millions of migrant workers who are bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands, builders and delivery workers - are not guaranteed lifesaving measures like water and shade breaks because they are considered expendable.
In The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, Goodell documents the tragic – and preventable – death of Sebastian Perez, a Guatemalan garden centre worker who collapsed and died in Portland, Oregon, on the first day of the brutal Pacific north-west heatwave in June 2021. In the US, there are no federal rules related to heat exposure for workers – indoors or out.
“To be blunt about it, the people most impacted by heat are not the kind of voting demographic that gets any politician nervous. They’re unsheltered people, poor people, agricultural and construction workers. People like Sebastian Perez are just seen as expendable. They’re not seen as humans who need to be protected. Racism is absolutely central to the government’s failure to protect vulnerable people.”
A couple of states have implemented heat exposure rules, yet last month in the middle of a heatwave, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed legislation prohibiting any city or county in the state from passing laws requiring shade and water breaks for outdoor workers. The vast majority of farmhands and construction workers in Texas are migrants from Mexico and Central America. “I mean, that is insane, and emblematic of the ‘cruelty is the point’ ideology in so much of our politics right now.”
According to Goodell, the risks faced by mostly Black and brown workers also reveal enduring elements of scientific racism previously used to justify forcing enslaved African people to do backbreaking farm work in the scorching south. “There were all kinds of crazy racist ideas like African people having thicker bones in their skulls that insulated them from heat. While nobody talks about that explicitly now, it is absolutely an undercurrent that having Mexicans pave roads in Austin in 107F [42C] is fine because they’re from Mexico, and used to it.
“It’s not just about these vulnerable people who can’t vote or the incompetence of the government, it is out and out racism.”
Goodell’s book is a comprehensive, compelling and timely examination of the fossil fuel-driven extreme heat that is transforming the planet and its inhabitants. Heat – in the atmosphere and the oceans – is driving every single climate impact, from rising sea level and melting glaciers to intensifying droughts, wildfires and superstorms. Heat is the “engine of planetary chaos” yet its dangers remain poorly understood.
Goodell’s reporting extends from Antarctica, California and the Arctic, to Paris, Chennai and the Great Barrier Reef, weaving stories of farmworkers, hikers, urbanites and polar bears with scientific analysis and political critique, and so connecting the dots between heat-related personal tragedies and the risks of global heating on the planetary scale.
His overarching goal was to make heat visible and make it feel urgent, which shouldn’t be that hard given that tens of thousands of people are already dying from extreme heat every year. July was the hottest month ever recorded on the planet and at least two-thirds of Americans were under some sort of heat advisory.
Yet currently the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) cannot declare or respond to extreme heat as a disaster like it can for a severe storm or tornado. And the messaging and warnings around heat are confused, with local weather service offices left to issue alerts or advisories as they see fit.
In part this is because heat-related risks largely depend where you are, who you are, and what you do – and the humidity factor. In Phoenix, 95F is an unremarkable summer’s day, but a dangerous night temperature; in Minneapolis, 95F could prove deadly. But Goodell backs naming heatwaves – just like meteorologists name and rank storms – as a way of communicating the danger so that individuals and agencies take life-saving measures.
“We give names to children, we give names to dogs, to our fish … it’s how humans understand things. I understand that naming heatwaves is tricky, that it has complexities when you rank them, but we haven’t ever tried it. Let’s pilot it in a city like Miami or Austin, and if it doesn’t help then fine, but there’s a lot of evidence that suggests naming hurricanes really helps people understand the seriousness of what’s coming.”
Some cities like Seville, Spain, are piloting a program to both rank and name heatwaves, but overall the international meteorological establishment isn’t convinced.
In a chapter titled “Cheap cold air”, Goodell charts the history – and future – of air conditioning which enabled a migration south and in some ways shaped modern American politics as much as oil.
“Air conditioning is emblematic of all of the insanity and paradoxes of what we consider progress, both a technology of personal comfort and a technology of forgetting. It is such an American idea, such an American way of trying to solve a really complex problem with a techno fix … it’s emblematic of the inequalities of heat, the gap between the cool and the damned. The hotter it gets, the bigger the divide.”
Air conditioning is a climate catch-22.
Globally, there are more than 1bn single-room air conditioning units in the world right now – about one for every seven people on Earth – accounting for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings, and hence a major contributor of the greenhouse gases making the planet hotter, driving up demand for aircon. If demand continues to grow at the current pace, by 2050, there will probably be more than 4.5bn units, Goodell writes, making them as common as cellphones today. Meanwhile, tried and tested non-tech, carbon-neutral solutions dating back centuries have largely been dismissed or forgotten.
Heat, much like the Covid pandemic, exposes and exacerbates existing structural and racial inequalities in housing, wages, healthcare, mobility and access to solutions. One of Goodell’s biggest fears is that the world will adapt to heat deaths much like it did with Covid. “Covid showed us how much death we’re willing to tolerate. I am concerned that we’ll simply adapt to the chaos and tragedy and accept 60,000 people dying every summer, and we’ll forget that we created this climate and that we have control over it.”
In an interview with Al Gore about 15 years ago, Goodell recalls agreeing with the former vice-president turned environmentalist’s view that everybody eventually has an “oh shit” moment when something happens which wakes them up to the climate crisis. Not any more.
“There’s not gonna be a kind of larger cultural moment, or a single thing that changes the political dynamic in a big way. We’ll see incremental changes, two steps forward, one step back. This is trench warfare, everywhere, all the time.”
Jeff Goodell, an award winning climate journalist, told the Guardian that people of color - including millions of migrant workers who are bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands, builders and delivery workers - are not guaranteed lifesaving measures like water and shade breaks because they are considered expendable.
In The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, Goodell documents the tragic – and preventable – death of Sebastian Perez, a Guatemalan garden centre worker who collapsed and died in Portland, Oregon, on the first day of the brutal Pacific north-west heatwave in June 2021. In the US, there are no federal rules related to heat exposure for workers – indoors or out.
“To be blunt about it, the people most impacted by heat are not the kind of voting demographic that gets any politician nervous. They’re unsheltered people, poor people, agricultural and construction workers. People like Sebastian Perez are just seen as expendable. They’re not seen as humans who need to be protected. Racism is absolutely central to the government’s failure to protect vulnerable people.”
A couple of states have implemented heat exposure rules, yet last month in the middle of a heatwave, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed legislation prohibiting any city or county in the state from passing laws requiring shade and water breaks for outdoor workers. The vast majority of farmhands and construction workers in Texas are migrants from Mexico and Central America. “I mean, that is insane, and emblematic of the ‘cruelty is the point’ ideology in so much of our politics right now.”
According to Goodell, the risks faced by mostly Black and brown workers also reveal enduring elements of scientific racism previously used to justify forcing enslaved African people to do backbreaking farm work in the scorching south. “There were all kinds of crazy racist ideas like African people having thicker bones in their skulls that insulated them from heat. While nobody talks about that explicitly now, it is absolutely an undercurrent that having Mexicans pave roads in Austin in 107F [42C] is fine because they’re from Mexico, and used to it.
“It’s not just about these vulnerable people who can’t vote or the incompetence of the government, it is out and out racism.”
Goodell’s book is a comprehensive, compelling and timely examination of the fossil fuel-driven extreme heat that is transforming the planet and its inhabitants. Heat – in the atmosphere and the oceans – is driving every single climate impact, from rising sea level and melting glaciers to intensifying droughts, wildfires and superstorms. Heat is the “engine of planetary chaos” yet its dangers remain poorly understood.
Goodell’s reporting extends from Antarctica, California and the Arctic, to Paris, Chennai and the Great Barrier Reef, weaving stories of farmworkers, hikers, urbanites and polar bears with scientific analysis and political critique, and so connecting the dots between heat-related personal tragedies and the risks of global heating on the planetary scale.
His overarching goal was to make heat visible and make it feel urgent, which shouldn’t be that hard given that tens of thousands of people are already dying from extreme heat every year. July was the hottest month ever recorded on the planet and at least two-thirds of Americans were under some sort of heat advisory.
Yet currently the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) cannot declare or respond to extreme heat as a disaster like it can for a severe storm or tornado. And the messaging and warnings around heat are confused, with local weather service offices left to issue alerts or advisories as they see fit.
In part this is because heat-related risks largely depend where you are, who you are, and what you do – and the humidity factor. In Phoenix, 95F is an unremarkable summer’s day, but a dangerous night temperature; in Minneapolis, 95F could prove deadly. But Goodell backs naming heatwaves – just like meteorologists name and rank storms – as a way of communicating the danger so that individuals and agencies take life-saving measures.
“We give names to children, we give names to dogs, to our fish … it’s how humans understand things. I understand that naming heatwaves is tricky, that it has complexities when you rank them, but we haven’t ever tried it. Let’s pilot it in a city like Miami or Austin, and if it doesn’t help then fine, but there’s a lot of evidence that suggests naming hurricanes really helps people understand the seriousness of what’s coming.”
Some cities like Seville, Spain, are piloting a program to both rank and name heatwaves, but overall the international meteorological establishment isn’t convinced.
In a chapter titled “Cheap cold air”, Goodell charts the history – and future – of air conditioning which enabled a migration south and in some ways shaped modern American politics as much as oil.
“Air conditioning is emblematic of all of the insanity and paradoxes of what we consider progress, both a technology of personal comfort and a technology of forgetting. It is such an American idea, such an American way of trying to solve a really complex problem with a techno fix … it’s emblematic of the inequalities of heat, the gap between the cool and the damned. The hotter it gets, the bigger the divide.”
Air conditioning is a climate catch-22.
Globally, there are more than 1bn single-room air conditioning units in the world right now – about one for every seven people on Earth – accounting for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings, and hence a major contributor of the greenhouse gases making the planet hotter, driving up demand for aircon. If demand continues to grow at the current pace, by 2050, there will probably be more than 4.5bn units, Goodell writes, making them as common as cellphones today. Meanwhile, tried and tested non-tech, carbon-neutral solutions dating back centuries have largely been dismissed or forgotten.
Heat, much like the Covid pandemic, exposes and exacerbates existing structural and racial inequalities in housing, wages, healthcare, mobility and access to solutions. One of Goodell’s biggest fears is that the world will adapt to heat deaths much like it did with Covid. “Covid showed us how much death we’re willing to tolerate. I am concerned that we’ll simply adapt to the chaos and tragedy and accept 60,000 people dying every summer, and we’ll forget that we created this climate and that we have control over it.”
In an interview with Al Gore about 15 years ago, Goodell recalls agreeing with the former vice-president turned environmentalist’s view that everybody eventually has an “oh shit” moment when something happens which wakes them up to the climate crisis. Not any more.
“There’s not gonna be a kind of larger cultural moment, or a single thing that changes the political dynamic in a big way. We’ll see incremental changes, two steps forward, one step back. This is trench warfare, everywhere, all the time.”
excerpt: Is the Plague of Guns a Racist Fever Dream for “Restored” White Male Supremacy?
And even if there is no war, our children are now paying the price for the GOP’s embrace of this hate and bigotry — and the guns that go with it — every single day
THOM HARTMANN
APR 12, 2023
According to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 21% of Americans have been threatened with a gun, 19% tell researchers a family member was killed by a gun, and 17% say they’ve seen someone shot in front of them. Fully 54 percent of Americans or members of their family have had one of these experiences.
Eighty-four percent of Americans consider how to avoid getting shot when they go out in public.
But why?
Why would Republican members of Congress remove the flag pins from their lapels and replace them with little metal pins of AR-15 mass slaughter machines designed for modern warfare?
CNN reporter Bill Weir said the quiet part out loud this week.
When asked by anchor Kaitlan Collins why Texas Governor Greg Abbott was going to pardon a man who murdered a Black Lives Matter protester in cold blood, Weir said:
“You go back to, there was a guy named Harlon Carter, who was living on the border in Texas back in the 50s. There was some racial tension with Mexicans nearby, he ended up murdering a 15-year-old boy with a shotgun, was convicted of murder, but then released from jail two years early because the judge didn’t explain to the jury the proper definition of self-defense.
“At that time, Harlon Carter went on to be the head of the NRA. At the time, they pivoted from a club that was for marksmanship into a political wing that gave their first endorsement after 100 years to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Now, that’s 180 million guns ago in this country. The political force of that decision — who took the NRA in a place to fortify for a race war instead of a civic gun safety organization — was a key moment in history.”
And he’s right. Our children are dying in our schools and streets so a small minority of white mostly male Americans can prepare for what they hope will be an all-out race war.
Over at The Daily Stormer, before the site moved to less visible venues after being de-platformed by its hosts, America’s actual Nazis vigorously encourage their members to join the NRA because it’s preparing America for a war against Blacks and Jews (who Nazis call “European-style Socialists,” a common and well-known code phrase among antisemites).
Five years ago last month the Stormer’s founder, Andrew Anglin, wrote:
“The NRA is the country’s premiere pro-white and anti-Semitic organization. In fact, it is the only right-wing group of any kind in this country to have any success at all in the last 50 years.”
The article goes on to proclaim:
“The white race in the United States has lost on: Racial integration, Feminism, Homosexuality, Abortion, Prayer in schools, Pornography, [and] Immigration” but has won on “a single issue: guns.”
“And that winning is due almost exclusive to the National Rifle Association, a pro-white and anti-Jewish organization intent on protecting our GUNS from the gun-grabbing kikes… It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and join up with the country’s single effective pro-white organization intent on fully SMASHING THE JEW.”
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Over on Fox “News,” frozen-food heir Tucker Carlson is busy echoing Anglin and LaPierre, warning his white supremacist viewers that there’s a “Great Replacement” being engineered in America by shadowy forces manipulating Black and Brown people to replace white people at work and in society.
Christian nationalists show up to try to intimidate the people they believe are being empowered, funded, or directed by “European-style socialists,” ranging from drag queens to Black people to trans children tp “liberal teachers” and their school boards.
They fetishize their guns as the tools that will one day cleanse and “purify” America, per their guidebooks Camp of the Saints and The Turner Diaries.
A Facebook member posted an old quote from Herbert W. Armstrong — founder of The Worldwide Church of God — that said, “Race war is coming! … It will be whipped into an accelerating crescendo until human blood runs like rivers.”
Seeing the comment, NRA board member Ted Nugent replied:
“Yeah no shit. blacks slaughtering blacks at an unprecedented rate. Blacks killed more blacks this week than the KKK has in 50yrs.”
He posted that an hour after declaring former President Obama wanted a “racewar,” saying “Obama will go down in history as a maniac America hating freak…”
At that time, Armstrong was a major spokesman and inspiration for the white Christian nationalist movement — and continues to be revered even in his death.
He was the guy who spent most of his life proclaiming that integration was a violation of the Bible’s demand for racial purity. He preached:
“God separated or segregated the races and national groups about a century after the flood (Deut. 32:8), but the people did not agree with God. They rebelled by building the tower of Babel (Gen. 11). Here was man’s first recorded attempt this side of the flood to cross racial bounds and form one world. God had to intervene and scatter the nations.”
For decades the haters pushing white Americans to buy more and more weapons of war dressed themselves in respectable rhetorical garb, talking about “freedom” and “liberty.” But at its core, the absolutist pro-gun arm-America crusade is inextricably intertwined with a Christian nationalist white supremacist movement that believes white men are destined to rid America of what they call “mud races” and “deviants.”
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In fact, they’re still animated by Harlon Carter’s hatred of “colored” people, Jews, and the queer community.
Carter’s racism led him to kill two non-white people in his life (that we know about). The 15-year-old Hispanic teenager Weir noted who Carter killed in 1931 at close range with a shotgun for talking back to him has been widely reported, but less well known is that, according to the FBI, he also killed a 19-year-old Native American boy named Luther Curly by hitting him with his car in 1970.
As the head of the Border Patrol, Carter ran the notorious “Operation Wetback” in 1954, referring to it as “biggest drive against illegal aliens in history.”
He told The Los Angeles Times:
“An army of Border Patrol officers complete with jeeps, trucks, and seven aircraft” are waging “all-out war to hurl… Mexican wetbacks back into Mexico.”
As Donald Trump pointed out in 2015, praising that openly racist effort by the Eisenhower administration, Carter and his men enthusiastically apprehended and deported more than a million Latin American farm workers. His slogan may as well have been: “Make America White Again.”
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“Tough on criminals” is not a meaningful slogan for the NRA.
The constant whining about “crime in America” that we’re hearing this week from, for example, Jim Jordan — who says he’s going to New York to expose Black DA Alvin Bragg’s “crime ridden city” — is more rhetorical misdirection. Crime is way down in New York City: it’s not even in the top 65 cities in America for homicides, for example.
What they’re really saying is, “Look at all those Black and Brown people and the ‘European-style Socialist’ Jews who are helping them out!”
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It’s really all about race, religion, gender, and power, and a group of people willing to kill others to restore what they see as America’s rightful racial and gender hierarchies.
It’s as simple as that.
As Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz told the Boston Review in 2021:
“I think what the NRA—and Carter specifically—did was to simply revive something that had waned, because it was for a moment no longer needed.
“Slave patrols were not needed. The KKK wasn’t needed, because the Jim Crow state had taken on that role of racial enforcer.
“But as that began to break down with civil rights, Carter handed to the descendants of the white settler population this tool for their empowerment, the new NRA.”
When Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about a “national divorce,” or Sharon Angle and Donald Trump warn of “Second Amendment solutions” to Democrats winning elections, or Greg Abbott says he’s going to pardon a man who murdered a BLM protester, or Ron DeSantis parades Black men in shackles in front of the cameras for “illegally voting,” they’re all saying the same thing.
They’re proclaiming that their version of America is the America of the 1930s, when white men ran the country, women were men’s playthings, gays and lesbians were in the closet, Jews kept their heads’ down (in the face of the antisemitic wave of 1931, my grandfather added a second “n” to my father’s birth certificate so he wouldn’t be taken for Jewish), and racial minorities “knew their place.”
In the 40 years since the beginning of the Reagan Revolution — one kicked off by Reagan proclaiming “states’ rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi where 3 civil rights workers were brutally murdered — America has gone from having around 30 guns for every 100 people (like Canada today) to over 120 guns for every 100 people today.
And they’re not evenly distributed across the country: Red states have a much higher gun death rate than Blue states, almost without exception, because they have far more guns per person.
Massachusetts, for example, has only seen 2 children die in school shootings in decades because of their strong gun laws. Nations like Canada and most of Europe, where guns are available but well-regulated, have only a tiny fraction of the gun deaths and injuries we experience here in America.
But America being flooded with guns isn’t an accident and it’s not just because the gun industry wants to increase their revenues.
As is so often the case in this country, tragically, our plague of guns results from the racist fever dreams of white supremacists willing to kill to achieve a “restored” America.
Which is also why these same white supremacist Republicans insist on leaving semiautomatic and assault weapons-of-war in the hands of America’s civilians. They are, after all, asking armed white men to join up, to prepare to kill their fellow Americans in a real civil war.
And even if there is no war, our children are now paying the price for the GOP’s embrace of this hate and bigotry — and the guns that go with it — every single day.
Eighty-four percent of Americans consider how to avoid getting shot when they go out in public.
But why?
Why would Republican members of Congress remove the flag pins from their lapels and replace them with little metal pins of AR-15 mass slaughter machines designed for modern warfare?
CNN reporter Bill Weir said the quiet part out loud this week.
When asked by anchor Kaitlan Collins why Texas Governor Greg Abbott was going to pardon a man who murdered a Black Lives Matter protester in cold blood, Weir said:
“You go back to, there was a guy named Harlon Carter, who was living on the border in Texas back in the 50s. There was some racial tension with Mexicans nearby, he ended up murdering a 15-year-old boy with a shotgun, was convicted of murder, but then released from jail two years early because the judge didn’t explain to the jury the proper definition of self-defense.
“At that time, Harlon Carter went on to be the head of the NRA. At the time, they pivoted from a club that was for marksmanship into a political wing that gave their first endorsement after 100 years to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Now, that’s 180 million guns ago in this country. The political force of that decision — who took the NRA in a place to fortify for a race war instead of a civic gun safety organization — was a key moment in history.”
And he’s right. Our children are dying in our schools and streets so a small minority of white mostly male Americans can prepare for what they hope will be an all-out race war.
Over at The Daily Stormer, before the site moved to less visible venues after being de-platformed by its hosts, America’s actual Nazis vigorously encourage their members to join the NRA because it’s preparing America for a war against Blacks and Jews (who Nazis call “European-style Socialists,” a common and well-known code phrase among antisemites).
Five years ago last month the Stormer’s founder, Andrew Anglin, wrote:
“The NRA is the country’s premiere pro-white and anti-Semitic organization. In fact, it is the only right-wing group of any kind in this country to have any success at all in the last 50 years.”
The article goes on to proclaim:
“The white race in the United States has lost on: Racial integration, Feminism, Homosexuality, Abortion, Prayer in schools, Pornography, [and] Immigration” but has won on “a single issue: guns.”
“And that winning is due almost exclusive to the National Rifle Association, a pro-white and anti-Jewish organization intent on protecting our GUNS from the gun-grabbing kikes… It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and join up with the country’s single effective pro-white organization intent on fully SMASHING THE JEW.”
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Over on Fox “News,” frozen-food heir Tucker Carlson is busy echoing Anglin and LaPierre, warning his white supremacist viewers that there’s a “Great Replacement” being engineered in America by shadowy forces manipulating Black and Brown people to replace white people at work and in society.
Christian nationalists show up to try to intimidate the people they believe are being empowered, funded, or directed by “European-style socialists,” ranging from drag queens to Black people to trans children tp “liberal teachers” and their school boards.
They fetishize their guns as the tools that will one day cleanse and “purify” America, per their guidebooks Camp of the Saints and The Turner Diaries.
A Facebook member posted an old quote from Herbert W. Armstrong — founder of The Worldwide Church of God — that said, “Race war is coming! … It will be whipped into an accelerating crescendo until human blood runs like rivers.”
Seeing the comment, NRA board member Ted Nugent replied:
“Yeah no shit. blacks slaughtering blacks at an unprecedented rate. Blacks killed more blacks this week than the KKK has in 50yrs.”
He posted that an hour after declaring former President Obama wanted a “racewar,” saying “Obama will go down in history as a maniac America hating freak…”
At that time, Armstrong was a major spokesman and inspiration for the white Christian nationalist movement — and continues to be revered even in his death.
He was the guy who spent most of his life proclaiming that integration was a violation of the Bible’s demand for racial purity. He preached:
“God separated or segregated the races and national groups about a century after the flood (Deut. 32:8), but the people did not agree with God. They rebelled by building the tower of Babel (Gen. 11). Here was man’s first recorded attempt this side of the flood to cross racial bounds and form one world. God had to intervene and scatter the nations.”
For decades the haters pushing white Americans to buy more and more weapons of war dressed themselves in respectable rhetorical garb, talking about “freedom” and “liberty.” But at its core, the absolutist pro-gun arm-America crusade is inextricably intertwined with a Christian nationalist white supremacist movement that believes white men are destined to rid America of what they call “mud races” and “deviants.”
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In fact, they’re still animated by Harlon Carter’s hatred of “colored” people, Jews, and the queer community.
Carter’s racism led him to kill two non-white people in his life (that we know about). The 15-year-old Hispanic teenager Weir noted who Carter killed in 1931 at close range with a shotgun for talking back to him has been widely reported, but less well known is that, according to the FBI, he also killed a 19-year-old Native American boy named Luther Curly by hitting him with his car in 1970.
As the head of the Border Patrol, Carter ran the notorious “Operation Wetback” in 1954, referring to it as “biggest drive against illegal aliens in history.”
He told The Los Angeles Times:
“An army of Border Patrol officers complete with jeeps, trucks, and seven aircraft” are waging “all-out war to hurl… Mexican wetbacks back into Mexico.”
As Donald Trump pointed out in 2015, praising that openly racist effort by the Eisenhower administration, Carter and his men enthusiastically apprehended and deported more than a million Latin American farm workers. His slogan may as well have been: “Make America White Again.”
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“Tough on criminals” is not a meaningful slogan for the NRA.
The constant whining about “crime in America” that we’re hearing this week from, for example, Jim Jordan — who says he’s going to New York to expose Black DA Alvin Bragg’s “crime ridden city” — is more rhetorical misdirection. Crime is way down in New York City: it’s not even in the top 65 cities in America for homicides, for example.
What they’re really saying is, “Look at all those Black and Brown people and the ‘European-style Socialist’ Jews who are helping them out!”
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It’s really all about race, religion, gender, and power, and a group of people willing to kill others to restore what they see as America’s rightful racial and gender hierarchies.
It’s as simple as that.
As Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz told the Boston Review in 2021:
“I think what the NRA—and Carter specifically—did was to simply revive something that had waned, because it was for a moment no longer needed.
“Slave patrols were not needed. The KKK wasn’t needed, because the Jim Crow state had taken on that role of racial enforcer.
“But as that began to break down with civil rights, Carter handed to the descendants of the white settler population this tool for their empowerment, the new NRA.”
When Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about a “national divorce,” or Sharon Angle and Donald Trump warn of “Second Amendment solutions” to Democrats winning elections, or Greg Abbott says he’s going to pardon a man who murdered a BLM protester, or Ron DeSantis parades Black men in shackles in front of the cameras for “illegally voting,” they’re all saying the same thing.
They’re proclaiming that their version of America is the America of the 1930s, when white men ran the country, women were men’s playthings, gays and lesbians were in the closet, Jews kept their heads’ down (in the face of the antisemitic wave of 1931, my grandfather added a second “n” to my father’s birth certificate so he wouldn’t be taken for Jewish), and racial minorities “knew their place.”
In the 40 years since the beginning of the Reagan Revolution — one kicked off by Reagan proclaiming “states’ rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi where 3 civil rights workers were brutally murdered — America has gone from having around 30 guns for every 100 people (like Canada today) to over 120 guns for every 100 people today.
And they’re not evenly distributed across the country: Red states have a much higher gun death rate than Blue states, almost without exception, because they have far more guns per person.
Massachusetts, for example, has only seen 2 children die in school shootings in decades because of their strong gun laws. Nations like Canada and most of Europe, where guns are available but well-regulated, have only a tiny fraction of the gun deaths and injuries we experience here in America.
But America being flooded with guns isn’t an accident and it’s not just because the gun industry wants to increase their revenues.
As is so often the case in this country, tragically, our plague of guns results from the racist fever dreams of white supremacists willing to kill to achieve a “restored” America.
Which is also why these same white supremacist Republicans insist on leaving semiautomatic and assault weapons-of-war in the hands of America’s civilians. They are, after all, asking armed white men to join up, to prepare to kill their fellow Americans in a real civil war.
And even if there is no war, our children are now paying the price for the GOP’s embrace of this hate and bigotry — and the guns that go with it — every single day.
OP-ED RACIAL JUSTICE
The Supreme Court Won’t Save Us — It Was Founded to Defend White Supremacy
BY Claudia Garcia-Rojas, Truthout
PUBLISHED September 12, 2022
Conventional wisdom tells us the Supreme Court’s dominion is the administration of justice. This misconception, however, prevents us from seeing it for what it truly is — a national defense agency.
The Supreme Court’s path and, more significantly, the overall path of the U.S. are now being shaped by a conservative supermajority that is focused, resolute and unswerving in its commitment to systemically gut constitutional rights.
The court’s recent rulings are part of the Republican Party’s attempt to restore absolute rule through a right-wing ideological takeover of the courts. Though the groundwork for such a takeover has been underway for decades at the state level, Donald Trump’s presidency undoubtedly helped accelerate plans when, after the GOP undemocratically facilitated the appointment of two new justices to the Supreme Court, Trump unfairly and illegitimately appointed a third. The stacking of the court with far-right justices is a strategic move meant to defend white Christian nationalism.
The Constitution, which expressly calls for the Supreme Court’s existence, was drafted using blackness as the counterpoint to the framers’ core democratic values. In fact, the Constitution was written by slaveowners and was intended to be, in the words of historian David Waldstreicher, “deliberately ambiguous — but operationally proslavery.” Indeed, several of the Constitution’s clauses were written with the intent to strengthen the institution of slavery, such as the clause granting Congress the power to marshal “the Militia” to “execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” This clause made it possible to subdue, by any means necessary, the insurrections the framers and slaveholders feared the most, which were rebellions led by Black enslaved people. Furthermore, the constitutional guarantee to private property, made possible through the genocide of Indigenous tribes and theft of their lands, sought to promote the economic prosperity and spatial freedom of whites. The court protected the business of slavery for over three generations.
The most influential pre-Civil War Supreme Court justices — Chief Justices John Marshall, Roger B. Taney and Associate Justice Joseph Story — viewed opposition to slavery as a threat to the national economy and security. Justice Marshall, the founder of American law and the longest-serving chief justice in U.S. history, was perhaps the most committed of the justices to maintain slavery.
Paul Finkelman, a specialist in American legal history, explains in his new book, Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court, that Marshall “wrote almost every decision on slavery, shaping a jurisprudence that was hostile to free blacks and surprisingly lenient to people who violated the federal laws banning the African slave trade.” Importantly, Marshall’s slavery jurisprudence was influenced by his own involvement in the slave trade. Marshall often purchased, gifted or sold large numbers of Black enslaved people and, despite his numerous documented “transactions,” upon his death, as Finkelman tells us, “Marshall still owned more than 150 people. Had he not given away and sold so many, he would have owned 300 or more.”
“Before the Civil War,” legal historian Michael J. Klarman explains, “the Court upheld federal fugitive slave laws against substantial constitutional changes, and it invalidated the laws of Northern states that were designed to protect free blacks from kidnapping from slave catchers.” After the Civil War, Klarman adds, the courts freed whites who enacted racial violence, invalidated laws granting black people equal access to public accommodations, and protected the constitutionality of state-mandated racial segregation laws. All of these measures guaranteed the economic and political disenfranchisement of Black people.
Then, of course, there is the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, in which Chief Justice Taney ruled that no free or enslaved African American could be a citizen of the United States and, as such, did not have a right to sue in federal court. Taney opined: “[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Writing in the Washington and Lee Law Review, Robert Burt argues that Taney recites the “most explicit racist dogma” and that “no decision has been more consistently reviled.” Indeed, and yet, this is the belief upon which this country was founded, and which the Supreme Court was entrusted to defend.
Placing the Supreme Court in the context of this history reveals a pattern. Since its inception, the court has generally operated to enshrine whiteness as the normative baseline in constitutional law, and to strengthen this baseline by consistently favoring and reinforcing the superior status of whites in the U.S.
Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at UCLA School of Law Cheryl I. Harris writes, “Following the period of slavery and conquest, white identity became the basis of racialized privilege that was ratified and legitimated in law as a type of status property.” And so, whiteness and property share the same conceptual premise of a right to exclude. Whiteness, however, occupies a normative position of authority, legibility and power in society through its relation to, distance from, and subordination and exclusion of Blackness. The right to exclude implies the need to defend whiteness as property.
To be sure, this image of the Supreme Court does not align with the one most Americans hold. The image of the court as a vanguard of liberty and justice, protecting those who are disadvantaged, oppressed or treated unjustly, stems from its own rebranding during the civil rights era. The court instrumentalized this era to recast itself as “colorblind,” strategically using race-neutral language to accommodate demands for civil, economic and racial justice while simultaneously using it as a shield to maintain racial domination. “White supremacy,” according to Nancy Heitzeg, professor of sociology at St. Catherine University, “once writ large in the law via slavery and Jim Crow segregation, was removed from its legalized pedestal with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and finally, The Fair Housing Act of 1968.” Though the law became race neutral, she cautions us, the court’s institutionalized racism “remains merely transformed with its systemic foundations intact.”
What’s more, the conservative highjacking of the court by religious fundamentalists means constitutional law is being reshaped through the lens of Christian Dominionism (defined by Frederick Clarkson of Political Research Associates as the belief that Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions). White Christian dominionists believe that the U.S. is a fundamentally Christian nation and, therefore, that they have the authority to enact religious supremacy. This was stated by Justice Samuel Alito at a summit convened in July by Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative. During his speech, Alito made a call to arms on behalf of Christian dominionism, stating: “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection.” Pope Francis, echoing Alito’s words, stated that religious liberty “remains one of America’s most precious possessions,” adding that “all are called to be vigilant … to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.”
Religious liberty is not what is being criticized here but rather the euphemistic use of the phrase to mean white Christian dominionism. Perilously, the Republican Party’s desire to strengthen white supremacist ideology through religious fundamentalism is succeeding insofar as the court’s most recent rulings — Dobbs, NYSRPA and Vega — are restructuring constitutional doctrine to reflect the interests of white Christian nationalists.
To be sure, Democratic leaders recently introduced a bill to establish term limits for Supreme Court justices, a measure Republicans have opposed. They have revived calls to reform the court by increasing the number of justices. This strategy is being presented as a necessary yet reasonable measure to ensure fair and unbiased judicial reviews. But this push to reform the Supreme Court risks distracting attention from the racist origins of the court and what Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor describes as the “Court’s undemocratic role in U.S. society.”
Acknowledging the court’s fundamental role as a white-dominated national defense agency makes recent rulings look less extreme and more in line with the court’s prime mission of defending white power.
Instead of pushing merely to expand the Supreme Court by adding more justices, we should strip it of its authority by shrinking its jurisdiction and its outsized power over our lives. Better yet, we should be asking ourselves, what steps can we begin taking toward abolishing it?
The Supreme Court’s path and, more significantly, the overall path of the U.S. are now being shaped by a conservative supermajority that is focused, resolute and unswerving in its commitment to systemically gut constitutional rights.
The court’s recent rulings are part of the Republican Party’s attempt to restore absolute rule through a right-wing ideological takeover of the courts. Though the groundwork for such a takeover has been underway for decades at the state level, Donald Trump’s presidency undoubtedly helped accelerate plans when, after the GOP undemocratically facilitated the appointment of two new justices to the Supreme Court, Trump unfairly and illegitimately appointed a third. The stacking of the court with far-right justices is a strategic move meant to defend white Christian nationalism.
The Constitution, which expressly calls for the Supreme Court’s existence, was drafted using blackness as the counterpoint to the framers’ core democratic values. In fact, the Constitution was written by slaveowners and was intended to be, in the words of historian David Waldstreicher, “deliberately ambiguous — but operationally proslavery.” Indeed, several of the Constitution’s clauses were written with the intent to strengthen the institution of slavery, such as the clause granting Congress the power to marshal “the Militia” to “execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” This clause made it possible to subdue, by any means necessary, the insurrections the framers and slaveholders feared the most, which were rebellions led by Black enslaved people. Furthermore, the constitutional guarantee to private property, made possible through the genocide of Indigenous tribes and theft of their lands, sought to promote the economic prosperity and spatial freedom of whites. The court protected the business of slavery for over three generations.
The most influential pre-Civil War Supreme Court justices — Chief Justices John Marshall, Roger B. Taney and Associate Justice Joseph Story — viewed opposition to slavery as a threat to the national economy and security. Justice Marshall, the founder of American law and the longest-serving chief justice in U.S. history, was perhaps the most committed of the justices to maintain slavery.
Paul Finkelman, a specialist in American legal history, explains in his new book, Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court, that Marshall “wrote almost every decision on slavery, shaping a jurisprudence that was hostile to free blacks and surprisingly lenient to people who violated the federal laws banning the African slave trade.” Importantly, Marshall’s slavery jurisprudence was influenced by his own involvement in the slave trade. Marshall often purchased, gifted or sold large numbers of Black enslaved people and, despite his numerous documented “transactions,” upon his death, as Finkelman tells us, “Marshall still owned more than 150 people. Had he not given away and sold so many, he would have owned 300 or more.”
“Before the Civil War,” legal historian Michael J. Klarman explains, “the Court upheld federal fugitive slave laws against substantial constitutional changes, and it invalidated the laws of Northern states that were designed to protect free blacks from kidnapping from slave catchers.” After the Civil War, Klarman adds, the courts freed whites who enacted racial violence, invalidated laws granting black people equal access to public accommodations, and protected the constitutionality of state-mandated racial segregation laws. All of these measures guaranteed the economic and political disenfranchisement of Black people.
Then, of course, there is the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, in which Chief Justice Taney ruled that no free or enslaved African American could be a citizen of the United States and, as such, did not have a right to sue in federal court. Taney opined: “[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Writing in the Washington and Lee Law Review, Robert Burt argues that Taney recites the “most explicit racist dogma” and that “no decision has been more consistently reviled.” Indeed, and yet, this is the belief upon which this country was founded, and which the Supreme Court was entrusted to defend.
Placing the Supreme Court in the context of this history reveals a pattern. Since its inception, the court has generally operated to enshrine whiteness as the normative baseline in constitutional law, and to strengthen this baseline by consistently favoring and reinforcing the superior status of whites in the U.S.
Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at UCLA School of Law Cheryl I. Harris writes, “Following the period of slavery and conquest, white identity became the basis of racialized privilege that was ratified and legitimated in law as a type of status property.” And so, whiteness and property share the same conceptual premise of a right to exclude. Whiteness, however, occupies a normative position of authority, legibility and power in society through its relation to, distance from, and subordination and exclusion of Blackness. The right to exclude implies the need to defend whiteness as property.
To be sure, this image of the Supreme Court does not align with the one most Americans hold. The image of the court as a vanguard of liberty and justice, protecting those who are disadvantaged, oppressed or treated unjustly, stems from its own rebranding during the civil rights era. The court instrumentalized this era to recast itself as “colorblind,” strategically using race-neutral language to accommodate demands for civil, economic and racial justice while simultaneously using it as a shield to maintain racial domination. “White supremacy,” according to Nancy Heitzeg, professor of sociology at St. Catherine University, “once writ large in the law via slavery and Jim Crow segregation, was removed from its legalized pedestal with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and finally, The Fair Housing Act of 1968.” Though the law became race neutral, she cautions us, the court’s institutionalized racism “remains merely transformed with its systemic foundations intact.”
What’s more, the conservative highjacking of the court by religious fundamentalists means constitutional law is being reshaped through the lens of Christian Dominionism (defined by Frederick Clarkson of Political Research Associates as the belief that Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions). White Christian dominionists believe that the U.S. is a fundamentally Christian nation and, therefore, that they have the authority to enact religious supremacy. This was stated by Justice Samuel Alito at a summit convened in July by Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative. During his speech, Alito made a call to arms on behalf of Christian dominionism, stating: “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection.” Pope Francis, echoing Alito’s words, stated that religious liberty “remains one of America’s most precious possessions,” adding that “all are called to be vigilant … to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.”
Religious liberty is not what is being criticized here but rather the euphemistic use of the phrase to mean white Christian dominionism. Perilously, the Republican Party’s desire to strengthen white supremacist ideology through religious fundamentalism is succeeding insofar as the court’s most recent rulings — Dobbs, NYSRPA and Vega — are restructuring constitutional doctrine to reflect the interests of white Christian nationalists.
To be sure, Democratic leaders recently introduced a bill to establish term limits for Supreme Court justices, a measure Republicans have opposed. They have revived calls to reform the court by increasing the number of justices. This strategy is being presented as a necessary yet reasonable measure to ensure fair and unbiased judicial reviews. But this push to reform the Supreme Court risks distracting attention from the racist origins of the court and what Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor describes as the “Court’s undemocratic role in U.S. society.”
Acknowledging the court’s fundamental role as a white-dominated national defense agency makes recent rulings look less extreme and more in line with the court’s prime mission of defending white power.
Instead of pushing merely to expand the Supreme Court by adding more justices, we should strip it of its authority by shrinking its jurisdiction and its outsized power over our lives. Better yet, we should be asking ourselves, what steps can we begin taking toward abolishing it?
Urban planning as a tool of white supremacy – the other lesson from Minneapolis
Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University - THE CONVERSATION
7/23/2022
The legacy of structural racism in Minneapolis was laid bare to the world at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and East 38th Street, the location where George Floyd’s neck was pinned to the ground by a police officer’s knee. But it is also imprinted in streets, parks and neighborhoods across the city – the result of urban planning that utilized segregation as a tool of white supremacy.
Today, Minneapolis is seen to be But if you scratch away the progressive veneer of the U.S.‘s most cyclable city, the city with the best park system and sixth-highest quality of life, you find what Kirsten Delegard, a Minneapolis historian, describes as “darker truths about the city.”
As co-founder of the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project, Delegard and her colleagues have been shedding new light on the role that racist barriers to home ownership have had on segregation in the city.
'Racial cordon’
Segregation in Minneapolis, like elsewhere in the U.S., is the result of historic practices such as the issuing of racialized real estate covenants that kept nonwhite people from buying or occupying land.
These covenants began appearing in U.S. cities from the early 1900s. Before their use in Minneapolis, the city was “more or less integrated, with a small but evenly distributed African American population.” But covenants changed the cityscape. Racist wording from the city’s first racially restrictive covenant in 1910 stated bluntly that the premises named “shall not at any time be conveyed, mortgaged or leased to any person or persons of Chinese, Japanese, Moorish, Turkish, Negro, Mongolian or African blood or descent.”
As a result, African Americans, especially, were pushed into a few small areas of the city such as the Near North neighborhood, leaving large parts of the city predominantly white. Some of the city’s most desirable parks were ringed by white residential districts. The result was an invisible “racial cordon” around some of the city’s celebrated parks and commons.
‘By design, not acccident’
As a scholar of urban planning, I know that Minneapolis, far from being an outlier in segregation, represents the norm. Across the U.S., urban planning is still used by some as the spatial toolkit, consisting of a set of policies and practices, for maintaining white supremacy. But urban planners of color, especially, are pointing out ways to reimagine inclusive urban spaces by dismantling the legacy of racist planning, housing and infrastructure policies.
Racial segregation was not the byproduct of urban planning; it was, in many cases, its intention – it was “not by accident, but by design,” Adrien Weibgen, senior policy fellow at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, explained in a 2019 New York Daily News article.
The effect was and still is devastating.
The Urban Institute, an independent think tank, noted in a 2017 report that higher levels of racial segregation were linked to lower incomes for Black residents, as well worse educational outcomes for both white and Black students. Other studies have found that racial segregation leads to Black Americans being excluded from high-performing schools. In Minnesota – which ranks as the fourth most segregated state – the gap between the performance of white students and students of color is among the highest in the U.S. Likewise, segregation limits access to transportation, employment and quality health care.
Income and wealth gapsAccording to the U.S. Census Bureau, in Minneapolis the median Black family income in 2018 was US,000, compared to nearly ,000 among white families. After Milwaukee, this is the biggest gap of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. Mirroring the city’s income gap is a huge wealth gap. Minneapolis now has the lowest rate of homeownership among Black American households of any city.
Residential segregation in Minneapolis and elsewhere is still stubbornly high despite more than 50 years since the passing of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, among other factors. But while some residential segregation is now income-based, racial segregation across the U.S. is more ingrained and pervasive than economic segregation.
Zoning out
Residential racial segregation continues to exist because of specific government policies enacted through urban planning. A key tool is zoning – the process of dividing urban land into areas for specific uses, such as residential or industrial. In the introduction to her 2014 book “Zoned in the USA,” urban planning professor Sonia Hirt argues that zoning is about government power to shape “ideals” by imposing a “moral geography” on cities. In Minneapolis and elsewhere, this has meant excluding “undersirables” – namely the poor, immigrants of color and African Americans.
With explicit racialized zoning long outlawed in the U.S. – the U.S. Supreme Court ended the practice in 1917 – many local governments instead turned to “exclusionary” zoning policies, making it illegal to build anything except single-family homes. This “back door racism” had a similar effect to outright racial exclusions: It kept out most Black and low-income people who could not afford expensive single-family homes.
In Minneapolis, single-family zoning amounted to 70% of residential space, compared to 15% in New York. Buttressing this, redlining – the denial of mortgages and loans to people of color by government and the private sector – ensured the continuance of segregation.
Anti-racist planning
Minneapolis is trying hard to reverse these racist policies. In 2018, it became the first large city to vote to end single-family zoning, allowing “upzoning”: the conversion of single-family lots into more affordable duplexes and triplexes.
This, together with “inclusionary zoning” – requiring that new apartment projects hold at least 10% of units for low- to moderate-income households – is part of the Minneapolis 2040 Plan. Central to that vision is a goal to eliminate disparities in wealth, housing and opportunity “regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, country of origin, religion, or zip code” within 20 years.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis City Council acted quickly in advancing plans to dismantle the city’s police force. Dismantling the legacy of by-design segregation will require the tools of urban planning being utilized to find solutions after decades of being part of the problem.
Today, Minneapolis is seen to be But if you scratch away the progressive veneer of the U.S.‘s most cyclable city, the city with the best park system and sixth-highest quality of life, you find what Kirsten Delegard, a Minneapolis historian, describes as “darker truths about the city.”
As co-founder of the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project, Delegard and her colleagues have been shedding new light on the role that racist barriers to home ownership have had on segregation in the city.
'Racial cordon’
Segregation in Minneapolis, like elsewhere in the U.S., is the result of historic practices such as the issuing of racialized real estate covenants that kept nonwhite people from buying or occupying land.
These covenants began appearing in U.S. cities from the early 1900s. Before their use in Minneapolis, the city was “more or less integrated, with a small but evenly distributed African American population.” But covenants changed the cityscape. Racist wording from the city’s first racially restrictive covenant in 1910 stated bluntly that the premises named “shall not at any time be conveyed, mortgaged or leased to any person or persons of Chinese, Japanese, Moorish, Turkish, Negro, Mongolian or African blood or descent.”
As a result, African Americans, especially, were pushed into a few small areas of the city such as the Near North neighborhood, leaving large parts of the city predominantly white. Some of the city’s most desirable parks were ringed by white residential districts. The result was an invisible “racial cordon” around some of the city’s celebrated parks and commons.
‘By design, not acccident’
As a scholar of urban planning, I know that Minneapolis, far from being an outlier in segregation, represents the norm. Across the U.S., urban planning is still used by some as the spatial toolkit, consisting of a set of policies and practices, for maintaining white supremacy. But urban planners of color, especially, are pointing out ways to reimagine inclusive urban spaces by dismantling the legacy of racist planning, housing and infrastructure policies.
Racial segregation was not the byproduct of urban planning; it was, in many cases, its intention – it was “not by accident, but by design,” Adrien Weibgen, senior policy fellow at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, explained in a 2019 New York Daily News article.
The effect was and still is devastating.
The Urban Institute, an independent think tank, noted in a 2017 report that higher levels of racial segregation were linked to lower incomes for Black residents, as well worse educational outcomes for both white and Black students. Other studies have found that racial segregation leads to Black Americans being excluded from high-performing schools. In Minnesota – which ranks as the fourth most segregated state – the gap between the performance of white students and students of color is among the highest in the U.S. Likewise, segregation limits access to transportation, employment and quality health care.
Income and wealth gapsAccording to the U.S. Census Bureau, in Minneapolis the median Black family income in 2018 was US,000, compared to nearly ,000 among white families. After Milwaukee, this is the biggest gap of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. Mirroring the city’s income gap is a huge wealth gap. Minneapolis now has the lowest rate of homeownership among Black American households of any city.
Residential segregation in Minneapolis and elsewhere is still stubbornly high despite more than 50 years since the passing of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, among other factors. But while some residential segregation is now income-based, racial segregation across the U.S. is more ingrained and pervasive than economic segregation.
Zoning out
Residential racial segregation continues to exist because of specific government policies enacted through urban planning. A key tool is zoning – the process of dividing urban land into areas for specific uses, such as residential or industrial. In the introduction to her 2014 book “Zoned in the USA,” urban planning professor Sonia Hirt argues that zoning is about government power to shape “ideals” by imposing a “moral geography” on cities. In Minneapolis and elsewhere, this has meant excluding “undersirables” – namely the poor, immigrants of color and African Americans.
With explicit racialized zoning long outlawed in the U.S. – the U.S. Supreme Court ended the practice in 1917 – many local governments instead turned to “exclusionary” zoning policies, making it illegal to build anything except single-family homes. This “back door racism” had a similar effect to outright racial exclusions: It kept out most Black and low-income people who could not afford expensive single-family homes.
In Minneapolis, single-family zoning amounted to 70% of residential space, compared to 15% in New York. Buttressing this, redlining – the denial of mortgages and loans to people of color by government and the private sector – ensured the continuance of segregation.
Anti-racist planning
Minneapolis is trying hard to reverse these racist policies. In 2018, it became the first large city to vote to end single-family zoning, allowing “upzoning”: the conversion of single-family lots into more affordable duplexes and triplexes.
This, together with “inclusionary zoning” – requiring that new apartment projects hold at least 10% of units for low- to moderate-income households – is part of the Minneapolis 2040 Plan. Central to that vision is a goal to eliminate disparities in wealth, housing and opportunity “regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, country of origin, religion, or zip code” within 20 years.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis City Council acted quickly in advancing plans to dismantle the city’s police force. Dismantling the legacy of by-design segregation will require the tools of urban planning being utilized to find solutions after decades of being part of the problem.
ABORTION, RACISM, GUNS AND THE RIGHT
DO THINGS CHANGE? AN EARLY VERSION OF THE RACIST "GREAT REPLACEMENT" THEORY DROVE THE CAMPAIGN TO OUTLAW ABORTION
ABORTION, RACISM AND GUNS: HOW WHITE SUPREMACY UNITES THE RIGHT
DO THINGS CHANGE? AN EARLY VERSION OF THE RACIST "GREAT REPLACEMENT" THEORY DROVE THE CAMPAIGN TO OUTLAW ABORTION
BY TAMARA KAY - SUSAN L. OSTERMANN - SALON
7/19/2022
White supremacy was one of the primary motivations behind the first movement to outlaw abortion in the United States. In 1858, the American Medical Association (AMA), led by Horatio Storer, launched a crusade to end abortion across the country. Prior to this period, abortion was legal in all U.S. states. Storer and white male physicians not only wanted to push women midwives — often Black, indigenous and immigrant women — out of the newly developing medical profession, but also had another, more sinister aim: these men wanted white male Protestants to politically control the country.
They feared that the growing number of immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Germany and other largely Catholic countries, whom they viewed as separate and distinct "races," would produce more babies and usurp the political dominance of white Protestant Anglo-Saxon men. The reproduction of Black women, the majority of whom were enslaved at that time, was controlled by systems of white supremacy, and was not seen as a threat. Later, at the turn of the century, the focus shifted to the reproduction of women of color, many of whom were subjected to forced and coerced sterilizations in the U.S. until 1973. The white supremacist core of the movement remained the same, however.
It's important to understand that the definition of "whiteness" did not remain constant throughout that period. In the early 20th century, immigration restrictions created the conditions for consolidating the category "white," while massive immigration a few decades earlier, in the 19th century, had fragmented it. Political scientist Rogers M. Smith argues that this led to the destabilization and fracturing of the category "white," and to its replacement by a racial scheme in which the white races of Europe were considered separate and differently suited for citizenship. Many Anglo-Saxons in the U.S. believed them to be inferior races who threatened the country.
With white supremacy perceived to be under threat by some, its approach and rhetoric shifted. Storer lamented a perceived decline in the white birthrate in 1867, writing that "it has been found of late years that the increase of the population, or the excess of the births over the deaths, has been wholly of those of recent foreign origin." Between 1851 and 1880, almost 5 million immigrants arrived in the U.S., and the rate of immigration increased further in the following two decades. The 1860 census counted 31.4 million Americans, slightly more than 4 million of them foreign-born. Of these, 1.6 million had been born in Ireland and almost 1.3 million in Germany. Physician J.T. Cook argued in 1868 that "the Anglo-Saxon race is rapidly dying out … and the Germans, and Irish, and Swedes … are fast taking the country … by the sheer force of their ever increasing armies of babies…"
According to Storer and company, the problem was abortion: Specifically, too many white Anglo-Saxon women were choosing to terminate pregnancies. In the late 1800s, the New York Times ran stories about abortions performed by Ann Trow Lohman, also known as Madame Restell, who served New York's elite and ran a lucrative mail-order abortifacient business. She became so associated with abortion that the practice was often referred to as "Restellism." As one anti-abortion pundit noted: "Restellism is murder with the Roman Catholics. Half a dozen children in every Irish family. Only two in the modern American family. What is the matter? Answer — Restellism. That is why, shortly, the children of the Emerald Isle will be walking through the graveyards of the Puritans." How did Storer and the AMA decide to solve this "problem"? By criminalizing abortion.
In anti-abortion tracts and pamphlets, Storer implored Anglo-Saxon women (and their "guilty husbands") to "stop murdering their children, and stop trying to defeat nature in any way, so that our American homes may again become populous with incipient citizens and voters, and incipient mothers of citizens and voters, and so that the American family shall not become an extinct institution in this country." Storer and the AMA were successful, and by 1890 almost every state had passed laws criminalizing abortion. Unsurprisingly, most gave physicians sole authority to decide when abortion was medically necessary. Many of these laws remained unchanged until vacated by the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. White supremacy and the racist ideas that would later be called "great replacement theory" were born in the 19th century in relationship to these abortion politics.
The Second Amendment also has white supremacist roots. When it was ratified in 1791, many states had laws to prevent enslaved and free Black people from possessing or bearing arms. Prior to the Civil War, Black people were targeted by armed slave patrols, and after the war and the failure of Reconstruction, Black Codes enacted across the Jim Crow South prohibited formerly enslaved people from possessing guns. Carol Anderson, chair of African American Studies at Emory University and author of "The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America," argues that long after the abolition of slavery, the Second Amendment has been used against Black people: "(P)ervasive anti-Blackness, even after the civil rights movement, turned the Second Amendment's law for protection — the castle doctrine, stand your ground and open carry — against African Americans." She concludes that the Second Amendment "is lethal; steeped in anti-Blackness, it is the loaded weapon laying around just waiting for the hand of some authority to put
As we have witnessed over and over again, the Second Amendment and its relatively recent interpretation by the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, as permitting almost unlimited ownership of military-grade firearms has become lethal for all Americans, but disproportionately so for people of color. The list of atrocities just since the civil rights movement would fill volumes, from the murder of Black, brown and indigenous civil rights and labor organizers, politicians and civilians to, most recently, the assassination of 10-year-old Mexican American children and their teachers in their Texas school and the massacre of African Americans in a Buffalo supermarket.
The murderer in Buffalo did not specifically reference abortion in the incoherent document he produced prior to killing 10 human beings. But he did mention the U.S. birth rate more than 40 times. He also cited the racist drivel of our former colleague John Gaski, a Notre Dame faculty member in the Mendoza School of Business, who studied marketing but spent the better part of the last three decades offering unqualified, racist and profoundly misogynist opinion on a range of issues from interracial crime (cited by the murderer in Buffalo) to Barack Obama's alleged "anti-Americanism" to, of course, "unrestricted" abortion.
But it is Gaski's racist and inartful rant on immigration that most obviously ties into the "great replacement" theory: "Legalization of between 11 and 30 million illegal aliens in the U.S., either through a new Democrat congress or executive order, will produce enough excess Democrat votes to render it impossible for a Republican ever to win at the national level again. (Non-Americans are known to favor Democrats. Why?) This establishes the one-party state without real opposition that the Dems have long craved." Gaski refers to this as a "political takeover scheme."
Abortion criminalization and gun rights in the U.S. have their roots in white supremacy and racism. If we want to change the former, we have to root out the latter. The historical and current attack on abortion rights also highlights the misogyny embedded in anti-abortion movements that attempt to regulate women's bodily autonomy and integrity. Horatio Storer, who was himself a malignant misogynist, opined that woman was "what she is in health, in character, in her charms, alike of body, mind and soul because of her womb alone." Perhaps Storer was right. If so, it is time that women in the U.S. band together to birth a new political reality, one in which white supremacy and racism are things of the past.
They feared that the growing number of immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Germany and other largely Catholic countries, whom they viewed as separate and distinct "races," would produce more babies and usurp the political dominance of white Protestant Anglo-Saxon men. The reproduction of Black women, the majority of whom were enslaved at that time, was controlled by systems of white supremacy, and was not seen as a threat. Later, at the turn of the century, the focus shifted to the reproduction of women of color, many of whom were subjected to forced and coerced sterilizations in the U.S. until 1973. The white supremacist core of the movement remained the same, however.
It's important to understand that the definition of "whiteness" did not remain constant throughout that period. In the early 20th century, immigration restrictions created the conditions for consolidating the category "white," while massive immigration a few decades earlier, in the 19th century, had fragmented it. Political scientist Rogers M. Smith argues that this led to the destabilization and fracturing of the category "white," and to its replacement by a racial scheme in which the white races of Europe were considered separate and differently suited for citizenship. Many Anglo-Saxons in the U.S. believed them to be inferior races who threatened the country.
With white supremacy perceived to be under threat by some, its approach and rhetoric shifted. Storer lamented a perceived decline in the white birthrate in 1867, writing that "it has been found of late years that the increase of the population, or the excess of the births over the deaths, has been wholly of those of recent foreign origin." Between 1851 and 1880, almost 5 million immigrants arrived in the U.S., and the rate of immigration increased further in the following two decades. The 1860 census counted 31.4 million Americans, slightly more than 4 million of them foreign-born. Of these, 1.6 million had been born in Ireland and almost 1.3 million in Germany. Physician J.T. Cook argued in 1868 that "the Anglo-Saxon race is rapidly dying out … and the Germans, and Irish, and Swedes … are fast taking the country … by the sheer force of their ever increasing armies of babies…"
According to Storer and company, the problem was abortion: Specifically, too many white Anglo-Saxon women were choosing to terminate pregnancies. In the late 1800s, the New York Times ran stories about abortions performed by Ann Trow Lohman, also known as Madame Restell, who served New York's elite and ran a lucrative mail-order abortifacient business. She became so associated with abortion that the practice was often referred to as "Restellism." As one anti-abortion pundit noted: "Restellism is murder with the Roman Catholics. Half a dozen children in every Irish family. Only two in the modern American family. What is the matter? Answer — Restellism. That is why, shortly, the children of the Emerald Isle will be walking through the graveyards of the Puritans." How did Storer and the AMA decide to solve this "problem"? By criminalizing abortion.
In anti-abortion tracts and pamphlets, Storer implored Anglo-Saxon women (and their "guilty husbands") to "stop murdering their children, and stop trying to defeat nature in any way, so that our American homes may again become populous with incipient citizens and voters, and incipient mothers of citizens and voters, and so that the American family shall not become an extinct institution in this country." Storer and the AMA were successful, and by 1890 almost every state had passed laws criminalizing abortion. Unsurprisingly, most gave physicians sole authority to decide when abortion was medically necessary. Many of these laws remained unchanged until vacated by the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. White supremacy and the racist ideas that would later be called "great replacement theory" were born in the 19th century in relationship to these abortion politics.
The Second Amendment also has white supremacist roots. When it was ratified in 1791, many states had laws to prevent enslaved and free Black people from possessing or bearing arms. Prior to the Civil War, Black people were targeted by armed slave patrols, and after the war and the failure of Reconstruction, Black Codes enacted across the Jim Crow South prohibited formerly enslaved people from possessing guns. Carol Anderson, chair of African American Studies at Emory University and author of "The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America," argues that long after the abolition of slavery, the Second Amendment has been used against Black people: "(P)ervasive anti-Blackness, even after the civil rights movement, turned the Second Amendment's law for protection — the castle doctrine, stand your ground and open carry — against African Americans." She concludes that the Second Amendment "is lethal; steeped in anti-Blackness, it is the loaded weapon laying around just waiting for the hand of some authority to put
As we have witnessed over and over again, the Second Amendment and its relatively recent interpretation by the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, as permitting almost unlimited ownership of military-grade firearms has become lethal for all Americans, but disproportionately so for people of color. The list of atrocities just since the civil rights movement would fill volumes, from the murder of Black, brown and indigenous civil rights and labor organizers, politicians and civilians to, most recently, the assassination of 10-year-old Mexican American children and their teachers in their Texas school and the massacre of African Americans in a Buffalo supermarket.
The murderer in Buffalo did not specifically reference abortion in the incoherent document he produced prior to killing 10 human beings. But he did mention the U.S. birth rate more than 40 times. He also cited the racist drivel of our former colleague John Gaski, a Notre Dame faculty member in the Mendoza School of Business, who studied marketing but spent the better part of the last three decades offering unqualified, racist and profoundly misogynist opinion on a range of issues from interracial crime (cited by the murderer in Buffalo) to Barack Obama's alleged "anti-Americanism" to, of course, "unrestricted" abortion.
But it is Gaski's racist and inartful rant on immigration that most obviously ties into the "great replacement" theory: "Legalization of between 11 and 30 million illegal aliens in the U.S., either through a new Democrat congress or executive order, will produce enough excess Democrat votes to render it impossible for a Republican ever to win at the national level again. (Non-Americans are known to favor Democrats. Why?) This establishes the one-party state without real opposition that the Dems have long craved." Gaski refers to this as a "political takeover scheme."
Abortion criminalization and gun rights in the U.S. have their roots in white supremacy and racism. If we want to change the former, we have to root out the latter. The historical and current attack on abortion rights also highlights the misogyny embedded in anti-abortion movements that attempt to regulate women's bodily autonomy and integrity. Horatio Storer, who was himself a malignant misogynist, opined that woman was "what she is in health, in character, in her charms, alike of body, mind and soul because of her womb alone." Perhaps Storer was right. If so, it is time that women in the U.S. band together to birth a new political reality, one in which white supremacy and racism are things of the past.
White men as victims: Dangerous fantasy
excerpt: White men as victims: America's most dangerous fantasy
The notion that white men are a persecuted minority isn't just ludicrous — it paves the way for racist violence
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 22, 2022 6:30AM (EST)
One of the most popular lies being circulated by the Republican Party and the larger white right is that white men are somehow oppressed in America. To say that such a claim is absurd would be an understatement. To be white is to have access to unearned advantages in almost every arena of American society and throughout the world. And to be male is also to have access to resources and life opportunities that in general are de facto still denied to women and girls.
By almost all indicators, men as a group dominate and control America's networks of power, influence, wealth and other resources.
Of course many individual men who happen to be white experience life hardships and other disadvantages. Moreover, the group advantages enjoyed by men overall do not trickle down equally to all men on either side of the color line. Likewise, there are individual Black and brown people, and individual women, who have tremendous power, resources and wealth. But in the aggregate, on a societal scale, white men are not being disadvantaged because of their race or gender.
But the absurdity of this claim should not be surprising. Race itself is perhaps the greatest absurdity in modern history; it is a social construct, not a genetic or biological fact. It was invented to legitimize global white supremacy and imperialism.
As Peter Prontzos at Scientific American summarizes:
In 2014, more than 130 leading population geneticists condemned the idea that genetic differences account for the economic, political, social and behavioral diversity around the world. In fact, said a 2018 article in Scientific American, there is a "broad scientific consensus that when it comes to genes there is just as much diversity within racial and ethnic groups as there is across them." And the Human Genome Project has confirmed that the genomes found around the globe are 99.9 percent identical in every person. Hence, the very idea of different "races" is nonsense.
A second problem, as cognitive scientist George Lakoff has shown, is that simply using the word "race," even when criticizing racism, actually reinforces the false belief that human beings belong to fundamentally different groups. That's because the more a word is used, the more that certain brain circuits are activated and the stronger that metaphor becomes.
Nonetheless the "true lie" of race remains one of the most powerful forces in American and global society.
A binary understanding of gender — which itself is also a social construct — is only slightly less absurd than the race concept. When race and gender are combined with questions of whiteness, masculinity and power, matters only become more complicated, more confusing and therefore more politically and socially combustible.
Ultimately, white male victimology has historically proven itself to pose an extreme threat to pluralistic democracy. When the group with the most power believes in delusions and fantasies about its oppression, violence is the likely result. This is justified through claims of self-defense against an imaginary threat.
---
Jessie Daniels is a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center and a Professor of Sociology at Hunter College. She is the author of several books including "White Lies" and "Cyber Racism." Her new book is "Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It."
There's a long history of white men seeing themselves as the chief victims of racial oppression. This includes the end of slavery. White men who were also enslavers saw themselves as the true victims of the abolition of their way of making a living, so they went to their government and asked, even demanded, compensation for their "loss" in freeing the people who worked for them for no money. In Britain, this was enacted through the Slave Compensation Act 1837 and continued compensating slave-owning white families through 2015. In the U.S., each slave-owning white man received $300 for each person they owned who was freed because of the Emancipation Proclamation, when at the same time formerly enslaved people were promised 40 acres and a mule, a promise that was mostly unfulfilled.
---
In the current era, examples proliferate of white men who see themselves as victims, chief among them former President Trump, who in his opening campaign speech referenced the "rapists" and "drug dealers" coming from Mexico, an old racist trope from the white supremacist playbook. It's also deadly. White men as "victims" easily slides into a white guy with a gun. And there's often a white woman standing by her man on the front porch of their midwestern palazzo, even with the guns.
The "victim" rhetoric from white men coincides with the white-led backlash against any kind of Black progress. A year after the supposed "reckoning" of the summer of 2020 and the murder of George Floyd (and "Central Park Karen"), it's not surprising to me that we are experiencing a season of whitelash with white men at the front, proclaiming their innocence for the destruction they've caused even as they profess their victimhood.
---
Jean Guerrero is an opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of the recent book "Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda."
...White victimology politics were once the purview of neo-Nazis and the KKK, but they've become the engine of the Republican Party. Back in the '70s, David Duke was largely reviled and rejected by Americans for his white victimology politics. He claimed the "white man" was the real "second-class citizen" in America today.
But this delusion that white men are the real victims is now mainstream gospel among Republicans. That's thanks to decades of conservative politicians and talk show hosts cashing in on white racial anxieties about demographic change by injecting white supremacy or "white supremacy lite" into the GOP bloodstream.
Many of those key players (i.e., Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Stephen Miller) have roots in California, where non-Hispanic white people became a demographic minority in the '90s.[...]
By almost all indicators, men as a group dominate and control America's networks of power, influence, wealth and other resources.
Of course many individual men who happen to be white experience life hardships and other disadvantages. Moreover, the group advantages enjoyed by men overall do not trickle down equally to all men on either side of the color line. Likewise, there are individual Black and brown people, and individual women, who have tremendous power, resources and wealth. But in the aggregate, on a societal scale, white men are not being disadvantaged because of their race or gender.
But the absurdity of this claim should not be surprising. Race itself is perhaps the greatest absurdity in modern history; it is a social construct, not a genetic or biological fact. It was invented to legitimize global white supremacy and imperialism.
As Peter Prontzos at Scientific American summarizes:
In 2014, more than 130 leading population geneticists condemned the idea that genetic differences account for the economic, political, social and behavioral diversity around the world. In fact, said a 2018 article in Scientific American, there is a "broad scientific consensus that when it comes to genes there is just as much diversity within racial and ethnic groups as there is across them." And the Human Genome Project has confirmed that the genomes found around the globe are 99.9 percent identical in every person. Hence, the very idea of different "races" is nonsense.
A second problem, as cognitive scientist George Lakoff has shown, is that simply using the word "race," even when criticizing racism, actually reinforces the false belief that human beings belong to fundamentally different groups. That's because the more a word is used, the more that certain brain circuits are activated and the stronger that metaphor becomes.
Nonetheless the "true lie" of race remains one of the most powerful forces in American and global society.
A binary understanding of gender — which itself is also a social construct — is only slightly less absurd than the race concept. When race and gender are combined with questions of whiteness, masculinity and power, matters only become more complicated, more confusing and therefore more politically and socially combustible.
Ultimately, white male victimology has historically proven itself to pose an extreme threat to pluralistic democracy. When the group with the most power believes in delusions and fantasies about its oppression, violence is the likely result. This is justified through claims of self-defense against an imaginary threat.
---
Jessie Daniels is a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center and a Professor of Sociology at Hunter College. She is the author of several books including "White Lies" and "Cyber Racism." Her new book is "Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It."
There's a long history of white men seeing themselves as the chief victims of racial oppression. This includes the end of slavery. White men who were also enslavers saw themselves as the true victims of the abolition of their way of making a living, so they went to their government and asked, even demanded, compensation for their "loss" in freeing the people who worked for them for no money. In Britain, this was enacted through the Slave Compensation Act 1837 and continued compensating slave-owning white families through 2015. In the U.S., each slave-owning white man received $300 for each person they owned who was freed because of the Emancipation Proclamation, when at the same time formerly enslaved people were promised 40 acres and a mule, a promise that was mostly unfulfilled.
---
In the current era, examples proliferate of white men who see themselves as victims, chief among them former President Trump, who in his opening campaign speech referenced the "rapists" and "drug dealers" coming from Mexico, an old racist trope from the white supremacist playbook. It's also deadly. White men as "victims" easily slides into a white guy with a gun. And there's often a white woman standing by her man on the front porch of their midwestern palazzo, even with the guns.
The "victim" rhetoric from white men coincides with the white-led backlash against any kind of Black progress. A year after the supposed "reckoning" of the summer of 2020 and the murder of George Floyd (and "Central Park Karen"), it's not surprising to me that we are experiencing a season of whitelash with white men at the front, proclaiming their innocence for the destruction they've caused even as they profess their victimhood.
---
Jean Guerrero is an opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of the recent book "Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda."
...White victimology politics were once the purview of neo-Nazis and the KKK, but they've become the engine of the Republican Party. Back in the '70s, David Duke was largely reviled and rejected by Americans for his white victimology politics. He claimed the "white man" was the real "second-class citizen" in America today.
But this delusion that white men are the real victims is now mainstream gospel among Republicans. That's thanks to decades of conservative politicians and talk show hosts cashing in on white racial anxieties about demographic change by injecting white supremacy or "white supremacy lite" into the GOP bloodstream.
Many of those key players (i.e., Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Stephen Miller) have roots in California, where non-Hispanic white people became a demographic minority in the '90s.[...]
interview: Why white women embrace white supremacy
White women and fascism: Seyward Darby on how right-wing women embrace their "symbolic power"
Author of "Sisters of Hate" on why the far right's "mama bears" are fighting for patriarchy and white supremacy
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
PUBLISHED JANUARY 28, 2022 6:00AM (EST)
White women have played a central role in America's neofascist movement and its assault on multiracial pluralist democracy.
Either as figureheads or actual leaders, white women have stood at the forefront of the Republican Party's attempt to use the bogeyman of "critical race theory" to launch a widespread moral panic and restrict the teaching of American history. The ultimate goal is to severely undermine or fully destroy our current system of public education, and replace it with "patriotic" indoctrination meant to reinforce and protect white privilege and other forms of inequality.
White women are also among the loudest voices in the movement to take away women's reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The anti-choice movement has found considerable common ground with overt white nationalists and other white supremacists. In a new essay at the Guardian, Moira Donegan explores this:
Explicit white nationalism, and an emphasis on conscripting white women into reproduction, is not a fringe element of the anti-choice movement. Associations between white supremacist groups and anti-abortion forces are robust and longstanding. ... But the affinity goes both ways: just as the alt-right loves the anti-choice movement, the anti-choice movement loves the alt-right. ...
In the current anti-choice and white supremacist alliance, the language of "race suicide" has been supplanted by a similar fear: the so-called "Great Replacement", a racist conspiracy theory that posits that white Americans are being "replaced" by people of color. (Some antisemitic variations posit that this "replacement" is somehow being orchestrated by Jewish people.)
The way to combat this, the right says, is to force childbearing among white people, to severely restrict immigration, and to punish, via criminalization and enforced poverty, women of color. These anxieties ... have only become more fervent ... as conservatives become increasingly fixated on the demographic changes that will make America a minority-white country sometime in the coming decades. The white supremacist and anti-choice movements have always been closely linked. But more and more, they are becoming difficult to tell apart.
White women played a key role in planning and organizing the Trump regime's coup attempt and the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. White women were also strikingly visible among the attackers. To wit: A white woman became the only person directly killed by police that day, and has now been elevated into a martyr for the American neofascist cause.
Contrary to the hopes and expectations of many on the American left, white women as a group have historically chosen to ally with white men in defense of whiteness and white male power, rather than forging alliances with other women across the color line. In broad terms, that has been true both in the United States and around the world.
Contrary to the commentariat's obsession with the "suburban women" and "soccer moms" who supposedly "turned the tide" against Donald Trump in 2020, a majority of white women actually voted for him. In fact, Trump did significantly better among white women voters in 2020 than he had in 2016.
Seyward Darby is the author of "Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism." Her writing has also been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Harper's and the Atlantic. In our recent conversation, Darby discussed how sexist stereotypes about white women, in her view, obscure their role and power in the white right and larger neofascist cause, including their support for political violence and other terrorism. Darby also talked about the central role played by women in America's long history of white supremacy and opposition to multiracial democracy, including in the rise of Trump and the current Republican-fascist movement.
---
The role of white women in right-wing extremism and neofascism is hardly ever discussed by the mainstream news media.
When there is an acknowledgment that white-supremacist and other right-wing extremist violence is a problem, it is very often seen as a law enforcement problem. It is seen as something on the fringe, to be dealt with through arrests, prosecution, prison. If you start to dig deeper at who helped organize the violence, if you look at the systems that support the violence, if you look at the rhetoric and symbols that inspire the violence, that is where you often find white women. This is not to say that white women are not on the front lines of the violence sometimes. But they're more often behind the scenes, where no one is bothering to look.
In this moment of white backlash here in America, there are so many examples of how "white victimhood" is being weaponized by both white men and white women. White women have long used crying as a way of performing victimhood and inciting violence, in particular against black men who were lynched as a result of white women's tears. Now white male "conservatives" are publicly crying as a way to exercise their power and privilege, and to deflect responsibility for their harmful behavior.
There is a lot of anger and entitlement behind those white men's tears. To me, they signal just how far these men believe — or need people to believe — they have been pushed by their critics, opponents or victims. Things have gotten so bad and so unfair for them, and for men like them, that they're willing to cry about it publicly. This gets to the imaginary idea that whiteness — and particularly white masculinity — is under some kind of threat, which is a core idea of white supremacy.
How does the white right conceptualize what it means to be a white woman and a mother?
White women are seen as being fundamentally different than white men. The far right believes in very distinct genders and traditional gender roles. But they also believe that those roles are complementary and equal to each other. Separate but equal, if you will. From their point of view, men are willing to put their lives on the line. Men are the builders and protectors of civilization. Women are the protectors of the home.
But the home is fundamentally a political space for the right. The entire project of white nationalism is about ensuring that the "white race" continues to grow, and to expand and entrench its power across society into the future. Nothing could be more important to that process than making sure that you have white children, and that they've been inculcated in the ways of white supremacy.[...]
Either as figureheads or actual leaders, white women have stood at the forefront of the Republican Party's attempt to use the bogeyman of "critical race theory" to launch a widespread moral panic and restrict the teaching of American history. The ultimate goal is to severely undermine or fully destroy our current system of public education, and replace it with "patriotic" indoctrination meant to reinforce and protect white privilege and other forms of inequality.
White women are also among the loudest voices in the movement to take away women's reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The anti-choice movement has found considerable common ground with overt white nationalists and other white supremacists. In a new essay at the Guardian, Moira Donegan explores this:
Explicit white nationalism, and an emphasis on conscripting white women into reproduction, is not a fringe element of the anti-choice movement. Associations between white supremacist groups and anti-abortion forces are robust and longstanding. ... But the affinity goes both ways: just as the alt-right loves the anti-choice movement, the anti-choice movement loves the alt-right. ...
In the current anti-choice and white supremacist alliance, the language of "race suicide" has been supplanted by a similar fear: the so-called "Great Replacement", a racist conspiracy theory that posits that white Americans are being "replaced" by people of color. (Some antisemitic variations posit that this "replacement" is somehow being orchestrated by Jewish people.)
The way to combat this, the right says, is to force childbearing among white people, to severely restrict immigration, and to punish, via criminalization and enforced poverty, women of color. These anxieties ... have only become more fervent ... as conservatives become increasingly fixated on the demographic changes that will make America a minority-white country sometime in the coming decades. The white supremacist and anti-choice movements have always been closely linked. But more and more, they are becoming difficult to tell apart.
White women played a key role in planning and organizing the Trump regime's coup attempt and the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. White women were also strikingly visible among the attackers. To wit: A white woman became the only person directly killed by police that day, and has now been elevated into a martyr for the American neofascist cause.
Contrary to the hopes and expectations of many on the American left, white women as a group have historically chosen to ally with white men in defense of whiteness and white male power, rather than forging alliances with other women across the color line. In broad terms, that has been true both in the United States and around the world.
Contrary to the commentariat's obsession with the "suburban women" and "soccer moms" who supposedly "turned the tide" against Donald Trump in 2020, a majority of white women actually voted for him. In fact, Trump did significantly better among white women voters in 2020 than he had in 2016.
Seyward Darby is the author of "Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism." Her writing has also been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Harper's and the Atlantic. In our recent conversation, Darby discussed how sexist stereotypes about white women, in her view, obscure their role and power in the white right and larger neofascist cause, including their support for political violence and other terrorism. Darby also talked about the central role played by women in America's long history of white supremacy and opposition to multiracial democracy, including in the rise of Trump and the current Republican-fascist movement.
---
The role of white women in right-wing extremism and neofascism is hardly ever discussed by the mainstream news media.
When there is an acknowledgment that white-supremacist and other right-wing extremist violence is a problem, it is very often seen as a law enforcement problem. It is seen as something on the fringe, to be dealt with through arrests, prosecution, prison. If you start to dig deeper at who helped organize the violence, if you look at the systems that support the violence, if you look at the rhetoric and symbols that inspire the violence, that is where you often find white women. This is not to say that white women are not on the front lines of the violence sometimes. But they're more often behind the scenes, where no one is bothering to look.
In this moment of white backlash here in America, there are so many examples of how "white victimhood" is being weaponized by both white men and white women. White women have long used crying as a way of performing victimhood and inciting violence, in particular against black men who were lynched as a result of white women's tears. Now white male "conservatives" are publicly crying as a way to exercise their power and privilege, and to deflect responsibility for their harmful behavior.
There is a lot of anger and entitlement behind those white men's tears. To me, they signal just how far these men believe — or need people to believe — they have been pushed by their critics, opponents or victims. Things have gotten so bad and so unfair for them, and for men like them, that they're willing to cry about it publicly. This gets to the imaginary idea that whiteness — and particularly white masculinity — is under some kind of threat, which is a core idea of white supremacy.
How does the white right conceptualize what it means to be a white woman and a mother?
White women are seen as being fundamentally different than white men. The far right believes in very distinct genders and traditional gender roles. But they also believe that those roles are complementary and equal to each other. Separate but equal, if you will. From their point of view, men are willing to put their lives on the line. Men are the builders and protectors of civilization. Women are the protectors of the home.
But the home is fundamentally a political space for the right. The entire project of white nationalism is about ensuring that the "white race" continues to grow, and to expand and entrench its power across society into the future. Nothing could be more important to that process than making sure that you have white children, and that they've been inculcated in the ways of white supremacy.[...]
WHITENESS AS A COVENANT
By John Kamaal Sunjata - hamptonthink.org
6/27/2021
White supremacy, whatever its latest evolution, whatever its latest iteration, ensures that one man’s apocalypse is always another man’s paradise. The blessings and promises that whiteness bestows upon its “chosen people” are inextricably linked to absolute, total, and seamless damnation of generations and generations of racialized people. Whiteness has fabricated itself in its own image; therefore, in its own eyes, whiteness is divinity. Whiteness is perfect, without spot, wrinkle, or blemish—whiteness is god. White people are thus imbued with power and dominion over the Earth and all its living creatures, especially inferior “species” of humanity that the racialized descend from. The mandate by which white people are empowered is the Covenant of Whiteness.
This Covenant is more than a simple social contract, as “contracts” always have a definite end, covenants are forever. It is not reducible to a ritualistic prostration of individual whites or even mere flagellation of racial capitalism, but it is a totalizing affair. It has created a planet hostile to racialized people, it has encircled not only our tangible realities but captured our imaginations. For us, salvation comes through death because only by reaching Heaven can we live a life comparable to what white people presently live on Earth. We live in a world of their creation and our souls are damned from birth—we are permanently forsaken, and we have inherited the original sin of darkness. Covenants are always solemnized through blood and every white person is covered in the blood—of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. The racialized have a permanent spiritual connection to the Earth because so much of our own blood cries out from the ground. The brutality of whiteness guarantees our mourning is ceaseless, it guarantees that our graveyards are evergreen from our tears. Our cries have no resting place because we never get a rest. Under whiteness, many are culled, but few are chosen.
When you are truly a god, you can never lose your anointing. When you are truly a god, your authority and capacity may never be extinguished by lesser “species” of being. The problem posed by whiteness is that white people—the instruments by which the racial-colonial project is maintained—are semipotent, not omnipotent. The prospect of lost “anointing” is a terrifying prospect for white people as it strikes at the heart of the Covenant they are conscripted under. It reveals that their blessings are not the result of good works; therefore, their overflow is not predestined. Their divinity is not destiny, but the latest destination of productive forces in the historical thrust of the racial capitalist political economy. It is only through the consistent deployment of violence and terror that whiteness has given its covenant form and substance.
Whenever the racialized ingratiate ourselves to the production of whiteness, we uphold the moral superiority of a system premised on our enslavement and our genocide. We do the unthinkable by deifying a death-dealing regime that masquerades as a moral authority on “justice” and “righteousness.” No respect should be extended to any system of racial othering that instills fear and deploys wanton destruction. Whenever we worship whiteness, we declare fealty to its false gods: racism, consumerism, and militarism. The racialized are regularly sacrificed at the altar of white supremacy, our bodies and spirits are ritualistically broken to fortify the auspices of this racial-colonial project. The racialized may be “converted” to this tyrannical religion, but no amount of repentance will make our sins—our skins—“as white as snow.”
Whiteness does not require zealots for its expansion, but stable systems only. It is fortified by the ideological and repressive apparatuses of the state formation. So long as white supremacist institutions and technologies are not critically challenged or assailed by the racialized, whiteness will continue into perpetuity. Challenges from the racialized invokes revanchism disguised as righteous indignation because nothing is more threatening to the edifice—the fragile façade—of whiteness than decolonization. For a political economy structured and articulated by whiteness, decolonization feels like the Book of Revelation coming to life and the Chosen People know their actions are desperately wicked. Whiteness forestalls insurrection by reforming the presentation of its doctrine to deceive the racialized into being congregants, true believers in whiteness. Despite its attempts at reinventing itself, whiteness has at least one defining characteristic, an immutable property: a limitless capacity to inflict infinite harms with finite resources. It maximizes cruelty at every juncture: it is as arbitrary as it is petty and as petty as it is brutal. It is premised on a dehumanizing lie that keeps the racialized in constant search of the truth: the reality of our dignity and self-worth.
We are a disillusioned people in constant search of new life-affirming consciousness to combat the death-dealing regime of whiteness. As whiteness was bought and ratified through the blood of racialized people, our freedom will also be bought with blood. The conditions of white supremacy produces its own antagonisms, generates its own resistance; therefore, mapping out the path to its own destruction. Whiteness has prefigured its own end: it may be the alpha, but the racialized are the omega. The racialized have no path to political salvation except by decolonization, it is the way, the truth, and the life for all racialized people. Decolonization is the process by which inferior “species” of humans are elevated, the process by which “the last shall be first.” Whiteness produces false gods, decolonization produces faithful servants. The racialized must shed the blood of our oppressors, overthrow the systems of our oppression and bring truth to the well-known phrase: “the meek shall inherit the Earth.” It is through decolonization that the Covenant of Whiteness is superseded and a new Covenant takes its place. Under this new Covenant, the racialized shall sign and seal our freedom and redemption once and for all, for all at once.
This Covenant is more than a simple social contract, as “contracts” always have a definite end, covenants are forever. It is not reducible to a ritualistic prostration of individual whites or even mere flagellation of racial capitalism, but it is a totalizing affair. It has created a planet hostile to racialized people, it has encircled not only our tangible realities but captured our imaginations. For us, salvation comes through death because only by reaching Heaven can we live a life comparable to what white people presently live on Earth. We live in a world of their creation and our souls are damned from birth—we are permanently forsaken, and we have inherited the original sin of darkness. Covenants are always solemnized through blood and every white person is covered in the blood—of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. The racialized have a permanent spiritual connection to the Earth because so much of our own blood cries out from the ground. The brutality of whiteness guarantees our mourning is ceaseless, it guarantees that our graveyards are evergreen from our tears. Our cries have no resting place because we never get a rest. Under whiteness, many are culled, but few are chosen.
When you are truly a god, you can never lose your anointing. When you are truly a god, your authority and capacity may never be extinguished by lesser “species” of being. The problem posed by whiteness is that white people—the instruments by which the racial-colonial project is maintained—are semipotent, not omnipotent. The prospect of lost “anointing” is a terrifying prospect for white people as it strikes at the heart of the Covenant they are conscripted under. It reveals that their blessings are not the result of good works; therefore, their overflow is not predestined. Their divinity is not destiny, but the latest destination of productive forces in the historical thrust of the racial capitalist political economy. It is only through the consistent deployment of violence and terror that whiteness has given its covenant form and substance.
Whenever the racialized ingratiate ourselves to the production of whiteness, we uphold the moral superiority of a system premised on our enslavement and our genocide. We do the unthinkable by deifying a death-dealing regime that masquerades as a moral authority on “justice” and “righteousness.” No respect should be extended to any system of racial othering that instills fear and deploys wanton destruction. Whenever we worship whiteness, we declare fealty to its false gods: racism, consumerism, and militarism. The racialized are regularly sacrificed at the altar of white supremacy, our bodies and spirits are ritualistically broken to fortify the auspices of this racial-colonial project. The racialized may be “converted” to this tyrannical religion, but no amount of repentance will make our sins—our skins—“as white as snow.”
Whiteness does not require zealots for its expansion, but stable systems only. It is fortified by the ideological and repressive apparatuses of the state formation. So long as white supremacist institutions and technologies are not critically challenged or assailed by the racialized, whiteness will continue into perpetuity. Challenges from the racialized invokes revanchism disguised as righteous indignation because nothing is more threatening to the edifice—the fragile façade—of whiteness than decolonization. For a political economy structured and articulated by whiteness, decolonization feels like the Book of Revelation coming to life and the Chosen People know their actions are desperately wicked. Whiteness forestalls insurrection by reforming the presentation of its doctrine to deceive the racialized into being congregants, true believers in whiteness. Despite its attempts at reinventing itself, whiteness has at least one defining characteristic, an immutable property: a limitless capacity to inflict infinite harms with finite resources. It maximizes cruelty at every juncture: it is as arbitrary as it is petty and as petty as it is brutal. It is premised on a dehumanizing lie that keeps the racialized in constant search of the truth: the reality of our dignity and self-worth.
We are a disillusioned people in constant search of new life-affirming consciousness to combat the death-dealing regime of whiteness. As whiteness was bought and ratified through the blood of racialized people, our freedom will also be bought with blood. The conditions of white supremacy produces its own antagonisms, generates its own resistance; therefore, mapping out the path to its own destruction. Whiteness has prefigured its own end: it may be the alpha, but the racialized are the omega. The racialized have no path to political salvation except by decolonization, it is the way, the truth, and the life for all racialized people. Decolonization is the process by which inferior “species” of humans are elevated, the process by which “the last shall be first.” Whiteness produces false gods, decolonization produces faithful servants. The racialized must shed the blood of our oppressors, overthrow the systems of our oppression and bring truth to the well-known phrase: “the meek shall inherit the Earth.” It is through decolonization that the Covenant of Whiteness is superseded and a new Covenant takes its place. Under this new Covenant, the racialized shall sign and seal our freedom and redemption once and for all, for all at once.
OP-ED RACIAL JUSTICE
White Supremacy Set the Stage for Texas’ Miserable Disaster Response
BY - Scott Kurashige, Truthout
PUBLISHED - February 21, 2021
In order to make sense of the natural and human-induced disaster that has struck Texas, the nation will first need an accurate picture of who lives here. Yes, Texas has its oil barons, fossil-fuel lobbyists, and opportunistic political “leaders” who have extracted wealth from the state at the expense of the environment and human needs. But the real figure that should stand out is 17 million people.
That’s roughly the Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and Asian population of Texas, which comprises nearly 60 percent of the state. Only 3 states and 69 countries have a larger total population. Denmark, Finland, and Norway combined do not total 17 million residents. Of the 13 cities in the U.S. with populations above 900,000 today, five are in Texas (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and Fort Worth) and only 25 to 48 percent “non-Hispanic whites.” Thus, any story of Texans freezing, dying or hospitalized from carbon monoxide poisoning, losing power for vital medical equipment, or suffering without water or pipes bursting is more than likely occurring among the states BIPOC majority.
Outrage has erupted in Texas and throughout the nation, perhaps building on the momentum of the 2020 uprisings against white supremacy and police-perpetrated violence. Coming on the heels of the Trump-fueled mob attack on the Capitol and GOP refusal to hold the former president accountable, the catastrophe in Texas may be similar to the many “100-year” or “500-year” events that have now become commonplace. Floods, wildfires, freezes and heatwaves wreak havoc today but provide a preview of much worse effects to come from the compounded effects of industrial pollution and capitalist consumption.
---
Herrenvolk Democracy and the New Deal Order
Prior to the policy reforms of the first half of the 20th century, there was little assumption that the government had a responsibility to intervene to redress even the most grotesque economic injustices, such as exploitation of child labor, starvation wages, deadly working conditions, or food contamination. FDR’s New Deal galvanized a new and unprecedented coalition in support of social and economic reform, creating both employment and relief programs in response to the Great Depression and safety net measures like Social Security and Unemployment Insurance that have continued to the present.
The age of FDR represented a dramatic shift from the laissez-faire Hoover administration and a form of dominance that has been largely unparalleled in U.S. politics since. At its core, however, the New Deal coalition embodied the central contradiction in American democracy. Going back to at least Jefferson and Jackson, the push to expand the franchise and economic opportunity was tied to white supremacy. Thus, in the words of the late sociologist Pierre van den Berghe, it promoted herrenvolk (master race) democracy, or the concept that only the dominant group was entitled to such rights and capable of using them responsibly. White small farmers, settlers and workers routinely internalized a belief that they earned their freedom and citizenship rights as Americans through wars of genocide, campaigns of dispossession and reactionary social movements to uphold white supremacy.
The New Deal, though never coming close to achieving full equality, provided a new opening for labor unionization, civil rights, and Native sovereignty, thereby raising the prospects for multiracial democracy. Yet, the New Deal also continued to reinforce the contradictory unity of democracy and white supremacy. For example, it established public housing on a limited and racially segregated basis. However, the greater and longer-term impact of federal intervention was to subsidize white homeowners to buy homes with government-backed mortgages in neighborhoods restricted to whites by racist developers, realtors, and covenants.
Particularly in the South, FDR and national party leaders embraced white supremacist Democrats who prevented most African Americans and Mexican Americans from voting. So long as Black and Brown voters were shut out of the system, whites could perceive their votes as being for liberal economic policies like infrastructure development that served their self-interest, rather than simply voting against what they feared.
In Texas — part of the “Solid South” backing the Democrats almost exclusively for over 100 years — FDR won his first three elections with over 80 percent of the vote. Even when prominent conservative and white supremacist Democrats defected in 1944, he prevailed with 71 percent. During this time, the population of Texas was on average 70 percent or greater “non-Hispanic whites.”
The End of Liberal Hegemony
The Civil Rights Movement was born of a refusal to allow the white supremacist rule of herrenvolk democracy to continue. The right-wing currents that emerged in response were thus distinctly grounded in white supremacy. Though the new right was led by the corporate class — eventually finding a firm home in the GOP of Nixon and Reagan — it came to power with the fracture of the liberal order by winning middle and working-class whites away from the Democrats. This was a national phenomenon not limited to a “southern” strategy. In my 2017 book The Fifty-Year Rebellion: How the U.S. Political Crisis Began in Detroit, I argue that Detroit, once the model of progress for capitalists and socialists, alike, became a model for the new right strategy of Black disenfranchisement and neoliberal dispossession.
During Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy engineered through a state takeover, the autocratic “emergency manager” worked with moneyed interests to take away or gut union jobs, homes, water, pensions, and health care benefits in order to impose austerity on the people and pave the way for billionaire developers and investors. This was an extreme form of a national trend to dismantle social programs and impose a Social Darwinist neglect of human needs by writing oppressed communities out of the social contract. The racist, classist and ableist response to COVID-19 has made this all too tragically clear.
As in Detroit, right-wing revanchism and race-baiting generally arose wherever demographic growth heralded a nonwhite majority. California was a pioneer of the dog-whistle racism that Republicans used to win over suburban whites from the 1960s to 1990s until the new majority came of age. Texas, whose once-commanding “non-Hispanic white” demographic majority disappeared between 1970 and 2010, has perfected much of the voter suppression, gerrymandering, and racist/heteropatriarchal scapegoating at the heart of the neo-Confederate playbook for minority rule by the current GOP.
The wealthy, privileged whites served by the Texas’s dominant political class are a small minority of the population. That’s the ongoing legacy of conquest, colonialism and proletarianization. Seen in this light, the unnecessary human suffering and death during the current catastrophe — whose full effects may not be known for some time — connect Texas to New Orleans and Flint, where short-term economic and political expediency have combined with racist, classist and ableist dehumanization to render mass populations disposable before, during, and after natural and human-induced disasters.
Contesting Minority Rule
This is how the bifurcation of herrenvolk democracy is now playing out: We are simultaneously moving toward a new social order that fulfills real democracy and a worse system driven by “master race” ideology. In Texas, where new and sustainable infrastructure is desperately needed, the New Deal has been supplanted by conspiracy theories and political Ponzi schemes. Like deregulated energy rates, these schemes promise cost savings at the expense of long-term stability and security, ultimately drowning households and local governments in debt while the Dow reaches record highs.
What is conceivable with the empowerment of a new majority in Texas and everywhere? We need structural change in politics to sweep away the politicians controlled by big money and dependent on lies, climate denial and scapegoating to remain in power. We all saw what Trump was able to get away with, and his legacy continues through the likes of Cruz and Abbott. But we also know that these crises are not limited to red states, and that Democratic policies have generally been inadequate, even as bolder and more promising proposals and leaders linked to activist movements have begun to arise and challenge the party’s establishment.
As Grace Lee Boggs recognized the growing illegitimacy of dominant institutions, she taught us that “the only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” That does not mean we should let those in power off the hook. What it implies is that we must do more than protest. We must to look to grassroots organizers, Indigenous peoples, and women of color feminists for models of solidarity in this transitional era of systemic collapse. In recent years, movements at Standing Rock and Mauna Kea have responded to colonial desecration by projecting a future centered on Earth, water and life.
During this catastrophe, Mutual Aid Houston has reported an “overwhelming wave of support” to provide food, blankets and money to people in need. The self-described BIPOC abolitionist collective formed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and police brutality. It demonstrates scholar-activist Dean Spade’s point that mutual aid is not charity: “It’s a form of coming together to meet survival needs in a political context.” These local acts are putting into practice the values and concepts of community-based care that can establish relations for a more humane social order.
That’s roughly the Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and Asian population of Texas, which comprises nearly 60 percent of the state. Only 3 states and 69 countries have a larger total population. Denmark, Finland, and Norway combined do not total 17 million residents. Of the 13 cities in the U.S. with populations above 900,000 today, five are in Texas (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and Fort Worth) and only 25 to 48 percent “non-Hispanic whites.” Thus, any story of Texans freezing, dying or hospitalized from carbon monoxide poisoning, losing power for vital medical equipment, or suffering without water or pipes bursting is more than likely occurring among the states BIPOC majority.
Outrage has erupted in Texas and throughout the nation, perhaps building on the momentum of the 2020 uprisings against white supremacy and police-perpetrated violence. Coming on the heels of the Trump-fueled mob attack on the Capitol and GOP refusal to hold the former president accountable, the catastrophe in Texas may be similar to the many “100-year” or “500-year” events that have now become commonplace. Floods, wildfires, freezes and heatwaves wreak havoc today but provide a preview of much worse effects to come from the compounded effects of industrial pollution and capitalist consumption.
---
Herrenvolk Democracy and the New Deal Order
Prior to the policy reforms of the first half of the 20th century, there was little assumption that the government had a responsibility to intervene to redress even the most grotesque economic injustices, such as exploitation of child labor, starvation wages, deadly working conditions, or food contamination. FDR’s New Deal galvanized a new and unprecedented coalition in support of social and economic reform, creating both employment and relief programs in response to the Great Depression and safety net measures like Social Security and Unemployment Insurance that have continued to the present.
The age of FDR represented a dramatic shift from the laissez-faire Hoover administration and a form of dominance that has been largely unparalleled in U.S. politics since. At its core, however, the New Deal coalition embodied the central contradiction in American democracy. Going back to at least Jefferson and Jackson, the push to expand the franchise and economic opportunity was tied to white supremacy. Thus, in the words of the late sociologist Pierre van den Berghe, it promoted herrenvolk (master race) democracy, or the concept that only the dominant group was entitled to such rights and capable of using them responsibly. White small farmers, settlers and workers routinely internalized a belief that they earned their freedom and citizenship rights as Americans through wars of genocide, campaigns of dispossession and reactionary social movements to uphold white supremacy.
The New Deal, though never coming close to achieving full equality, provided a new opening for labor unionization, civil rights, and Native sovereignty, thereby raising the prospects for multiracial democracy. Yet, the New Deal also continued to reinforce the contradictory unity of democracy and white supremacy. For example, it established public housing on a limited and racially segregated basis. However, the greater and longer-term impact of federal intervention was to subsidize white homeowners to buy homes with government-backed mortgages in neighborhoods restricted to whites by racist developers, realtors, and covenants.
Particularly in the South, FDR and national party leaders embraced white supremacist Democrats who prevented most African Americans and Mexican Americans from voting. So long as Black and Brown voters were shut out of the system, whites could perceive their votes as being for liberal economic policies like infrastructure development that served their self-interest, rather than simply voting against what they feared.
In Texas — part of the “Solid South” backing the Democrats almost exclusively for over 100 years — FDR won his first three elections with over 80 percent of the vote. Even when prominent conservative and white supremacist Democrats defected in 1944, he prevailed with 71 percent. During this time, the population of Texas was on average 70 percent or greater “non-Hispanic whites.”
The End of Liberal Hegemony
The Civil Rights Movement was born of a refusal to allow the white supremacist rule of herrenvolk democracy to continue. The right-wing currents that emerged in response were thus distinctly grounded in white supremacy. Though the new right was led by the corporate class — eventually finding a firm home in the GOP of Nixon and Reagan — it came to power with the fracture of the liberal order by winning middle and working-class whites away from the Democrats. This was a national phenomenon not limited to a “southern” strategy. In my 2017 book The Fifty-Year Rebellion: How the U.S. Political Crisis Began in Detroit, I argue that Detroit, once the model of progress for capitalists and socialists, alike, became a model for the new right strategy of Black disenfranchisement and neoliberal dispossession.
During Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy engineered through a state takeover, the autocratic “emergency manager” worked with moneyed interests to take away or gut union jobs, homes, water, pensions, and health care benefits in order to impose austerity on the people and pave the way for billionaire developers and investors. This was an extreme form of a national trend to dismantle social programs and impose a Social Darwinist neglect of human needs by writing oppressed communities out of the social contract. The racist, classist and ableist response to COVID-19 has made this all too tragically clear.
As in Detroit, right-wing revanchism and race-baiting generally arose wherever demographic growth heralded a nonwhite majority. California was a pioneer of the dog-whistle racism that Republicans used to win over suburban whites from the 1960s to 1990s until the new majority came of age. Texas, whose once-commanding “non-Hispanic white” demographic majority disappeared between 1970 and 2010, has perfected much of the voter suppression, gerrymandering, and racist/heteropatriarchal scapegoating at the heart of the neo-Confederate playbook for minority rule by the current GOP.
The wealthy, privileged whites served by the Texas’s dominant political class are a small minority of the population. That’s the ongoing legacy of conquest, colonialism and proletarianization. Seen in this light, the unnecessary human suffering and death during the current catastrophe — whose full effects may not be known for some time — connect Texas to New Orleans and Flint, where short-term economic and political expediency have combined with racist, classist and ableist dehumanization to render mass populations disposable before, during, and after natural and human-induced disasters.
Contesting Minority Rule
This is how the bifurcation of herrenvolk democracy is now playing out: We are simultaneously moving toward a new social order that fulfills real democracy and a worse system driven by “master race” ideology. In Texas, where new and sustainable infrastructure is desperately needed, the New Deal has been supplanted by conspiracy theories and political Ponzi schemes. Like deregulated energy rates, these schemes promise cost savings at the expense of long-term stability and security, ultimately drowning households and local governments in debt while the Dow reaches record highs.
What is conceivable with the empowerment of a new majority in Texas and everywhere? We need structural change in politics to sweep away the politicians controlled by big money and dependent on lies, climate denial and scapegoating to remain in power. We all saw what Trump was able to get away with, and his legacy continues through the likes of Cruz and Abbott. But we also know that these crises are not limited to red states, and that Democratic policies have generally been inadequate, even as bolder and more promising proposals and leaders linked to activist movements have begun to arise and challenge the party’s establishment.
As Grace Lee Boggs recognized the growing illegitimacy of dominant institutions, she taught us that “the only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” That does not mean we should let those in power off the hook. What it implies is that we must do more than protest. We must to look to grassroots organizers, Indigenous peoples, and women of color feminists for models of solidarity in this transitional era of systemic collapse. In recent years, movements at Standing Rock and Mauna Kea have responded to colonial desecration by projecting a future centered on Earth, water and life.
During this catastrophe, Mutual Aid Houston has reported an “overwhelming wave of support” to provide food, blankets and money to people in need. The self-described BIPOC abolitionist collective formed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and police brutality. It demonstrates scholar-activist Dean Spade’s point that mutual aid is not charity: “It’s a form of coming together to meet survival needs in a political context.” These local acts are putting into practice the values and concepts of community-based care that can establish relations for a more humane social order.
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WHITE AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS
After Trump, the crisis: White America at the historical crossroads
Historian David Roediger on the choice facing white Americans: Social democracy, or follow Trump into the abyss
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
FEBRUARY 1, 2021 11:10AM (UTC)
..."Working class" is a term that has come to dominate American political discourse during the Trump regime and now beyond. But it is emptied of all content and meaning. "Working class" is too often used in a superficial race- and gender-neutral way by the mainstream news media and other political elites. In many ways, "working class" is just another way of saying "white men." That assumption is so deep it goes unremarked upon by most.
To talk about the "white working class" is really to fight on the terrain that the likes of a Trump or a Steve Bannon or Breitbart could occupy.
If one goes down the road of talking about the "white working class," inevitably the emphasis ends up on "white." With the Bannons and Trumps that "white" is emphasized, as in the full-blown white nationalism that they gravitate towards.
Even with the Democrats there is an emphasis on the "white" in "white working class," because they do not have anything as a party to offer in terms of class or the specifics of trade policy that would actually appeal to the people in Macomb County, Michigan. The Democrats are not for trade union rights in any fundamental way. The Democrats are not for reorganizing the working class. The Democrats are very much in favor of disastrous trade deals such as NAFTA.
When political leaders and pundits say "middle class" they mean the white middle class — what is imagined to be the middle of the class structure. But for African Americans, the 50th percentile has about one-ninth of the wealth of the middle of the white class structure.
The term "middle class" obscures racial differences and related inequalities. I believe this has been true since at least the 1980s. Some of us on the left are implicated in this too, because there is a kind of left politics that argues, "Oh, we should advance these middle-class economic demands, which in turn would mean we do not have to talk about race so much. Our economic agenda helps everyone, so we can avoid these challenging conversations about race".
These types of approaches to class and race in America mean that there is very little space in the public discourse to seriously consider what would bring poor people together across the color line, while also being attentive to the specific grievances that African Americans and immigrants have in the United States.
---
Systems of white supremacy and white racism also hurt white people. How can we do a better job of explaining that to white folks?
The willingness to accept dehumanization never ends at the color line. As an example, America's prison system is essentially an extension of Jim Crow that disproportionately targets young Black men. But that same system, from the 1980s forward also vastly increased the number of white people who are incarcerated. Using America's Jim Crow prison system as an example, we can highlight the racism at work there against black men — but then, at the same time, call attention to how white people, in particular poor white people, are also being hurt by mass incarceration. Another example is how the number of white women incarcerated has gone through the roof in the same period.
How do you think whiteness is doing at present in America?
A majority of whites in the United States still support Trump. We often get confused by these extraordinarily close elections. In fact, these elections are so close because African Americans vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate. The same is true for Latinos and Hispanics. This gives the appearance that there is all this resistance against Trump and what he represents, but in reality white Americans are generally supportive of him. We do not gain much in this country by denying that fact.
These political and cultural problems have been going on for a long time in white America. Those problems continued and maybe even accelerated under Donald Trump.
Moreover, there are huge numbers of eligible voters who do not participate. Poor people are much less likely to vote. There is something wrong with America's culture and politics that is larger than Donald Trump.
An example of the many problems in white America — not exclusively found among the so-called white working class — is shown through the response to COVID and refusing to wear a mask. This a literal embrace of death by large numbers of white people in America. The mindless embrace of death by refusing to wear a mask also represents a type of widespread malaise.
There is much evidence of this from the studies about the opioid crisis and the so-called deaths of despair among certain segments of the white public. In total, that data and other examples point to a type of psychological emergency among some whites.
To talk about the "white working class" is really to fight on the terrain that the likes of a Trump or a Steve Bannon or Breitbart could occupy.
If one goes down the road of talking about the "white working class," inevitably the emphasis ends up on "white." With the Bannons and Trumps that "white" is emphasized, as in the full-blown white nationalism that they gravitate towards.
Even with the Democrats there is an emphasis on the "white" in "white working class," because they do not have anything as a party to offer in terms of class or the specifics of trade policy that would actually appeal to the people in Macomb County, Michigan. The Democrats are not for trade union rights in any fundamental way. The Democrats are not for reorganizing the working class. The Democrats are very much in favor of disastrous trade deals such as NAFTA.
When political leaders and pundits say "middle class" they mean the white middle class — what is imagined to be the middle of the class structure. But for African Americans, the 50th percentile has about one-ninth of the wealth of the middle of the white class structure.
The term "middle class" obscures racial differences and related inequalities. I believe this has been true since at least the 1980s. Some of us on the left are implicated in this too, because there is a kind of left politics that argues, "Oh, we should advance these middle-class economic demands, which in turn would mean we do not have to talk about race so much. Our economic agenda helps everyone, so we can avoid these challenging conversations about race".
These types of approaches to class and race in America mean that there is very little space in the public discourse to seriously consider what would bring poor people together across the color line, while also being attentive to the specific grievances that African Americans and immigrants have in the United States.
---
Systems of white supremacy and white racism also hurt white people. How can we do a better job of explaining that to white folks?
The willingness to accept dehumanization never ends at the color line. As an example, America's prison system is essentially an extension of Jim Crow that disproportionately targets young Black men. But that same system, from the 1980s forward also vastly increased the number of white people who are incarcerated. Using America's Jim Crow prison system as an example, we can highlight the racism at work there against black men — but then, at the same time, call attention to how white people, in particular poor white people, are also being hurt by mass incarceration. Another example is how the number of white women incarcerated has gone through the roof in the same period.
How do you think whiteness is doing at present in America?
A majority of whites in the United States still support Trump. We often get confused by these extraordinarily close elections. In fact, these elections are so close because African Americans vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate. The same is true for Latinos and Hispanics. This gives the appearance that there is all this resistance against Trump and what he represents, but in reality white Americans are generally supportive of him. We do not gain much in this country by denying that fact.
These political and cultural problems have been going on for a long time in white America. Those problems continued and maybe even accelerated under Donald Trump.
Moreover, there are huge numbers of eligible voters who do not participate. Poor people are much less likely to vote. There is something wrong with America's culture and politics that is larger than Donald Trump.
An example of the many problems in white America — not exclusively found among the so-called white working class — is shown through the response to COVID and refusing to wear a mask. This a literal embrace of death by large numbers of white people in America. The mindless embrace of death by refusing to wear a mask also represents a type of widespread malaise.
There is much evidence of this from the studies about the opioid crisis and the so-called deaths of despair among certain segments of the white public. In total, that data and other examples point to a type of psychological emergency among some whites.
Trump Loyalists Want to Uphold a Long American Tradition: White License
BY Lewis R. Gordon, Truthout
PUBLISHED January 10, 2021
Trump loyalists’ storming of the U.S. Capitol Building was an all-too-familiar example of the license traditionally afforded to violent white mobs under the shield of racism in the U.S. To understand white license requires going beyond the concept of “white privilege”: License protects one from accountability for wrongful actions. White supremacy is a white license.
It’s obvious that the instigators of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which include President Trump, senators such as Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, should be removed from office. We know what would unfold if Black senators had instigated such actions. White license/supremacy affords a lack of accountability.
Think about this: Trump loyalists planted pipe bombs, attacked police, openly declared planning to execute Congress-people, vandalized the Capitol building, and more, and most of them were able to leave under the protection of the police they were attacking.
#BlackLivesMatter advocates were and continue to be brutalized for speech, assembly, peaceful protest (all supposedly protected rights). Moreover, Black and Indigenous peoples are often brutalized by the police and white so-called civil society simply for appearing in public.
Trump supporters often engage in a narrative of victimization. Those who breached the Capitol claimed that they were being gravely wronged — indeed, that Trump himself was being gravely wronged — by a “fraudulent” election. There’s no doubt that the eventual response by the government to the attack on the Capitol will fuel that narrative. Yet none of the white people who attacked the Capitol were disenfranchised; they were fighting for the continued disenfranchisement of people of color, especially Black people. We live with the continued charade of a “both sides” discourse when all the evidence of an asymmetrical assault on democracy, Black and Indigenous peoples, immigrants of color, and the poor is clear.
White supremacy affords every effort to see the humanity of violent whites. The truth of the matter is that the Trump loyalists want the old game of false democracy, where their votes count more than everyone else’s, where, even when fewer in numbers, they are to count more than the rest of us.
Want a democratic republic? Inaugurate a systematic overhaul of institutions that are premised upon disenfranchising whole groups of people, and radicalize voting and access to other forms of political participation for all.
It’s obvious that the instigators of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which include President Trump, senators such as Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, should be removed from office. We know what would unfold if Black senators had instigated such actions. White license/supremacy affords a lack of accountability.
Think about this: Trump loyalists planted pipe bombs, attacked police, openly declared planning to execute Congress-people, vandalized the Capitol building, and more, and most of them were able to leave under the protection of the police they were attacking.
#BlackLivesMatter advocates were and continue to be brutalized for speech, assembly, peaceful protest (all supposedly protected rights). Moreover, Black and Indigenous peoples are often brutalized by the police and white so-called civil society simply for appearing in public.
Trump supporters often engage in a narrative of victimization. Those who breached the Capitol claimed that they were being gravely wronged — indeed, that Trump himself was being gravely wronged — by a “fraudulent” election. There’s no doubt that the eventual response by the government to the attack on the Capitol will fuel that narrative. Yet none of the white people who attacked the Capitol were disenfranchised; they were fighting for the continued disenfranchisement of people of color, especially Black people. We live with the continued charade of a “both sides” discourse when all the evidence of an asymmetrical assault on democracy, Black and Indigenous peoples, immigrants of color, and the poor is clear.
White supremacy affords every effort to see the humanity of violent whites. The truth of the matter is that the Trump loyalists want the old game of false democracy, where their votes count more than everyone else’s, where, even when fewer in numbers, they are to count more than the rest of us.
Want a democratic republic? Inaugurate a systematic overhaul of institutions that are premised upon disenfranchising whole groups of people, and radicalize voting and access to other forms of political participation for all.
White Supremacist Group That Wants America to Collapse to Establish Ethno-state Discussed Paramilitary Training In Newly Published Phone Calls
Niara Savage | ATLANTA BLACK STAR
October 26, 2020
A new report on 83 hours of phone calls with 100 participants tied to the white supremacist organization The Base shows young men hoping to join the group talked about hosting paramilitary trainings, and about how to bring firearms to the events legally.
The Southern Poverty Law Center published the calls on Thursday, Oct. 22, after analyzing them for the podcast “Sounds Like Hate.” The calls were supplied to the SPLC by a confidential source and span the time period between 2018 and January 2020.
The calls are revealed over a three-part series entitled “Baseless.” The analysis of the calls used machine learning to identify patterns in the conversations.
During the calls, the group placed significant value on knowledge of guns and on having access to a training area.
On one call, an individual using the pseudonym Erik undergoes vetting by two individuals who focus heavily on stocking up ammunition for a proposed January event. Erik claimed to be 17 and proposed using his mother’s property to host the event. One person mentioned that the participants used a lot of ammunition at a prior meeting.
The proposed meeting appeared to have been postponed after Erik’s mother got nervous, and it is not clear if it ever took place.
The group believes the nation should be pushed to collapse so that a white ethno-state can rise from the ruins, according to the SPLC.
Rinaldo Nazzaro, leader of The Base, resides in Russia.
“The Base is a survivalism and self-defense network. Our objective is sharing knowledge and training to prepare for crisis situations,” Nazzaro told CNN. “The Base is not a neo-Nazi organization or a terrorist group. We do not encourage violence beyond self-defense situations.” But in the encrypted calls Nazarro said the primary criteria for joining is being “pro-white” and that there are many white nationalists and Nazis in the group.
Federal authorities also have disputed Nazarro’s benign public characterization of The Base, saying the group has discussed establishing a white ethno-state and talked about “committing acts of violence against minority communities,” including Black people.
Many have already been involved in targeted domestic terror plots. Almost 20 percent of applicants said they had combat training experience.
“They are domestic terrorists. They are plotting to create the collapse of America. That’s what they say on almost every single call,” podcast co-host Geradine Moriba told CNN.
Federal authorities arrested suspected neo-Nazis thought to belong to The Base earlier in 2020, believing they planned to carry out acts of violence at a gun rights rally in Virginia.
Nazzaro told CNN that The Base is not responsible for alleged illegal activity carried out by individuals.
“These far-right white supremacist groups have been a lethal threat in the United States for as long as there has been a United States. The only thing different from the way these groups operate is that they have the rhetorical support from the president … and a free hand given to them by law enforcement,” former FBI agent Mike German said on the podcast.
In leaked documents released last month, the Department of Homeland Security identified white supremacists as the “most lethal threat” of domestic terrorism in the nation.
Potential recruits were drawn in by physical flyers, contacted Nazzaro by emails, and were later vetted through virtual meetings and phone calls. Eventually, an in-person meeting might occur.
Moriba said the members talked about preparing for the moment when America collapses in order to “fill the vacuum.”
Frank Meeink, a former neo-Nazi, told CNN members are instructed by leadership to infiltrate law enforcement and military in order to “implement our plan.”
“We want things to accelerate, we want things to get worse in the United States. And from that point, by virtue of the chaos that ensues, that would naturally present some opportunities for us. Law and order starts breaking down, power vacuums start emerging for those who are organized and ready, to take advantage of those,” Nazzaro said on a call to one recruit.
The Southern Poverty Law Center published the calls on Thursday, Oct. 22, after analyzing them for the podcast “Sounds Like Hate.” The calls were supplied to the SPLC by a confidential source and span the time period between 2018 and January 2020.
The calls are revealed over a three-part series entitled “Baseless.” The analysis of the calls used machine learning to identify patterns in the conversations.
During the calls, the group placed significant value on knowledge of guns and on having access to a training area.
On one call, an individual using the pseudonym Erik undergoes vetting by two individuals who focus heavily on stocking up ammunition for a proposed January event. Erik claimed to be 17 and proposed using his mother’s property to host the event. One person mentioned that the participants used a lot of ammunition at a prior meeting.
The proposed meeting appeared to have been postponed after Erik’s mother got nervous, and it is not clear if it ever took place.
The group believes the nation should be pushed to collapse so that a white ethno-state can rise from the ruins, according to the SPLC.
Rinaldo Nazzaro, leader of The Base, resides in Russia.
“The Base is a survivalism and self-defense network. Our objective is sharing knowledge and training to prepare for crisis situations,” Nazzaro told CNN. “The Base is not a neo-Nazi organization or a terrorist group. We do not encourage violence beyond self-defense situations.” But in the encrypted calls Nazarro said the primary criteria for joining is being “pro-white” and that there are many white nationalists and Nazis in the group.
Federal authorities also have disputed Nazarro’s benign public characterization of The Base, saying the group has discussed establishing a white ethno-state and talked about “committing acts of violence against minority communities,” including Black people.
Many have already been involved in targeted domestic terror plots. Almost 20 percent of applicants said they had combat training experience.
“They are domestic terrorists. They are plotting to create the collapse of America. That’s what they say on almost every single call,” podcast co-host Geradine Moriba told CNN.
Federal authorities arrested suspected neo-Nazis thought to belong to The Base earlier in 2020, believing they planned to carry out acts of violence at a gun rights rally in Virginia.
Nazzaro told CNN that The Base is not responsible for alleged illegal activity carried out by individuals.
“These far-right white supremacist groups have been a lethal threat in the United States for as long as there has been a United States. The only thing different from the way these groups operate is that they have the rhetorical support from the president … and a free hand given to them by law enforcement,” former FBI agent Mike German said on the podcast.
In leaked documents released last month, the Department of Homeland Security identified white supremacists as the “most lethal threat” of domestic terrorism in the nation.
Potential recruits were drawn in by physical flyers, contacted Nazzaro by emails, and were later vetted through virtual meetings and phone calls. Eventually, an in-person meeting might occur.
Moriba said the members talked about preparing for the moment when America collapses in order to “fill the vacuum.”
Frank Meeink, a former neo-Nazi, told CNN members are instructed by leadership to infiltrate law enforcement and military in order to “implement our plan.”
“We want things to accelerate, we want things to get worse in the United States. And from that point, by virtue of the chaos that ensues, that would naturally present some opportunities for us. Law and order starts breaking down, power vacuums start emerging for those who are organized and ready, to take advantage of those,” Nazzaro said on a call to one recruit.
Urban planning as a tool of white supremacy – the other lesson from Minneapolis
the conversation
July 27, 2020 8.15am EDT
The legacy of structural racism in Minneapolis was laid bare to the world at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and East 38th Street, the location where George Floyd’s neck was pinned to the ground by a police officer’s knee. But it is also imprinted in streets, parks and neighborhoods across the city – the result of urban planning that utilized segregation as a tool of white supremacy.
Today, Minneapolis is seen to be one of the most liberal cities in the U.S. But if you scratch away the progressive veneer of the U.S.‘s most cyclable city, the city with the best park system and sixth-highest quality of life, you find what Kirsten Delegard, a Minneapolis historian, describes as “darker truths about the city.”
As co-founder of the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project, Delegard and her colleagues have been shedding new light on the role that racist barriers to home ownership have had on segregation in the city.
'Racial cordon’
Segregation in Minneapolis, like elsewhere in the U.S., is the result of historic practices such as the issuing of racialized real estate covenants that kept nonwhite people from buying or occupying land.
These covenants began appearing in U.S. cities from the early 1900s. Before their use in Minneapolis, the city was “more or less integrated, with a small but evenly distributed African American population.” But covenants changed the cityscape. Racist wording from the city’s first racially restrictive covenant in 1910 stated bluntly that the premises named “shall not at any time be conveyed, mortgaged or leased to any person or persons of Chinese, Japanese, Moorish, Turkish, Negro, Mongolian or African blood or descent.”
As a result, African Americans, especially, were pushed into a few small areas of the city such as the Near North neighborhood, leaving large parts of the city predominantly white. Some of the city’s most desirable parks were ringed by white residential districts. The result was an invisible “racial cordon” around some of the city’s celebrated parks and commons.
‘By design, not acccident’
As a scholar of urban planning, I know that Minneapolis, far from being an outlier in segregation, represents the norm. Across the U.S., urban planning is still used by some as the spatial toolkit, consisting of a set of policies and practices, for maintaining white supremacy. But urban planners of color, especially, are pointing out ways to reimagine inclusive urban spaces by dismantling the legacy of racist planning, housing and infrastructure policies.
Racial segregation was not the byproduct of urban planning; it was, in many cases, its intention – it was “not by accident, but by design,” Adrien Weibgen, senior policy fellow at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, explained in a 2019 New York Daily News article.
The effect was and still is devastating.
The Urban Institute, an independent think tank, noted in a 2017 report that higher levels of racial segregation were linked to lower incomes for Black residents, as well worse educational outcomes for both white and Black students. Other studies have found that racial segregation leads to Black Americans being excluded from high-performing schools. In Minnesota – which ranks as the fourth most segregated state – the gap between the performance of white students and students of color is among the highest in the U.S. Likewise, segregation limits access to transportation, employment and quality health care.
Income and wealth gaps
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in Minneapolis the median Black family income in 2018 was US$36,000, compared to nearly $83,000 among white families. After Milwaukee, this is the biggest gap of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. Mirroring the city’s income gap is a huge wealth gap. Minneapolis now has the lowest rate of homeownership among Black American households of any city.
Residential segregation in Minneapolis and elsewhere is still stubbornly high despite more than 50 years since the passing of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, among other factors. But while some residential segregation is now income-based, racial segregation across the U.S. is more ingrained and pervasive than economic segregation.
Zoning out
Residential racial segregation continues to exist because of specific government policies enacted through urban planning. A key tool is zoning – the process of dividing urban land into areas for specific uses, such as residential or industrial. In the introduction to her 2014 book “Zoned in the USA,” urban planning professor Sonia Hirt argues that zoning is about government power to shape “ideals” by imposing a “moral geography” on cities. In Minneapolis and elsewhere, this has meant excluding “undersirables” – namely the poor, immigrants of color and African Americans.
With explicit racialized zoning long outlawed in the U.S. – the U.S. Supreme Court ended the practice in 1917 – many local governments instead turned to “exclusionary” zoning policies, making it illegal to build anything except single-family homes. This “back door racism” had a similar effect to outright racial exclusions: It kept out most Black and low-income people who could not afford expensive single-family homes.
In Minneapolis, single-family zoning amounted to 70% of residential space, compared to 15% in New York. Buttressing this, redlining – the denial of mortgages and loans to people of color by government and the private sector – ensured the continuance of segregation.
Anti-racist planning
Minneapolis is trying hard to reverse these racist policies. In 2018, it became the first large city to vote to end single-family zoning, allowing “upzoning”: the conversion of single-family lots into more affordable duplexes and triplexes.
This, together with “inclusionary zoning” – requiring that new apartment projects hold at least 10% of units for low- to moderate-income households – is part of the Minneapolis 2040 Plan. Central to that vision is a goal to eliminate disparities in wealth, housing and opportunity “regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, country of origin, religion, or zip code” within 20 years.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis City Council acted quickly in advancing plans to dismantle the city’s police force. Dismantling the legacy of by-design segregation will require the tools of urban planning being utilized to find solutions after decades of being part of the problem.
Today, Minneapolis is seen to be one of the most liberal cities in the U.S. But if you scratch away the progressive veneer of the U.S.‘s most cyclable city, the city with the best park system and sixth-highest quality of life, you find what Kirsten Delegard, a Minneapolis historian, describes as “darker truths about the city.”
As co-founder of the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project, Delegard and her colleagues have been shedding new light on the role that racist barriers to home ownership have had on segregation in the city.
'Racial cordon’
Segregation in Minneapolis, like elsewhere in the U.S., is the result of historic practices such as the issuing of racialized real estate covenants that kept nonwhite people from buying or occupying land.
These covenants began appearing in U.S. cities from the early 1900s. Before their use in Minneapolis, the city was “more or less integrated, with a small but evenly distributed African American population.” But covenants changed the cityscape. Racist wording from the city’s first racially restrictive covenant in 1910 stated bluntly that the premises named “shall not at any time be conveyed, mortgaged or leased to any person or persons of Chinese, Japanese, Moorish, Turkish, Negro, Mongolian or African blood or descent.”
As a result, African Americans, especially, were pushed into a few small areas of the city such as the Near North neighborhood, leaving large parts of the city predominantly white. Some of the city’s most desirable parks were ringed by white residential districts. The result was an invisible “racial cordon” around some of the city’s celebrated parks and commons.
‘By design, not acccident’
As a scholar of urban planning, I know that Minneapolis, far from being an outlier in segregation, represents the norm. Across the U.S., urban planning is still used by some as the spatial toolkit, consisting of a set of policies and practices, for maintaining white supremacy. But urban planners of color, especially, are pointing out ways to reimagine inclusive urban spaces by dismantling the legacy of racist planning, housing and infrastructure policies.
Racial segregation was not the byproduct of urban planning; it was, in many cases, its intention – it was “not by accident, but by design,” Adrien Weibgen, senior policy fellow at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, explained in a 2019 New York Daily News article.
The effect was and still is devastating.
The Urban Institute, an independent think tank, noted in a 2017 report that higher levels of racial segregation were linked to lower incomes for Black residents, as well worse educational outcomes for both white and Black students. Other studies have found that racial segregation leads to Black Americans being excluded from high-performing schools. In Minnesota – which ranks as the fourth most segregated state – the gap between the performance of white students and students of color is among the highest in the U.S. Likewise, segregation limits access to transportation, employment and quality health care.
Income and wealth gaps
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in Minneapolis the median Black family income in 2018 was US$36,000, compared to nearly $83,000 among white families. After Milwaukee, this is the biggest gap of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. Mirroring the city’s income gap is a huge wealth gap. Minneapolis now has the lowest rate of homeownership among Black American households of any city.
Residential segregation in Minneapolis and elsewhere is still stubbornly high despite more than 50 years since the passing of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, among other factors. But while some residential segregation is now income-based, racial segregation across the U.S. is more ingrained and pervasive than economic segregation.
Zoning out
Residential racial segregation continues to exist because of specific government policies enacted through urban planning. A key tool is zoning – the process of dividing urban land into areas for specific uses, such as residential or industrial. In the introduction to her 2014 book “Zoned in the USA,” urban planning professor Sonia Hirt argues that zoning is about government power to shape “ideals” by imposing a “moral geography” on cities. In Minneapolis and elsewhere, this has meant excluding “undersirables” – namely the poor, immigrants of color and African Americans.
With explicit racialized zoning long outlawed in the U.S. – the U.S. Supreme Court ended the practice in 1917 – many local governments instead turned to “exclusionary” zoning policies, making it illegal to build anything except single-family homes. This “back door racism” had a similar effect to outright racial exclusions: It kept out most Black and low-income people who could not afford expensive single-family homes.
In Minneapolis, single-family zoning amounted to 70% of residential space, compared to 15% in New York. Buttressing this, redlining – the denial of mortgages and loans to people of color by government and the private sector – ensured the continuance of segregation.
Anti-racist planning
Minneapolis is trying hard to reverse these racist policies. In 2018, it became the first large city to vote to end single-family zoning, allowing “upzoning”: the conversion of single-family lots into more affordable duplexes and triplexes.
This, together with “inclusionary zoning” – requiring that new apartment projects hold at least 10% of units for low- to moderate-income households – is part of the Minneapolis 2040 Plan. Central to that vision is a goal to eliminate disparities in wealth, housing and opportunity “regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, country of origin, religion, or zip code” within 20 years.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis City Council acted quickly in advancing plans to dismantle the city’s police force. Dismantling the legacy of by-design segregation will require the tools of urban planning being utilized to find solutions after decades of being part of the problem.
Why are white supremacists protesting the deaths of black people?
the conversation
June 5, 2020 8.08am EDT
As protests about police violence among black people continue and become more widespread across the U.S., certain individuals and groups have begun to stand out – including anarchists, agitators and members of a variety of far-right groups.
With the country’s long history of racist killings, it may be confusing to think that racists and white supremacists are among those objecting to the killing of people of color.
But people affiliated with far-right groups aren’t trying to be part of the overall protest movement. Having researched these groups, we think it’s likely that they are attempting to hijack the event for their own purposes.
As researchers of street gangs and far-right groups, we see that in this case, they want to stoke a civil war between the races – one they think they can win. By antagonizing police, destroying property, or intimidating the public by adopting military gear – including weapons – these groups are attempting to instigate violence between the police, protesters and the public. Rousting law enforcement to violently retaliate against black people en masse is the first step.
Instigating civil war
The far-right is not unified by a strict ideology. It is a broad movement with various factions vying for greater amounts of attention and influence.
In spite of this tension, our research shows that many share the conspiracy belief that Western governments are corrupt and controlled by the New World Order, a cabal of wealthy Jewish elites. To them, wealthy Jewish investor and democracy advocate George Soros is the puppet master of the world economy.
William Luther Pierce’s 1978 novel “The Turner Diaries,” which has come to be known as “the bible of the racist right,” lays out a plan to instigate a race war and bring about the federal government’s collapse. The book has inspired violence from the far-right, most notably the 1995 bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“Accelerationism” – the idea that inducing chaos, provoking law enforcement, and promoting political tension will hasten the collapse of Western government – has taken root among far-right groups. One such group, the “Boogaloo Bois,” identified by their penchant for wearing Hawaiian shirts, has been observed at protests in Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Oregon. As with any far-right movement, “Boogaloo Bois” groups are rather unstructured and have varied beliefs, lacking any hierarchical organization.
In Las Vegas, three “Boogaloo Bois” were arrested with firearms and a plan to incite violence during George Floyd protests. Social media posts and online chat groups have also shown them attempting to infiltrate other protests across the country.
Joining the crowds provides these groups an opportunity to discredit protesters by inciting looting, rioting, violence and vandalism – which they hope will spark like-minded white Americans to resist the civil disobedience of protesters. Already, there are roving bands of armed white counterprotesters at protests across America.
Other far-right extremists are talking on social media about the protests requiring a lot of police attention and see an opportunity to engage in targeted terror attacks. Their overall intention is the same: fanning flames to burn down the federal government, making room for them to establish a whites-only country.
With the country’s long history of racist killings, it may be confusing to think that racists and white supremacists are among those objecting to the killing of people of color.
But people affiliated with far-right groups aren’t trying to be part of the overall protest movement. Having researched these groups, we think it’s likely that they are attempting to hijack the event for their own purposes.
As researchers of street gangs and far-right groups, we see that in this case, they want to stoke a civil war between the races – one they think they can win. By antagonizing police, destroying property, or intimidating the public by adopting military gear – including weapons – these groups are attempting to instigate violence between the police, protesters and the public. Rousting law enforcement to violently retaliate against black people en masse is the first step.
Instigating civil war
The far-right is not unified by a strict ideology. It is a broad movement with various factions vying for greater amounts of attention and influence.
In spite of this tension, our research shows that many share the conspiracy belief that Western governments are corrupt and controlled by the New World Order, a cabal of wealthy Jewish elites. To them, wealthy Jewish investor and democracy advocate George Soros is the puppet master of the world economy.
William Luther Pierce’s 1978 novel “The Turner Diaries,” which has come to be known as “the bible of the racist right,” lays out a plan to instigate a race war and bring about the federal government’s collapse. The book has inspired violence from the far-right, most notably the 1995 bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“Accelerationism” – the idea that inducing chaos, provoking law enforcement, and promoting political tension will hasten the collapse of Western government – has taken root among far-right groups. One such group, the “Boogaloo Bois,” identified by their penchant for wearing Hawaiian shirts, has been observed at protests in Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Oregon. As with any far-right movement, “Boogaloo Bois” groups are rather unstructured and have varied beliefs, lacking any hierarchical organization.
In Las Vegas, three “Boogaloo Bois” were arrested with firearms and a plan to incite violence during George Floyd protests. Social media posts and online chat groups have also shown them attempting to infiltrate other protests across the country.
Joining the crowds provides these groups an opportunity to discredit protesters by inciting looting, rioting, violence and vandalism – which they hope will spark like-minded white Americans to resist the civil disobedience of protesters. Already, there are roving bands of armed white counterprotesters at protests across America.
Other far-right extremists are talking on social media about the protests requiring a lot of police attention and see an opportunity to engage in targeted terror attacks. Their overall intention is the same: fanning flames to burn down the federal government, making room for them to establish a whites-only country.
Trump’s Antifa Conspiracy Theory Attempts to Erase Powerful Black-Led Organizing
BY Spencer Sunshine, Truthout
PUBLISHED June 5, 2020
The George Floyd protests have swept the country in a spontaneous explosion of rage. Their scope and intensity have equaled the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, which inspired nationwide actions.
But some widespread theories on the right are circulating about the protests that are attempting to undermine the work of Black-led organizing efforts. The right widely claims that anti-fascists (antifa) or “anarchists” are behind the violence, while some liberal officials initially claimed white supremacists were acting widely as agent provocateurs, bearing primary responsibility for certain aspects of the protests, such as property destruction. The situation is extremely chaotic and all the facts can’t be known in their full detail, but both theories tell us something important: Neither the conservative commentators nor the liberal politicians will admit this is a decentralized and spontaneous rebellion.
Conspiracy theories work by falsely claiming that a secretive group is behind a real social problem. They distract people from understanding the real social problems facing a society — and thereby prevent them from addressing the underlying issues. In this case, people from a range of different positions on the political spectrum are desperate to avoid the question of racist police brutality and murder, especially as it targets Black folks. The uprisings also illustrate the failure of more moderate political channels to address this.
In several tweets and in his speech Monday night, President Trump blamed “professional anarchists” for the protests and claimed he would declare antifa a “terrorist organization.” (Antifa is not a single organization, and there is no such designation for domestic groups.) Attorney General William Barr released a statement saying, “The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.” Meanwhile, some activists arrested at the demonstrations say they’ve been questioned about their relationship to antifa groups.
A vast wash of right-wing voices are also proclaiming that George Soros is masterminding the uprising: this includes 34,000 tweets linking the billionaire to the protests, as of June 1. Soros is commonly accused by the right of all of the traditional things that in the past anti-Semites accused “the Jews” of. Scapegoating individual Jews allows the right to harness the emotional power of the old anti-Semitic framework while avoiding moral responsibility for their actions.
Reality is quite different though. First, anarchists and antifa, while overlapping movements, are not the same. Anarchism is an ideologically based movement, primarily positioned on the radical left, while antifa is a smaller movement which seeks specifically to confront fascists and the far right. Many anarchists support the antifa movement, but only some of them are involved in it; and many antifa activists are anarchists, but there are other political views in the movement, too.
“Antifa” has become a kind of boogeyman for the U.S. right since 2017, and we are now in the fourth wave of what I call “antifa panic.” As cities burn and police brutally enforce curfews, it’s bizarre to see progressives regurgitating their old talking points about whether or not they support the anti-fascist movement. This is just a distraction from the protests over racist police murder.
In fact, for Trump and his sycophants, “antifa” is just an updated version of the old claims that Communists are hiding under every bed, which Sen. Joe McCarthy spouted in the 1950s. This accusation was leveled in particular at Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. These conspiracy theories, in turn, were largely adopted from earlier anti-Semitic conspiracies about a “Judeo-Bolshevik” plot.
There is also a racist element underlying these conspiracy theories of past decades. They assume that Black folks are not sophisticated enough to form and lead movements for their own liberation, and so, there had to be white Communists — or Jews — behind them. Today, we see the same propaganda recycled, only with antifa and anarchists replacing the Communist boogeyman. The game is the same; only the names have changed.
Anarchists and anti-fascists themselves openly scoff at the administration’s accusations. The antifa website It’s Going Down tweeted, “Neither ‘ANTIFA,’ anarchists, or any activist group for that matter – are behind or ‘directing’ the uprising that is taking place across the US following the murder of #GeorgeFloyd. Young people of color are the driving force – and this is exactly who the State fears the most.” The New York City anarchist organization Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC) supports the protests but tweeted, “It’s a popular uprising – beyond us.”
Compounding the confusion is the fact that prominent Democratic politicians in Minnesota initially claimed that white supremacists were behind the protest. Like most conspiracy theories, this one has a grain of truth. Different factions of the far right have shown up, though their relationship to the protests is complicated. It is a very chaotic situation, and no one has all the information.
However, Democratic officials, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, identified white supremacist “outside agitators” as the primary culprits behind property destruction in the area. This rumor was promoted by the Minneapolis officials claiming that, on Saturday, May 30, arrested looters were linked to “white supremacists” and “organized crime.” But they have not produced any evidence of these assertions, and officials have already retracted other statements they made about the arrests.
In contrast, there have been a noticeable number of the more “moderate” far right groups, including the Proud Boys, militias and — especially — the Boogaloo movement present at the protests, but usually as counterprotesters. Sometimes they are also there claiming that they are guarding stores from damage, and sometimes the Boogaloo activists specifically are joining the protests.
Part of what has allowed large-scale unevidenced theories about white supremacists to blossom is confusion about the Boogaloo movement. This movement seeks to start an armed conflict in the form of a civil war, and generally, adherents back a libertarian-style vision of unlimited gun ownership and property rights. Many members wear Hawaiian shirts (a reference to “the big luau” — itself a pun on “boogaloo”). A minority of the movement has a crossover with white supremacists, but most of it does not.
At the beginning of the protests, Boogaloo-linked social media accounts talked about intervening to stoke conflict. It is apparently the assumption that the white supremacist elements of the Boogaloo movement (part of the “accelerationist” tendency, which seeks total social breakdown) are participating in the violent protests that have become the basis of the unevidenced theory that white supremacists are widely behind property destruction at the protests.
Since these rumors arose and spread, there have been at least two confirmed instances of far right violence. In one case, a man with links to neo-Confederate politics shot a gun near a protest, and there are other reports that counterprotests have assaulted progressive activists. In another case, three Boogaloo activists were apprehended heading to a protest with Molotov cocktails.
According to a report released June 1 by the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, some of the Boogaloo activists who are participating see themselves as anti-racists who are siding with the protesters. The report’s authors, Alex Newhouse and Nate Gunesch, also found that, at this time, there was no evidence of property destruction specifically being instigated by those participating. “While Boogaloo Facebook pages were active in their discussion of violence against police, few members attended the protest and none seem to have attacked law enforcement officers,” Newhouse and Gunesch said (emphasis added). Furthermore, the idea that Boogaloo activists are behind the uprisings is, of course, baseless.
While the conspiracy theories about white supremacists are more confusing than harmful, the ones about the left are a justification for repression. As of Sunday night, the counterrevolution arrived. Curfews descended on the country, protesters were being murdered by both police and civilians, a right-wing mob patrolled a Philadelphia neighborhood, and police and the National Guard are brutally cracking down on protesters. All of this has been justified with Trump invoking his dual boogeyman of anarchists and antifa.
But it is unlikely brute force can quell this rebellion easily. The civil rights movement was an unfinished revolution, and morphed into the more radical Black Power movement in the 1960s and ‘70s. More recently, in 2014 and beyond, the Black Lives Matter movement further pursued the goal of smashing white supremacy in the U.S. The failure of leaders to heed these movements’ basic demands is, in part, leading to more forceful forms of protest emerging.
Trump will blame radical left social movements for this outpouring of anger over the police murder of Black people, and try to suppress its manifestations, but in doing so, he does nothing more than ignore the root problems of structural anti-Blackness and oppression. Just as his segregationist forbearers did in the 1950s and ‘60s when they blamed Jews and Communists for the civil rights movement, Trump and his conservative followers misrepresent their actual opponent.
Demonizing antifa will not stop the movement that George Floyd’s murder has sparked. While anarchists and antifa activists are supporting the protests, they are not running them, and their absence would not collapse the uprisings. In fact, the protests would look fundamentally the same if they were removed. Martin Luther King Jr. said that a riot was the “language of the unheard,” and Trump and other officials refuse to listen to the voices of those who are actually leading these protests: Black organizers making clear demands for the end of white supremacy.
But some widespread theories on the right are circulating about the protests that are attempting to undermine the work of Black-led organizing efforts. The right widely claims that anti-fascists (antifa) or “anarchists” are behind the violence, while some liberal officials initially claimed white supremacists were acting widely as agent provocateurs, bearing primary responsibility for certain aspects of the protests, such as property destruction. The situation is extremely chaotic and all the facts can’t be known in their full detail, but both theories tell us something important: Neither the conservative commentators nor the liberal politicians will admit this is a decentralized and spontaneous rebellion.
Conspiracy theories work by falsely claiming that a secretive group is behind a real social problem. They distract people from understanding the real social problems facing a society — and thereby prevent them from addressing the underlying issues. In this case, people from a range of different positions on the political spectrum are desperate to avoid the question of racist police brutality and murder, especially as it targets Black folks. The uprisings also illustrate the failure of more moderate political channels to address this.
In several tweets and in his speech Monday night, President Trump blamed “professional anarchists” for the protests and claimed he would declare antifa a “terrorist organization.” (Antifa is not a single organization, and there is no such designation for domestic groups.) Attorney General William Barr released a statement saying, “The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.” Meanwhile, some activists arrested at the demonstrations say they’ve been questioned about their relationship to antifa groups.
A vast wash of right-wing voices are also proclaiming that George Soros is masterminding the uprising: this includes 34,000 tweets linking the billionaire to the protests, as of June 1. Soros is commonly accused by the right of all of the traditional things that in the past anti-Semites accused “the Jews” of. Scapegoating individual Jews allows the right to harness the emotional power of the old anti-Semitic framework while avoiding moral responsibility for their actions.
Reality is quite different though. First, anarchists and antifa, while overlapping movements, are not the same. Anarchism is an ideologically based movement, primarily positioned on the radical left, while antifa is a smaller movement which seeks specifically to confront fascists and the far right. Many anarchists support the antifa movement, but only some of them are involved in it; and many antifa activists are anarchists, but there are other political views in the movement, too.
“Antifa” has become a kind of boogeyman for the U.S. right since 2017, and we are now in the fourth wave of what I call “antifa panic.” As cities burn and police brutally enforce curfews, it’s bizarre to see progressives regurgitating their old talking points about whether or not they support the anti-fascist movement. This is just a distraction from the protests over racist police murder.
In fact, for Trump and his sycophants, “antifa” is just an updated version of the old claims that Communists are hiding under every bed, which Sen. Joe McCarthy spouted in the 1950s. This accusation was leveled in particular at Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. These conspiracy theories, in turn, were largely adopted from earlier anti-Semitic conspiracies about a “Judeo-Bolshevik” plot.
There is also a racist element underlying these conspiracy theories of past decades. They assume that Black folks are not sophisticated enough to form and lead movements for their own liberation, and so, there had to be white Communists — or Jews — behind them. Today, we see the same propaganda recycled, only with antifa and anarchists replacing the Communist boogeyman. The game is the same; only the names have changed.
Anarchists and anti-fascists themselves openly scoff at the administration’s accusations. The antifa website It’s Going Down tweeted, “Neither ‘ANTIFA,’ anarchists, or any activist group for that matter – are behind or ‘directing’ the uprising that is taking place across the US following the murder of #GeorgeFloyd. Young people of color are the driving force – and this is exactly who the State fears the most.” The New York City anarchist organization Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC) supports the protests but tweeted, “It’s a popular uprising – beyond us.”
Compounding the confusion is the fact that prominent Democratic politicians in Minnesota initially claimed that white supremacists were behind the protest. Like most conspiracy theories, this one has a grain of truth. Different factions of the far right have shown up, though their relationship to the protests is complicated. It is a very chaotic situation, and no one has all the information.
However, Democratic officials, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, identified white supremacist “outside agitators” as the primary culprits behind property destruction in the area. This rumor was promoted by the Minneapolis officials claiming that, on Saturday, May 30, arrested looters were linked to “white supremacists” and “organized crime.” But they have not produced any evidence of these assertions, and officials have already retracted other statements they made about the arrests.
In contrast, there have been a noticeable number of the more “moderate” far right groups, including the Proud Boys, militias and — especially — the Boogaloo movement present at the protests, but usually as counterprotesters. Sometimes they are also there claiming that they are guarding stores from damage, and sometimes the Boogaloo activists specifically are joining the protests.
Part of what has allowed large-scale unevidenced theories about white supremacists to blossom is confusion about the Boogaloo movement. This movement seeks to start an armed conflict in the form of a civil war, and generally, adherents back a libertarian-style vision of unlimited gun ownership and property rights. Many members wear Hawaiian shirts (a reference to “the big luau” — itself a pun on “boogaloo”). A minority of the movement has a crossover with white supremacists, but most of it does not.
At the beginning of the protests, Boogaloo-linked social media accounts talked about intervening to stoke conflict. It is apparently the assumption that the white supremacist elements of the Boogaloo movement (part of the “accelerationist” tendency, which seeks total social breakdown) are participating in the violent protests that have become the basis of the unevidenced theory that white supremacists are widely behind property destruction at the protests.
Since these rumors arose and spread, there have been at least two confirmed instances of far right violence. In one case, a man with links to neo-Confederate politics shot a gun near a protest, and there are other reports that counterprotests have assaulted progressive activists. In another case, three Boogaloo activists were apprehended heading to a protest with Molotov cocktails.
According to a report released June 1 by the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, some of the Boogaloo activists who are participating see themselves as anti-racists who are siding with the protesters. The report’s authors, Alex Newhouse and Nate Gunesch, also found that, at this time, there was no evidence of property destruction specifically being instigated by those participating. “While Boogaloo Facebook pages were active in their discussion of violence against police, few members attended the protest and none seem to have attacked law enforcement officers,” Newhouse and Gunesch said (emphasis added). Furthermore, the idea that Boogaloo activists are behind the uprisings is, of course, baseless.
While the conspiracy theories about white supremacists are more confusing than harmful, the ones about the left are a justification for repression. As of Sunday night, the counterrevolution arrived. Curfews descended on the country, protesters were being murdered by both police and civilians, a right-wing mob patrolled a Philadelphia neighborhood, and police and the National Guard are brutally cracking down on protesters. All of this has been justified with Trump invoking his dual boogeyman of anarchists and antifa.
But it is unlikely brute force can quell this rebellion easily. The civil rights movement was an unfinished revolution, and morphed into the more radical Black Power movement in the 1960s and ‘70s. More recently, in 2014 and beyond, the Black Lives Matter movement further pursued the goal of smashing white supremacy in the U.S. The failure of leaders to heed these movements’ basic demands is, in part, leading to more forceful forms of protest emerging.
Trump will blame radical left social movements for this outpouring of anger over the police murder of Black people, and try to suppress its manifestations, but in doing so, he does nothing more than ignore the root problems of structural anti-Blackness and oppression. Just as his segregationist forbearers did in the 1950s and ‘60s when they blamed Jews and Communists for the civil rights movement, Trump and his conservative followers misrepresent their actual opponent.
Demonizing antifa will not stop the movement that George Floyd’s murder has sparked. While anarchists and antifa activists are supporting the protests, they are not running them, and their absence would not collapse the uprisings. In fact, the protests would look fundamentally the same if they were removed. Martin Luther King Jr. said that a riot was the “language of the unheard,” and Trump and other officials refuse to listen to the voices of those who are actually leading these protests: Black organizers making clear demands for the end of white supremacy.
Tiffany Cross: White Supremacy Is 'As American As Apple Pie'
Tiffany Cross shattered all of the illusions Americans carry about white supremacy and the old tired claim that "this is not who we are" as a nation.
By Karoli Kuns - crooks & liars
6/01/20 3:11am
For some reason, cable media seems to think that Donald Trump is capable of addressing the nation and this crisis of white supremacy we are now in -- once again. And so it came to pass that Yasmin Vossoughian read the script like a good cable news anchor does, and in return got a history lesson from Tiffany Cross.
The question from Vossoughian was this: Would it have mattered if Trump had addressed the nation about George Floyd and the problem of white supremacy?
Tiffany Cross took that question and ran with it:
No, it wouldn't. And I would take a bit of an issue and say everyone was not expecting this president to address this nation and the racial inequality that has historically plagued this country. I think we got exactly what we expected. This is not the first time Donald Trump has fallen short of being a leader. He's routinely called for violence and stoked the racial tensions in this country even as far back as the campaign trail.
In 2016 he encouraged people to behave violently. He encouraged someone If you see someone about to throw a tomato, knock the hell out of them. He encouraged people to get violent at his rallies. We saw one of the MAGA attendees sucker-punch an attendee. And recently in an interview with Breitbart he suggested people with guns are on his side, the military, the police, the bikers.
So I don't think America expects anything from Donald Trump other than what we've routinely gotten.
Cross was just getting warmed up and to her main point, taking media and the politicians who purr "this is not who we are" to task first.
I think it's been an unfortunate characterization and attempt by a lot of people in certain mainstream media outlets to normalize this kind of asinine and violent behavior. And that's one of the things that has to stop and that's been something that has plagued this country since 1619. So it is a bit frustrating.
I'll tell you when I routinely hear well-intentioned people say 'This is not who we are.' These type of violent revolutions are as American as apple pie and as old as the battle of Jamestown. Until we stop perpetuating a false narrative about who this country is and confront a reality of historic white supremacy systems that helped get us here I'm afraid to see that history will continue to repeat itself.
That should have been sufficient, but Vossoughian pushed Cross on her statements about "this is not who we are," and so Cross delivered a 90-second response that should be the preface to all history books forever and ever, amen.
I mean people looking at this violence and saying this is not who we are. Looking at violent aggressors like what we saw with the tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia and saying this is not who we are. That's just not true. America was not founded on peace and prosperity; it was taken from the Native-Americans.
America was not built on freedom and equality. It was built on the backs of stolen labor, by the enslaved people. And that system has carried itself and rippled through time, rippled through generations, rippled across this country and been a stronghold. The reality is, yes, we saw George Floyd get lynched and murdered on camera and that is heartbreaking. But the truth of the matter we have to start addressing is that the American system of white supremacy that has had its foot on the neck of Black people since this country's inception.
We have to start speaking that honest truth, because as long as we ignore that truth we provide a safe haven and space for systems of white supremacy to continue and permeate our political systems and even the mainstream media landscape. We have to confront those things and bring them to a screeching halt or otherwise we will see white supremacy as it's always been this country's greatest weakness bring this country to heel.
This is the moment to confront it. And by confronting it, she is not talking about Black people who face it every day. It is the white people who have to confront it and bring it to heel.
The question from Vossoughian was this: Would it have mattered if Trump had addressed the nation about George Floyd and the problem of white supremacy?
Tiffany Cross took that question and ran with it:
No, it wouldn't. And I would take a bit of an issue and say everyone was not expecting this president to address this nation and the racial inequality that has historically plagued this country. I think we got exactly what we expected. This is not the first time Donald Trump has fallen short of being a leader. He's routinely called for violence and stoked the racial tensions in this country even as far back as the campaign trail.
In 2016 he encouraged people to behave violently. He encouraged someone If you see someone about to throw a tomato, knock the hell out of them. He encouraged people to get violent at his rallies. We saw one of the MAGA attendees sucker-punch an attendee. And recently in an interview with Breitbart he suggested people with guns are on his side, the military, the police, the bikers.
So I don't think America expects anything from Donald Trump other than what we've routinely gotten.
Cross was just getting warmed up and to her main point, taking media and the politicians who purr "this is not who we are" to task first.
I think it's been an unfortunate characterization and attempt by a lot of people in certain mainstream media outlets to normalize this kind of asinine and violent behavior. And that's one of the things that has to stop and that's been something that has plagued this country since 1619. So it is a bit frustrating.
I'll tell you when I routinely hear well-intentioned people say 'This is not who we are.' These type of violent revolutions are as American as apple pie and as old as the battle of Jamestown. Until we stop perpetuating a false narrative about who this country is and confront a reality of historic white supremacy systems that helped get us here I'm afraid to see that history will continue to repeat itself.
That should have been sufficient, but Vossoughian pushed Cross on her statements about "this is not who we are," and so Cross delivered a 90-second response that should be the preface to all history books forever and ever, amen.
I mean people looking at this violence and saying this is not who we are. Looking at violent aggressors like what we saw with the tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia and saying this is not who we are. That's just not true. America was not founded on peace and prosperity; it was taken from the Native-Americans.
America was not built on freedom and equality. It was built on the backs of stolen labor, by the enslaved people. And that system has carried itself and rippled through time, rippled through generations, rippled across this country and been a stronghold. The reality is, yes, we saw George Floyd get lynched and murdered on camera and that is heartbreaking. But the truth of the matter we have to start addressing is that the American system of white supremacy that has had its foot on the neck of Black people since this country's inception.
We have to start speaking that honest truth, because as long as we ignore that truth we provide a safe haven and space for systems of white supremacy to continue and permeate our political systems and even the mainstream media landscape. We have to confront those things and bring them to a screeching halt or otherwise we will see white supremacy as it's always been this country's greatest weakness bring this country to heel.
This is the moment to confront it. And by confronting it, she is not talking about Black people who face it every day. It is the white people who have to confront it and bring it to heel.
Historian: Georgia’s current ‘citizen’s arrest’ law has its roots in a 1861 rule written by a confederate slaveholder
May 31, 2020
By History News Network - raw story
The video-recorded murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man killed by two white vigilantes while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia, has focused attention on Georgia’s Civil War era Citizen’s Arrest law.
The current version of Georgia Citizen’s Arrest Law, 17-4-60 (2010), states: “A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion.” A private individual who makes a “citizen’s arrest” is instructed “without any unnecessary delay” to “take the person arrested before a judicial officer . . . or deliver the person and all effects removed from him to a peace officer of this state.”
Georgia’s laws were formally codified in 1861 by Thomas Cobb, a lawyer and slaveholder who died at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862. It was the first formal codification of state common law in the United States. It was also racist. In the original code, African Americans were assumed to be enslaved unless they could prove free status. Georgia’s Citizen’s Arrest statues were first entered into the Law Code of Georgia in 1863.
Thomas Cobb was the author of An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America (1858). In the book, Cobb argued “[T]his inquiry into the physical, mental, and moral development of the negro race seems to point them clearly, as peculiarly fitted for a laborious class. The physical frame is capable of great and long-continued exertion. Their mental capacity renders them incapable of successful self-development, and yet adapts them for the direction of the wiser race. Their moral character renders them happy, peaceful, contented and cheerful in a status that would break the spirit and destroy the energies of the Caucasian or the native American” (46). Cobb’s views on race and slavery shaped the Georgia legal code.
The Code Law Code of Georgia was heavily revised after the 1865 passage of the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery in the United States, and has been revised and reenacted a number of times during the last 150 plus years. However, the Civil War era citizen’s arrest provision remains.
In 1863, when the citizen’s arrest provision was added to the Law Code, slavery and Georgia law enforcement were in serious disarray. Georgian units in the Confederate army were primarily stationed in Virginia. The Union army was preparing to invade the state from Tennessee. Enslaved Africans were fleeing plantations to join Union forces. Confederate deserters were hiding in inaccessible Appalachian counties in the north and swamp regions of the south. With its criminal justice system in a state of collapse, the 1863 code revision empowered white Georgians to replace law enforcement and slave patrols to keep the enslaved Black population under control.
After the Civil War, citizen’s arrest supported Ku Klux Klan violence against Black Georgians. In 1868 alone, there were over 300 reported cases of the Klan murdering or attempting to murder Georgia’s black citizens. According to the Mary Turner Project database, there were 454 documented lynching murders of Black men and women in the state of Georgia between July 29, 1880 and April 28, 1930. The Fulton County Lynching Project lists 589 documented lynchings between 1877 and 1950.
Lynchings of African American men and women in Georgia by white mobs making “citizen’s arrests” have a particularly gruesome history. On January 22, 1912, four African Americans in Hamilton–three men and a woman–were citizen’s arrested and lynched, accused of killing a white planter who was sexually abusing Black girls and women. On July 25, 1946, two African American couples were dragged from their car at Moore’s Ford in Walton County and shot about sixty times by a mob of white men making a “citizen’s arrest.” No one was ever charged with their murders.
At 1 PM on February 23, 2020, a 25-year-old black man named Ahmaud Arbery was killed by two white men, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael. His executioners told police they were in the process of making a citizen’s arrest because they believed Arbery fit the description of a man suspected of break-ins in Glenn County. Gregory McMichael was a police officer in Glenn County in the 1980s and an investigator in its district attorney’s office until he retired in 2019. Police and local prosecutors let the men go without further investigation until a national uproar over the killings three months later.
The current version of Georgia Citizen’s Arrest Law, 17-4-60 (2010), states: “A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion.” A private individual who makes a “citizen’s arrest” is instructed “without any unnecessary delay” to “take the person arrested before a judicial officer . . . or deliver the person and all effects removed from him to a peace officer of this state.”
Georgia’s laws were formally codified in 1861 by Thomas Cobb, a lawyer and slaveholder who died at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862. It was the first formal codification of state common law in the United States. It was also racist. In the original code, African Americans were assumed to be enslaved unless they could prove free status. Georgia’s Citizen’s Arrest statues were first entered into the Law Code of Georgia in 1863.
Thomas Cobb was the author of An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America (1858). In the book, Cobb argued “[T]his inquiry into the physical, mental, and moral development of the negro race seems to point them clearly, as peculiarly fitted for a laborious class. The physical frame is capable of great and long-continued exertion. Their mental capacity renders them incapable of successful self-development, and yet adapts them for the direction of the wiser race. Their moral character renders them happy, peaceful, contented and cheerful in a status that would break the spirit and destroy the energies of the Caucasian or the native American” (46). Cobb’s views on race and slavery shaped the Georgia legal code.
The Code Law Code of Georgia was heavily revised after the 1865 passage of the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery in the United States, and has been revised and reenacted a number of times during the last 150 plus years. However, the Civil War era citizen’s arrest provision remains.
In 1863, when the citizen’s arrest provision was added to the Law Code, slavery and Georgia law enforcement were in serious disarray. Georgian units in the Confederate army were primarily stationed in Virginia. The Union army was preparing to invade the state from Tennessee. Enslaved Africans were fleeing plantations to join Union forces. Confederate deserters were hiding in inaccessible Appalachian counties in the north and swamp regions of the south. With its criminal justice system in a state of collapse, the 1863 code revision empowered white Georgians to replace law enforcement and slave patrols to keep the enslaved Black population under control.
After the Civil War, citizen’s arrest supported Ku Klux Klan violence against Black Georgians. In 1868 alone, there were over 300 reported cases of the Klan murdering or attempting to murder Georgia’s black citizens. According to the Mary Turner Project database, there were 454 documented lynching murders of Black men and women in the state of Georgia between July 29, 1880 and April 28, 1930. The Fulton County Lynching Project lists 589 documented lynchings between 1877 and 1950.
Lynchings of African American men and women in Georgia by white mobs making “citizen’s arrests” have a particularly gruesome history. On January 22, 1912, four African Americans in Hamilton–three men and a woman–were citizen’s arrested and lynched, accused of killing a white planter who was sexually abusing Black girls and women. On July 25, 1946, two African American couples were dragged from their car at Moore’s Ford in Walton County and shot about sixty times by a mob of white men making a “citizen’s arrest.” No one was ever charged with their murders.
At 1 PM on February 23, 2020, a 25-year-old black man named Ahmaud Arbery was killed by two white men, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael. His executioners told police they were in the process of making a citizen’s arrest because they believed Arbery fit the description of a man suspected of break-ins in Glenn County. Gregory McMichael was a police officer in Glenn County in the 1980s and an investigator in its district attorney’s office until he retired in 2019. Police and local prosecutors let the men go without further investigation until a national uproar over the killings three months later.
recruiting the stupids!!!
White supremacists are taking advantage of anti-lockdown protests to recruit new members: report
May 3, 2020
By Tom Boggioni - raw story
According to a report from the New York Times, anti-government white supremacists are actively searching for new recruits from among the anti-lockdown protesters who have taken to the streets at Donald Trump’s urging.
The report begins by noting that, while racists have always used the internet to find like-minded people to bring into the fold, the street protests have become new and fertile ground for recruitment.
“Although the protests that have broken out across the country have drawn out a wide variety of people pressing to lift stay-at-home orders, the presence of extremists cannot be missed, with their anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic signs and coded messages aimed at inspiring the faithful, say those who track such movements,” the report states, while noting, “April is typically a busy month for white supremacists. There is Hitler’s birthday, which they contort into a celebration. There is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the domestic attack 25 years ago that killed 168 people and still serves as a rallying call for new extremist recruits.”
According to Devin Burghart, who runs the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, “They are being very effective in capitalizing on the pandemic.”
The protests have drawn a mixture of Americans who believe the coronavirus lockdown is another example of government overreach as well as conspiracy-minded anti-vaxxers, making it a hotspot of those who might be easily persuaded.
“What success the groups have had in finding fresh recruits is not yet clear, but new research indicates a significant jump in people consuming extremist material while under lockdown. Various violent incidents have been linked to white supremacist or anti-government perpetrators enraged over aspects of the pandemic,” the Times reports. ” Embellishing Covid-19 developments to fit their usual agenda, extremists spread disinformation on the transmission of the virus and disparage stay-at-home orders as ‘medical martial law’ — the long-anticipated advent of a totalitarian state.”
“Extremist organizations habitually try to exploit any crisis to further their aims. While not monolithic, a spectrum of organizations — from anti-immigrant groups to those with a variety of grievances and those that overtly espouse violence — found something to like about the coronavirus,” the report continues with Megan Squire, a professor at Elon University in North Carolina adding, “They view it as a chance to turn people.”
Singling out so-called “accelerationists” who anticipate a race war in the near future, the report notes, “Some label their expected second civil war ‘the boogaloo,’ and experts have tracked a spike in interest in the term on social media, plus a proliferation of advice on how to prepare.The name is a pop culture reference derived from a 1984 movie flop that became a cult classic called ‘Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.’ It went through various mutations and emerged sometimes as the ‘Big Igloo’ or the ‘Big Luau.’ That is why adherents sometimes wear Hawaiian shirts, say those who track them. Many such shirts were in evidence when armed protesters stormed the state capital in Lansing, Mich., Thursday and they have appeared in rallies across the country.”
You can read more here.
The report begins by noting that, while racists have always used the internet to find like-minded people to bring into the fold, the street protests have become new and fertile ground for recruitment.
“Although the protests that have broken out across the country have drawn out a wide variety of people pressing to lift stay-at-home orders, the presence of extremists cannot be missed, with their anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic signs and coded messages aimed at inspiring the faithful, say those who track such movements,” the report states, while noting, “April is typically a busy month for white supremacists. There is Hitler’s birthday, which they contort into a celebration. There is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the domestic attack 25 years ago that killed 168 people and still serves as a rallying call for new extremist recruits.”
According to Devin Burghart, who runs the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, “They are being very effective in capitalizing on the pandemic.”
The protests have drawn a mixture of Americans who believe the coronavirus lockdown is another example of government overreach as well as conspiracy-minded anti-vaxxers, making it a hotspot of those who might be easily persuaded.
“What success the groups have had in finding fresh recruits is not yet clear, but new research indicates a significant jump in people consuming extremist material while under lockdown. Various violent incidents have been linked to white supremacist or anti-government perpetrators enraged over aspects of the pandemic,” the Times reports. ” Embellishing Covid-19 developments to fit their usual agenda, extremists spread disinformation on the transmission of the virus and disparage stay-at-home orders as ‘medical martial law’ — the long-anticipated advent of a totalitarian state.”
“Extremist organizations habitually try to exploit any crisis to further their aims. While not monolithic, a spectrum of organizations — from anti-immigrant groups to those with a variety of grievances and those that overtly espouse violence — found something to like about the coronavirus,” the report continues with Megan Squire, a professor at Elon University in North Carolina adding, “They view it as a chance to turn people.”
Singling out so-called “accelerationists” who anticipate a race war in the near future, the report notes, “Some label their expected second civil war ‘the boogaloo,’ and experts have tracked a spike in interest in the term on social media, plus a proliferation of advice on how to prepare.The name is a pop culture reference derived from a 1984 movie flop that became a cult classic called ‘Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.’ It went through various mutations and emerged sometimes as the ‘Big Igloo’ or the ‘Big Luau.’ That is why adherents sometimes wear Hawaiian shirts, say those who track them. Many such shirts were in evidence when armed protesters stormed the state capital in Lansing, Mich., Thursday and they have appeared in rallies across the country.”
You can read more here.
Funding hate: How online merchants and payment processors aid white nationalists
Amazon, DonorBox and Stripe are among the companies helping white nationalist groups sell goods and raise money
ALEX KOTCH - CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY - salon
APRIL 27, 2020 10:20AM (UTC)
...But a new report from the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has found that dozens of groups that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) considers white nationalist, neo-Nazi or neo-Confederate hate groups are still able to accept donations and sell products with the help of mainstream companies such as Amazon, DonorBox and Stripe.
Among the more egregious examples are two notorious white nationalist groups that share leadership and hold conferences together.
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white nationalist hate group that is the modern incarnation of the mid-20th century White Citizens Councils, considers black people to be "a retrograde species of humanity." Its website helped radicalize the young Dylann Roof, who read about alleged "black-on-white crime" online and then gunned down nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Earlier this month, a donate button on the CCC website triggered a Wordpress widget created by DonorBox that allowed users to contribute to an allied white nationalist hate group, the American Freedom Party (AFP), via credit card, facilitated by payment processor Stripe. The DonorBox plugin is free, but if an organization takes in $1,000 or more per month, DonorBox charges a 1.5 percent platform fee. Stripe charges recipients a 2.9 percent fee plus 30 cents per card transaction. AFP's own site also had a DonorBox button.
A DonorBox spokesperson told CMD that the two groups violate its Terms of Service and had already been banned, but "they have resorted to using fraudulent names and email addresses to sign up again." The company banned AFP and CCC once more, but since then, AFP was able to set up yet another account. As of April 25, AFP's site still had an active DonorBox donation option.
While AFP's DonorBox account was shut down earlier this month, it was still able to receive money through Stripe. On the morning of April 6, a new "Donate" button appeared on the group's website, which linked to a GiveForms web form that facilitates donations to AFP. As of April 25, both groups' sites had active GiveForms donation options.
GiveForms, a paid plugin, explicitly bans "the promotion of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, terrorism, or intolerance of any kind." Founder Philip Lester told CMD that SPLC's hate group designation alone was not enough to ban AFP from GiveForms. "Unfortunately, a third party's accusation of someone being racist or a hate group doesn't violate our terms," he said. "There needs to be concrete evidence of this from their own communications" on the group's site, social media, or other public platforms.
Founded in 2009 by Southern California racist skinheads as American Third Position, AFP advocates the deportation of all non-white U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants. The group believes that "whites deserve a nation of their own," and "non-whites endanger white culture and society," according to SPLC.
AFP's current mission statement reads, "The American Freedom Party is a party that represents the interests and issues of White Americans and all Americans who support our mission."
After calling this emphasis on white Americans "concerning," Lester corresponded with the administrator of the AFP site and decided not to shut down the account. "He makes a point," said Lester of their exchange. "If other cultures are encouraged to promote their culture, why is it racist for white/European people to promote theirs?"
"Philip Lester's statements betray a categorical misunderstanding of the history of racism in the United States and its central role in upholding white supremacy," Howard Graves, senior research analyst at SPLC, told CMD. "While the group might moderate some of its views in more public forums — such as its website — its leadership and ranks include notable white nationalists and anti-Semites, often operating behind the thin veneer of advocating for 'white civil rights,'" Graves said.
Jamie Kelso, a white nationalist organizer and former member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, joined AFP as an officer in 2013 and described both himself and the group as a "bridge" between the white supremacist movement and more mainstream conservative groups.
The Political Cesspool, an SPLC-designated hate group and podcast created by CCC members and advertised on the CCC website, uses Stripe to process credit card donations on its site. A director of AFP, James Edwards, is also a board member of CCC and co-hosts The Political Cesspool.
"A deep fear of demographic change"
Last year, there were 940 active hate groups in the U.S., according to an SPLC report. This total includes new white nationalist groups, which increased in number by 55 percent since 2017, as President Donald Trump has energized such groups. White nationalists have contributed to a rise in hate crimes, including terrorist attacks on synagogues and mosques, and a Walmart store in a heavily Latino area of El Paso, Texas
A false conspiracy theory, which is promoted by many of the white nationalist hate groups that use online fundraising services, is driving these acts of violence.
"The most powerful force animating today's radical right — and stoking the violent backlash — is a deep fear of demographic change," reads the SPLC report. "This fear is encapsulated in the conspiratorial notion that a purposeful 'white genocide' is underway and that it's driving 'the great replacement' of white people in their 'home' countries by foreign, non-white populations."
Terrorists such as Roof and the suspected gunman who killed 51 people in New Zealand last year have murdered African Americans, Latinos, Jews and Muslims because of alleged "white genocide."
This fear of demographic change links the white nationalist, neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate groups that are still able to use online fundraising platforms. Despite a clear correlation between the promotion of this ideology and racist hate crimes, a number of online merchants and payment processing companies either don't enforce their terms of service consistently or don't have strong enough policies to ban dangerous hate groups.
Stripe
Because of CMD's inquiry, DonorBox initiated investigations into the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, which sells books by white nationalist authors, and major white nationalist media outlet Red Ice. As of April 25, roughly three weeks later, both groups still had active DonorBox fundraising accounts.
While DonorBox currently services three white nationalist groups, at least nine organizations that SPLC considers white nationalist or neo-Confederate hate groups use Stripe to raise money. The company has done very little to bar bad actors from using its services and did not respond to CMD's requests for comment.
A private fintech startup that has been valued in the tens of billions, Stripe says it will not work with "any business or organization that ... engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic." By basing its terms on the promotion of violence, rather than hateful ideology that could lead people to violence, the company allows itself to earn money from clients that are hate groups but may not explicitly encourage physical harm.
---
The Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, operates FGF Books and sells books by white nationalists Joseph Sobran, a Holocaust denier, and Samuel T. Francis. Visitors to the site can purchase books and ebooks via Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Apple Books, and can donate to the foundation via DonorBox and Stripe. In 2017, Apple Pay cut off some white nationalist sellers, but Apple Books still sells white nationalist literature.
An influential white nationalist, the late Francis feared a demographic threat posed by "immigration, nonwhite fertility and whites' own infertility" and called for ending immigration, deploying armed forces at U.S. borders, and deporting all undocumented immigrants.
Online media operation Red Ice, "one of the most prominent video news outlets for white nationalists," according to SPLC, accepts donations via DonorBox, processed by Stripe, as well as through cryptocurrency. Users can also pay for Red Ice membership with a credit card through a payment system using Stripe on its website. The propaganda outlet traffics in white nationalism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and the white genocide myth.
White nationalist media group Renaissance Horizon raises money in several ways, including via its website with payments facilitated by Stripe.
The Right Stuff is a white nationalist network with a website that features a blog and podcasts hosted by network leader Mike Peinovich, who is "among the most influential and significant figures of the contemporary racist right," according to SPLC. The site publishes several podcasts including The Daily Shoah and Fash the Nation. Users can purchase memberships, which grant them access to paywalled content, by paying by credit card via Stripe. Local chapters have scored on-the-ground recruits by using a members-only forum on the site.
The VDARE Foundation is a Virginia-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that runs an anti-immigrant hate website that regularly publishes the writings of prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites, including Sam Francis and white nationalist Kevin MacDonald, known for his extreme anti-Semitism. It is led by British-American white nationalist Peter Brimelow.
"There's ethnic specialization in crime," said Brimelow at the 2017 American Renaissance conference, referencing Trump's hateful statements on Mexican immigrants. "And Hispanics do specialize in rape, particularly of children. They're very prone to it, compared to other groups."
Users can donate to the foundation through a web form on the VDARE.com site, facilitated by Stripe.
---
The white nationalist H.L. Mencken Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Paul Gottfried and "alt-right" leader Richard Spencer with funding from William Regnery, who is also the founder of two other white nationalist hate groups run by Spencer, the National Policy Institute and the Charles Martel Society. The H.L. Mencken Club hosts annual conferences that have featured leading white nationalists, including VDARE leader Brimelow, who gave a talk titled "The Festering Immigration Problem" in 2017.
PayPal
In a statement shortly after the Unite the Right hate rally, PayPal said, "Regardless of the individual or organization in question, we work to ensure that our services are not used to accept payments or donations for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance. This includes organizations that advocate racist views, such as the KKK, white supremacist groups or Nazi groups."
---
Amazon
Jeff Bezos' giant online store has profited from hate for years. A 2018 report by the Action Center on Race & the Economy and the Partnership for Working Families found that Amazon spread white supremacist views, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia by selling merchandise featuring hate symbols, books by bigoted publishers and hate music.
Amazon has removed Nazi-themed merchandise, but its policy restricting "offensive and controversial materials," which prohibits the sale of "products that promote, incite, or glorify hate or violence towards any person or group," doesn't apply to books, music and videos. Over the last year and a half, however, Amazon banned the sale of books by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Still, several white nationalist publishers and authors continue to make money from Amazon's marketplace.
---
The Colchester Collection is "the Web's largest pro-White bookstore," according to the collection's Gab profile. Its site makes hundreds of racist titles available for free in PDF and HTML formats and links to purchase hard copies, most often from Amazon. Many titles are available in Kindle format, meaning they're sold by Amazon.com Services LLC.
Amazon sells the books of white nationalist twin brothers Sacco and Vanzetti Vandal, known collectively as Vandal Brothers, LLC. Sacco Vandal, an ex-Marine alt-right figure, created the "white Sharia" meme and advocates "extreme tribal patriarchy in the ethnostate" of rural America. These militant white nationalists call for a violent "race war" against feminists, African Americans, Muslims and immigrants.
The Shieldwall Network's founder Billy Roper sells his books on Amazon and ABE Books. The Arkansas-based Shieldwall Network wants to build a white ethnostate around the Arkansas-Missouri border. "I have a lot of empathy for him," Roper told New York Magazine, referencing Dylann Roof. The network "trains in military-style formations," according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Amazon sells a Radix Journal ebook, as well as an expensive paperback version, called "The Great Erasure: The Reconstruction of White Identity." It was edited by Richard Spencer and includes writings by Kevin MacDonald, Sam Francis, Colin Liddell and others. White nationalist hate group Washington Summit Publishers published the volume.
The Alexandria, Virginia-based Washington Summit Publishers "reprints a range of classical and modern racist tracts, along with books on eugenics, the discredited 'science' of breeding better humans," according to SPLC. Washington Summit Publishers is run by Spencer and publishes the Radix Journal, also a white nationalist hate group and a project of Spencer's National Policy Institute. Amazon sells another book edited by Spencer, published by Radix.
Arktos Media, a Europe-based publisher of white nationalist books and music, sells its books and ebooks on Amazon and audiobooks on the Amazon-owned Audible, and it streams music on Apple Music, iTunes and Spotify. It also produces a podcast that's available on iTunes, Spotify and its own YouTube channel. It uses Mailchimp to manage its newsletter.
Among the more extreme titles written by fascists and sold by Arktos is "Guillaume Faye and the Battle for Europe," "a compilation of postings from American neo-Nazi websites including Vanguard News Network and National Vanguard." The Vanguard News Network has been blamed for murders motiviated by anti-Semitism. Arktos is closely tied to Richard Spencer, Red Ice and the white nationalist terrorist group the American Identity Movement (AIM).
[...]
Among the more egregious examples are two notorious white nationalist groups that share leadership and hold conferences together.
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white nationalist hate group that is the modern incarnation of the mid-20th century White Citizens Councils, considers black people to be "a retrograde species of humanity." Its website helped radicalize the young Dylann Roof, who read about alleged "black-on-white crime" online and then gunned down nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Earlier this month, a donate button on the CCC website triggered a Wordpress widget created by DonorBox that allowed users to contribute to an allied white nationalist hate group, the American Freedom Party (AFP), via credit card, facilitated by payment processor Stripe. The DonorBox plugin is free, but if an organization takes in $1,000 or more per month, DonorBox charges a 1.5 percent platform fee. Stripe charges recipients a 2.9 percent fee plus 30 cents per card transaction. AFP's own site also had a DonorBox button.
A DonorBox spokesperson told CMD that the two groups violate its Terms of Service and had already been banned, but "they have resorted to using fraudulent names and email addresses to sign up again." The company banned AFP and CCC once more, but since then, AFP was able to set up yet another account. As of April 25, AFP's site still had an active DonorBox donation option.
While AFP's DonorBox account was shut down earlier this month, it was still able to receive money through Stripe. On the morning of April 6, a new "Donate" button appeared on the group's website, which linked to a GiveForms web form that facilitates donations to AFP. As of April 25, both groups' sites had active GiveForms donation options.
GiveForms, a paid plugin, explicitly bans "the promotion of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, terrorism, or intolerance of any kind." Founder Philip Lester told CMD that SPLC's hate group designation alone was not enough to ban AFP from GiveForms. "Unfortunately, a third party's accusation of someone being racist or a hate group doesn't violate our terms," he said. "There needs to be concrete evidence of this from their own communications" on the group's site, social media, or other public platforms.
Founded in 2009 by Southern California racist skinheads as American Third Position, AFP advocates the deportation of all non-white U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants. The group believes that "whites deserve a nation of their own," and "non-whites endanger white culture and society," according to SPLC.
AFP's current mission statement reads, "The American Freedom Party is a party that represents the interests and issues of White Americans and all Americans who support our mission."
After calling this emphasis on white Americans "concerning," Lester corresponded with the administrator of the AFP site and decided not to shut down the account. "He makes a point," said Lester of their exchange. "If other cultures are encouraged to promote their culture, why is it racist for white/European people to promote theirs?"
"Philip Lester's statements betray a categorical misunderstanding of the history of racism in the United States and its central role in upholding white supremacy," Howard Graves, senior research analyst at SPLC, told CMD. "While the group might moderate some of its views in more public forums — such as its website — its leadership and ranks include notable white nationalists and anti-Semites, often operating behind the thin veneer of advocating for 'white civil rights,'" Graves said.
Jamie Kelso, a white nationalist organizer and former member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, joined AFP as an officer in 2013 and described both himself and the group as a "bridge" between the white supremacist movement and more mainstream conservative groups.
The Political Cesspool, an SPLC-designated hate group and podcast created by CCC members and advertised on the CCC website, uses Stripe to process credit card donations on its site. A director of AFP, James Edwards, is also a board member of CCC and co-hosts The Political Cesspool.
"A deep fear of demographic change"
Last year, there were 940 active hate groups in the U.S., according to an SPLC report. This total includes new white nationalist groups, which increased in number by 55 percent since 2017, as President Donald Trump has energized such groups. White nationalists have contributed to a rise in hate crimes, including terrorist attacks on synagogues and mosques, and a Walmart store in a heavily Latino area of El Paso, Texas
A false conspiracy theory, which is promoted by many of the white nationalist hate groups that use online fundraising services, is driving these acts of violence.
"The most powerful force animating today's radical right — and stoking the violent backlash — is a deep fear of demographic change," reads the SPLC report. "This fear is encapsulated in the conspiratorial notion that a purposeful 'white genocide' is underway and that it's driving 'the great replacement' of white people in their 'home' countries by foreign, non-white populations."
Terrorists such as Roof and the suspected gunman who killed 51 people in New Zealand last year have murdered African Americans, Latinos, Jews and Muslims because of alleged "white genocide."
This fear of demographic change links the white nationalist, neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate groups that are still able to use online fundraising platforms. Despite a clear correlation between the promotion of this ideology and racist hate crimes, a number of online merchants and payment processing companies either don't enforce their terms of service consistently or don't have strong enough policies to ban dangerous hate groups.
Stripe
Because of CMD's inquiry, DonorBox initiated investigations into the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, which sells books by white nationalist authors, and major white nationalist media outlet Red Ice. As of April 25, roughly three weeks later, both groups still had active DonorBox fundraising accounts.
While DonorBox currently services three white nationalist groups, at least nine organizations that SPLC considers white nationalist or neo-Confederate hate groups use Stripe to raise money. The company has done very little to bar bad actors from using its services and did not respond to CMD's requests for comment.
A private fintech startup that has been valued in the tens of billions, Stripe says it will not work with "any business or organization that ... engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic." By basing its terms on the promotion of violence, rather than hateful ideology that could lead people to violence, the company allows itself to earn money from clients that are hate groups but may not explicitly encourage physical harm.
---
The Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, operates FGF Books and sells books by white nationalists Joseph Sobran, a Holocaust denier, and Samuel T. Francis. Visitors to the site can purchase books and ebooks via Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Apple Books, and can donate to the foundation via DonorBox and Stripe. In 2017, Apple Pay cut off some white nationalist sellers, but Apple Books still sells white nationalist literature.
An influential white nationalist, the late Francis feared a demographic threat posed by "immigration, nonwhite fertility and whites' own infertility" and called for ending immigration, deploying armed forces at U.S. borders, and deporting all undocumented immigrants.
Online media operation Red Ice, "one of the most prominent video news outlets for white nationalists," according to SPLC, accepts donations via DonorBox, processed by Stripe, as well as through cryptocurrency. Users can also pay for Red Ice membership with a credit card through a payment system using Stripe on its website. The propaganda outlet traffics in white nationalism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and the white genocide myth.
White nationalist media group Renaissance Horizon raises money in several ways, including via its website with payments facilitated by Stripe.
The Right Stuff is a white nationalist network with a website that features a blog and podcasts hosted by network leader Mike Peinovich, who is "among the most influential and significant figures of the contemporary racist right," according to SPLC. The site publishes several podcasts including The Daily Shoah and Fash the Nation. Users can purchase memberships, which grant them access to paywalled content, by paying by credit card via Stripe. Local chapters have scored on-the-ground recruits by using a members-only forum on the site.
The VDARE Foundation is a Virginia-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that runs an anti-immigrant hate website that regularly publishes the writings of prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites, including Sam Francis and white nationalist Kevin MacDonald, known for his extreme anti-Semitism. It is led by British-American white nationalist Peter Brimelow.
"There's ethnic specialization in crime," said Brimelow at the 2017 American Renaissance conference, referencing Trump's hateful statements on Mexican immigrants. "And Hispanics do specialize in rape, particularly of children. They're very prone to it, compared to other groups."
Users can donate to the foundation through a web form on the VDARE.com site, facilitated by Stripe.
---
The white nationalist H.L. Mencken Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Paul Gottfried and "alt-right" leader Richard Spencer with funding from William Regnery, who is also the founder of two other white nationalist hate groups run by Spencer, the National Policy Institute and the Charles Martel Society. The H.L. Mencken Club hosts annual conferences that have featured leading white nationalists, including VDARE leader Brimelow, who gave a talk titled "The Festering Immigration Problem" in 2017.
PayPal
In a statement shortly after the Unite the Right hate rally, PayPal said, "Regardless of the individual or organization in question, we work to ensure that our services are not used to accept payments or donations for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance. This includes organizations that advocate racist views, such as the KKK, white supremacist groups or Nazi groups."
---
Amazon
Jeff Bezos' giant online store has profited from hate for years. A 2018 report by the Action Center on Race & the Economy and the Partnership for Working Families found that Amazon spread white supremacist views, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia by selling merchandise featuring hate symbols, books by bigoted publishers and hate music.
Amazon has removed Nazi-themed merchandise, but its policy restricting "offensive and controversial materials," which prohibits the sale of "products that promote, incite, or glorify hate or violence towards any person or group," doesn't apply to books, music and videos. Over the last year and a half, however, Amazon banned the sale of books by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Still, several white nationalist publishers and authors continue to make money from Amazon's marketplace.
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The Colchester Collection is "the Web's largest pro-White bookstore," according to the collection's Gab profile. Its site makes hundreds of racist titles available for free in PDF and HTML formats and links to purchase hard copies, most often from Amazon. Many titles are available in Kindle format, meaning they're sold by Amazon.com Services LLC.
Amazon sells the books of white nationalist twin brothers Sacco and Vanzetti Vandal, known collectively as Vandal Brothers, LLC. Sacco Vandal, an ex-Marine alt-right figure, created the "white Sharia" meme and advocates "extreme tribal patriarchy in the ethnostate" of rural America. These militant white nationalists call for a violent "race war" against feminists, African Americans, Muslims and immigrants.
The Shieldwall Network's founder Billy Roper sells his books on Amazon and ABE Books. The Arkansas-based Shieldwall Network wants to build a white ethnostate around the Arkansas-Missouri border. "I have a lot of empathy for him," Roper told New York Magazine, referencing Dylann Roof. The network "trains in military-style formations," according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Amazon sells a Radix Journal ebook, as well as an expensive paperback version, called "The Great Erasure: The Reconstruction of White Identity." It was edited by Richard Spencer and includes writings by Kevin MacDonald, Sam Francis, Colin Liddell and others. White nationalist hate group Washington Summit Publishers published the volume.
The Alexandria, Virginia-based Washington Summit Publishers "reprints a range of classical and modern racist tracts, along with books on eugenics, the discredited 'science' of breeding better humans," according to SPLC. Washington Summit Publishers is run by Spencer and publishes the Radix Journal, also a white nationalist hate group and a project of Spencer's National Policy Institute. Amazon sells another book edited by Spencer, published by Radix.
Arktos Media, a Europe-based publisher of white nationalist books and music, sells its books and ebooks on Amazon and audiobooks on the Amazon-owned Audible, and it streams music on Apple Music, iTunes and Spotify. It also produces a podcast that's available on iTunes, Spotify and its own YouTube channel. It uses Mailchimp to manage its newsletter.
Among the more extreme titles written by fascists and sold by Arktos is "Guillaume Faye and the Battle for Europe," "a compilation of postings from American neo-Nazi websites including Vanguard News Network and National Vanguard." The Vanguard News Network has been blamed for murders motiviated by anti-Semitism. Arktos is closely tied to Richard Spencer, Red Ice and the white nationalist terrorist group the American Identity Movement (AIM).
[...]
Tim Wise on Trump, the coronavirus and the pandemic of white privilege
Anti-racist author and educator: Trump is "willing to kill tens of thousands of white people" to win re-election
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
APRIL 22, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
...White privilege takes many forms. Nonwhites and Muslims would never be allowed to behave in such a threatening manner. If hundreds of camouflage-wearing, heavily armed, black and brown people and/or Muslims (or "socialists," for that matter) gathered in state capitals across the country with the goal of threatening, intimidating and inciting armed rebellion against state governments, police and other law enforcement agencies would have likely used lethal force.
Tim Wise, who is one of America's leading antiracism activists and scholars, and the author of such bestselling books as "White Like Me," "Dear White America" and "Under the Affluence," has described Donald Trump as a "human opioid" of white privilege, white rage and white racism.
C.D. You have described Donald Trump as a "human opioid" of white privilege, racism and anger. Watching Trump's negligent and malicious response to the coronavirus, and the enduring love and support from his cult-like supporters, has proven the wisdom of your observation. If Donald Trump were a black man or a Latino or a woman he would have been removed from office several years ago.
T.W. Only white people, especially white men, are allowed to be as incompetent as Donald Trump and still remain in positions of power. Donald Trump and his administration's foot-dragging in response to the coronavirus was intended to keep his poll numbers up. It was intended to not scare the markets. It was intended to put a happy face on things, but all of that obviously delayed much-needed testing. It delayed the rollout of the economic package which just passed. As a practical matter, Trump's incompetence delayed getting money to people who desperately need it. And of course, Trump's incompetence delayed getting the masks, ventilators and other equipment that was needed to save lives.
Tens of thousands of white people are going to die because of Donald Trump's incompetence. And much of that incompetence and delay in taking the necessary steps to prepare the country to better deal with the virus was connected to his xenophobia and his racism, with his obsessions with China and the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border as somehow being responsible for the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, or a way of stopping it from coming here.
A good number of those people who are going to die are Trump's voters. It is very obvious that Donald Trump and his administration are willing to kill his own base of supporters in order to try to win re-election in 2020.
C.D. Why is there still so much shock and denial among the American people and the mainstream news media about the Trump regime's cruelty and malevolence? For example, Trump and his servants have been denying needed medical equipment to Democrat-controlled cities and other parts of the country. People are dying as a result of that decision. Trump and his inner circle have been profit-seeking and engaging in other corrupt behavior during the pandemic. Trump and his sycophants have consistently put Trump's re-election as being more important than the American people's lives. They want people to go back to work and risk death. None of this should be a surprise, given America's history of violence against nonwhite people. Why the cries of, "This is not who we are!" when in so many ways it is?
T.W. That can all be explained by the country's broken educational system. Obviously, most people really don't know the history of the United States. Moreover, they don't even know the most basic contours and realities of the way that this country has actually operated for most of its history.
It's also motivated reasoning. If we start with the premise that most people are decent, then that makes it harder to look into the face of America's ugliness. There is also the question of being implicated in that ugliness and injustice. Denying those facts makes it easier to function.
If you're white, especially, and if you're middle-class or above and you've got health care while other people do not, then you are implicated in an unjust system.
As James Baldwin said, "Once you acknowledge the truth, now you're on the hook." White folks really don't want to be on the hook. So it's easier to deny what all of our senses are telling us. Donald Trump is so bold with his racism and racial resentment that he makes it harder for white people to deny the reality of this country's past and present.
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C.D. Let's engage in a thought experiment: If white folks had realized in the 1960s that racism and white supremacy hurts them too, what would America look like today? Specifically, if white Americans had had such an epiphany, how would the country be positioned to respond to the coronavirus pandemic right now?
T.W. Many things would be different in the United States and the world. Of course, there would be some people still locked in the cult mentality of racism. They would not change. But in terms of positive changes, there would be a more robust social welfare system than the piecemeal one that exists today with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The Great Society was greatly limited by anti-black animus and racism.
The social democracy that the New Deal tried to create would also be broader and more inclusive, and therefore much stronger and more resolute in the present and future. All the federal programs that white people love, such as the GI Bill and FHA and VA home loan programs which basically created the white American middle class, would have been expanded to more fully include black and brown Americans.
The United States would also have a much better and more robust public health care system if white racism and racial resentment had not been used by conservatives and those allied with them to gut the government's infrastructure and the very idea that government can do good in the world.
Especially worth highlighting in this moment of fake right-wing "populism" is how the pain that working-class white people have been experiencing in the last 50 years about their jobs, the economy and their lives more generally would have been greatly limited in a true multiracial social democracy. There are many positive changes which would have made for a better, more affluent, prosperous, healthy and safe American society, if not for the power of white supremacy.
Tim Wise, who is one of America's leading antiracism activists and scholars, and the author of such bestselling books as "White Like Me," "Dear White America" and "Under the Affluence," has described Donald Trump as a "human opioid" of white privilege, white rage and white racism.
C.D. You have described Donald Trump as a "human opioid" of white privilege, racism and anger. Watching Trump's negligent and malicious response to the coronavirus, and the enduring love and support from his cult-like supporters, has proven the wisdom of your observation. If Donald Trump were a black man or a Latino or a woman he would have been removed from office several years ago.
T.W. Only white people, especially white men, are allowed to be as incompetent as Donald Trump and still remain in positions of power. Donald Trump and his administration's foot-dragging in response to the coronavirus was intended to keep his poll numbers up. It was intended to not scare the markets. It was intended to put a happy face on things, but all of that obviously delayed much-needed testing. It delayed the rollout of the economic package which just passed. As a practical matter, Trump's incompetence delayed getting money to people who desperately need it. And of course, Trump's incompetence delayed getting the masks, ventilators and other equipment that was needed to save lives.
Tens of thousands of white people are going to die because of Donald Trump's incompetence. And much of that incompetence and delay in taking the necessary steps to prepare the country to better deal with the virus was connected to his xenophobia and his racism, with his obsessions with China and the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border as somehow being responsible for the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, or a way of stopping it from coming here.
A good number of those people who are going to die are Trump's voters. It is very obvious that Donald Trump and his administration are willing to kill his own base of supporters in order to try to win re-election in 2020.
C.D. Why is there still so much shock and denial among the American people and the mainstream news media about the Trump regime's cruelty and malevolence? For example, Trump and his servants have been denying needed medical equipment to Democrat-controlled cities and other parts of the country. People are dying as a result of that decision. Trump and his inner circle have been profit-seeking and engaging in other corrupt behavior during the pandemic. Trump and his sycophants have consistently put Trump's re-election as being more important than the American people's lives. They want people to go back to work and risk death. None of this should be a surprise, given America's history of violence against nonwhite people. Why the cries of, "This is not who we are!" when in so many ways it is?
T.W. That can all be explained by the country's broken educational system. Obviously, most people really don't know the history of the United States. Moreover, they don't even know the most basic contours and realities of the way that this country has actually operated for most of its history.
It's also motivated reasoning. If we start with the premise that most people are decent, then that makes it harder to look into the face of America's ugliness. There is also the question of being implicated in that ugliness and injustice. Denying those facts makes it easier to function.
If you're white, especially, and if you're middle-class or above and you've got health care while other people do not, then you are implicated in an unjust system.
As James Baldwin said, "Once you acknowledge the truth, now you're on the hook." White folks really don't want to be on the hook. So it's easier to deny what all of our senses are telling us. Donald Trump is so bold with his racism and racial resentment that he makes it harder for white people to deny the reality of this country's past and present.
---
C.D. Let's engage in a thought experiment: If white folks had realized in the 1960s that racism and white supremacy hurts them too, what would America look like today? Specifically, if white Americans had had such an epiphany, how would the country be positioned to respond to the coronavirus pandemic right now?
T.W. Many things would be different in the United States and the world. Of course, there would be some people still locked in the cult mentality of racism. They would not change. But in terms of positive changes, there would be a more robust social welfare system than the piecemeal one that exists today with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The Great Society was greatly limited by anti-black animus and racism.
The social democracy that the New Deal tried to create would also be broader and more inclusive, and therefore much stronger and more resolute in the present and future. All the federal programs that white people love, such as the GI Bill and FHA and VA home loan programs which basically created the white American middle class, would have been expanded to more fully include black and brown Americans.
The United States would also have a much better and more robust public health care system if white racism and racial resentment had not been used by conservatives and those allied with them to gut the government's infrastructure and the very idea that government can do good in the world.
Especially worth highlighting in this moment of fake right-wing "populism" is how the pain that working-class white people have been experiencing in the last 50 years about their jobs, the economy and their lives more generally would have been greatly limited in a true multiracial social democracy. There are many positive changes which would have made for a better, more affluent, prosperous, healthy and safe American society, if not for the power of white supremacy.
The Hate Store: Amazon’s Self-Publishing Arm Is a Haven for White Supremacists
The company gives extremists and neo-Nazis banned from other platforms unprecedented access to a mainstream audience — and even promotes their books.
by Ava Kofman, ProPublica, and Francis Tseng and Moira Weigel for ProPublica
April 7, 5 a.m. EDT
“Give me, a white man, a reason to live,” a user posted to the anonymous message board 4chan in the summer of 2017. “Should I get a hobby. What interests can I pursue to save myself from total despair. How do you go on living.”
A fellow user had a suggestion: “Please write a concise book of only factual indisputable information exposing the Jews,” focusing on “their selling of our high tech secrets to China/Russia” and “their long track record of pedophilia and perversion etc.”
The man seeking advice was intrigued. “And who would publish it and who would put it in their bookstores that would make it worth the trouble,” he asked.
The answer came a few minutes later. “Self-publish to Amazon,” his interlocutor replied.
“Kindle will publish anything,” a third user chimed in.
They were basically right. It takes just a couple of minutes to upload one’s work to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s self-publishing arm; the e-book then shows up in the world’s largest bookstore within half a day, typically with minimal oversight. Since its founding more than a decade ago, KDP has democratized the publishing industry and earned praise for giving authors shut out of traditional channels the chance to reach an audience that would have been previously unimaginable.
It has also afforded the same opportunity to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, an investigation by ProPublica and The Atlantic has found. Releases include “Anschluss: The Politics of Vesica Piscis,” a polemic that praises the “grossly underappreciated” massacre of 77 people by the Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik in 2011, and “The White Rabbit Handbook,” a manifesto linked to an Illinois-based militia group facing federal hate-crime charges for firebombing a mosque. (Amazon removed the latter last week following questions from ProPublica.) About 200 of the 1,500 books recommended by the Colchester Collection, an online reading room run by and for white nationalists, were self-published through Amazon. And new KDP acolytes are born every day: Members of fringe groups on 4chan, Discord and Telegram regularly tout the platform’s convenience, according to our analysis of thousands of conversations on those message boards. There are “literally zero hoops,” one user in 4chan’s /pol/ forum told another in 2015. “Just sign up for Kindle Direct Publishing and publish away. It’s shocking how simple it is, actually.” Even Breivik, at the start of the 1,500-page manifesto that accompanied his terrorist attacks, suggested that his followers use KDP’s paperback service, among others, to publicize his message.
That these books are widely available on Amazon does not seem to be an accident but the inevitable consequence of the company’s business strategy. Interviews with more than two dozen former Amazon employees suggest that the company’s drive for market share and philosophical aversion to gatekeepers have incubated an anything-goes approach to content: Virtually no idea is too inflammatory, and no author is off-limits. As major social networks and other publishing platforms have worked to ban extremists, Amazon has emerged as their safe space, a haven from which they can spread their message into mainstream American culture with little more than a few clicks.
“There is a lot of extremist content on Amazon,” said J. M. Berger, who studies such works as a fellow with the E.U.-funded VOX-Pol research network. “The platform has gone largely overlooked because, understandably, we think of books differently than other content. But these products are for sale and they’re being algorithmically pushed.” We tested the recommendations for many far-right texts and discovered several that could lead users down a hate-filled rabbit hole, where the suggested books reinforce a white nationalist worldview. For e-books that retail between $2.99 and $9.99, authors keep 70% of the profits and Amazon takes the rest. (Amazon doesn’t break out revenue for book sales or its self-publishing arm.)
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The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Billy Roper “the uncensored voice of violent neo-Nazism”; Roper calls himself “the most widely read living fiction author in the white nationalist movement.” For several decades, he has led some of the white-nationalist movement’s most hardcore factions, and today he runs the ShieldWall Network, a group attempting to build a whites-only ethno-state in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, where he lives. (The group made headlines last year for organizing a protest of a Holocaust-remembrance event, at which they shouted the slogan “6 million more.”)[...]
A fellow user had a suggestion: “Please write a concise book of only factual indisputable information exposing the Jews,” focusing on “their selling of our high tech secrets to China/Russia” and “their long track record of pedophilia and perversion etc.”
The man seeking advice was intrigued. “And who would publish it and who would put it in their bookstores that would make it worth the trouble,” he asked.
The answer came a few minutes later. “Self-publish to Amazon,” his interlocutor replied.
“Kindle will publish anything,” a third user chimed in.
They were basically right. It takes just a couple of minutes to upload one’s work to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s self-publishing arm; the e-book then shows up in the world’s largest bookstore within half a day, typically with minimal oversight. Since its founding more than a decade ago, KDP has democratized the publishing industry and earned praise for giving authors shut out of traditional channels the chance to reach an audience that would have been previously unimaginable.
It has also afforded the same opportunity to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, an investigation by ProPublica and The Atlantic has found. Releases include “Anschluss: The Politics of Vesica Piscis,” a polemic that praises the “grossly underappreciated” massacre of 77 people by the Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik in 2011, and “The White Rabbit Handbook,” a manifesto linked to an Illinois-based militia group facing federal hate-crime charges for firebombing a mosque. (Amazon removed the latter last week following questions from ProPublica.) About 200 of the 1,500 books recommended by the Colchester Collection, an online reading room run by and for white nationalists, were self-published through Amazon. And new KDP acolytes are born every day: Members of fringe groups on 4chan, Discord and Telegram regularly tout the platform’s convenience, according to our analysis of thousands of conversations on those message boards. There are “literally zero hoops,” one user in 4chan’s /pol/ forum told another in 2015. “Just sign up for Kindle Direct Publishing and publish away. It’s shocking how simple it is, actually.” Even Breivik, at the start of the 1,500-page manifesto that accompanied his terrorist attacks, suggested that his followers use KDP’s paperback service, among others, to publicize his message.
That these books are widely available on Amazon does not seem to be an accident but the inevitable consequence of the company’s business strategy. Interviews with more than two dozen former Amazon employees suggest that the company’s drive for market share and philosophical aversion to gatekeepers have incubated an anything-goes approach to content: Virtually no idea is too inflammatory, and no author is off-limits. As major social networks and other publishing platforms have worked to ban extremists, Amazon has emerged as their safe space, a haven from which they can spread their message into mainstream American culture with little more than a few clicks.
“There is a lot of extremist content on Amazon,” said J. M. Berger, who studies such works as a fellow with the E.U.-funded VOX-Pol research network. “The platform has gone largely overlooked because, understandably, we think of books differently than other content. But these products are for sale and they’re being algorithmically pushed.” We tested the recommendations for many far-right texts and discovered several that could lead users down a hate-filled rabbit hole, where the suggested books reinforce a white nationalist worldview. For e-books that retail between $2.99 and $9.99, authors keep 70% of the profits and Amazon takes the rest. (Amazon doesn’t break out revenue for book sales or its self-publishing arm.)
---
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Billy Roper “the uncensored voice of violent neo-Nazism”; Roper calls himself “the most widely read living fiction author in the white nationalist movement.” For several decades, he has led some of the white-nationalist movement’s most hardcore factions, and today he runs the ShieldWall Network, a group attempting to build a whites-only ethno-state in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, where he lives. (The group made headlines last year for organizing a protest of a Holocaust-remembrance event, at which they shouted the slogan “6 million more.”)[...]
White supremacists are encouraging members to infect Jews with coronavirus: FBI
March 23, 2020
By Brad Reed - raw story
The FBI is warning that white supremacists have started encouraging their followers to contract COVID-19 and then intentionally spread it to police officers and Jews.
ABC News reports that the FBI’s New York office sent out an alert recently that warned neo-Nazi groups are pushing members to spread the virus though “bodily fluids and personal interactions” to their perceived enemies.
“The FBI alert, which went out on Thursday, told local police agencies that extremists want their followers to try to use spray bottles to spread bodily fluids to cops on the street,” ABC News reports. “The extremists are also directing followers to spread the disease to Jews by going “any place they may be congregated, to include markets, political offices, businesses and places of worship.”
Michael Masters, the head of Secure Communities Network that coordinates security for synagogues, tells ABC News that neo-Nazis have been claiming that Jews are responsible for the spread of the virus in the United States.
“From pushing the idea that Jews created the coronavirus virus to sell vaccines to encouraging infected followers to try to spread the illness to the Jewish community and law enforcement, as the coronavirus has spread, we have observed how white-supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have used this to drive their own conspiracy theories, spread disinformation and incite violence on their online platforms,” he explains.
ABC News reports that the FBI’s New York office sent out an alert recently that warned neo-Nazi groups are pushing members to spread the virus though “bodily fluids and personal interactions” to their perceived enemies.
“The FBI alert, which went out on Thursday, told local police agencies that extremists want their followers to try to use spray bottles to spread bodily fluids to cops on the street,” ABC News reports. “The extremists are also directing followers to spread the disease to Jews by going “any place they may be congregated, to include markets, political offices, businesses and places of worship.”
Michael Masters, the head of Secure Communities Network that coordinates security for synagogues, tells ABC News that neo-Nazis have been claiming that Jews are responsible for the spread of the virus in the United States.
“From pushing the idea that Jews created the coronavirus virus to sell vaccines to encouraging infected followers to try to spread the illness to the Jewish community and law enforcement, as the coronavirus has spread, we have observed how white-supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have used this to drive their own conspiracy theories, spread disinformation and incite violence on their online platforms,” he explains.
Thanks To The 'Trump Effect,' White Nationalist Hate Just Keeps Growing And Intensifying
We’ve known for awhile now that there is a “Trump Effect” in the world of hate groups and hate crimes, one that primarily affects vulnerable minorities, and it continues to intensify.
By David Neiwert - crooks & liars
We’ve known for awhile now that there is a “Trump Effect” in the world of hate groups and hate crimes, one that primarily affects vulnerable minorities. It’s as though his election lifted the lid that had kept in the Pandora’s Box of racial resentment in America, and all the contained demons came rushing out.
And it continues to intensify. In the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest assessment of the state of hate in America for 2019, it found that even while the total number of hate groups declined slightly from an all-time high in 2018, white nationalist groups overall had increased 55 percent since Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency in 2017.
Anti-LGBTQ groups are flourishing, too: there was a 43 percent increase in such groups in 2019, the report found, bolstered by an anti-LGBTQ movement that “continued to enjoy success in mainstreaming its agenda in 2019.”
Overall, the number of hate groups (defined as “an organization that—based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities—has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics) declined in 2019 to 940, from an all-time high of 1,020 in 2018.
The report found significant declines in racist skinhead activity, as well as declines in the total numbers of neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, and Christian Identity hate groups, as well as a slight decline in anti-Muslim groups. Ku Klux Klan group numbers remained largely stable. Antigovernment extremist groups—which are not considered hate groups, though their ideologies may share some values—also declined to 576, down from 612 in 2018.
However, there were increases in anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT hate groups, as well as a rise in white nationalist hate groups to 155, up from 148. Overall, white nationalist groups have been the fastest-growing sector of the far right during the Trump years, but more significantly, the report views the sector as the one most likely to produce acts of violence in the years ahead.
“The white nationalist movement has embraced increasingly extreme rhetoric in 2019. Some in the movement openly advocate violence and terrorism as a way to precipitate a race war. This growing wing refers to itself as ‘accelerationist.’ At the same time, image-conscious groups like the American Identity Movement (AIM)—which refer to themselves as the ‘dissident right’—spent much of 2019 trying to distance themselves from the more extreme elements within the movement.”
Its future prospects are cause for concern:
The movement will likely continue to splinter over the issue of violence. While a number of arrests—like that of a member of The Base for conspiring to vandalize synagogues—have caused worry among accelerationists, there is little to suggest that wing of the movement will mellow in the coming year. Indeed, white nationalists and neo-Nazis across the movement are more openly expressing their belief that violence is, if not desirable, inevitable. This belief will likely gain further support as political tensions increase surrounding the 2020 election.
The report also details the radical right’s multiple connections to domestic terrorism, including such attacks as the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Christchurch, New Zealand, that occurred in 2019. The fear and anger behind this violence, it explains, is the “deep fear of demographic change” that is essential to white nationalist beliefs.
“This fear is encapsulated in the conspiratorial notion that a purposeful ‘white genocide’ is under way and that it’s driving ‘the great replacement’ of white people in their ‘home’ countries by foreign, non-white populations,” the report explains. “Antisemitism adds fuel to this fire; some white supremacists claim that Jews—as well as progressive politicians—are helping to facilitate this demographic change.”
Not all the hate groups were necessarily violent, however, and the SPLC is clear that violence or the lack thereof is not part of the criteria for defining hate groups. Some hate groups pursued their ends by promoting hateful rhetoric that they attempted to translate, sometimes successfully, into official government policy—particularly anti-LGBTQ hate groups such as Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defending Freedom.
The report noted that these hate groups operated with the explicit support of the White House and congressional Republicans, “as the Trump administration pursued anti-LGBTQ policies at the federal level, while state and local lawmakers in many areas followed suit.” It also noted that “three cases with implications for the rights of LGBTQ people came before the Supreme Court. One of those is being argued on the side of limiting LGBTQ rights by the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ hate group.”
And it continues to intensify. In the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest assessment of the state of hate in America for 2019, it found that even while the total number of hate groups declined slightly from an all-time high in 2018, white nationalist groups overall had increased 55 percent since Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency in 2017.
Anti-LGBTQ groups are flourishing, too: there was a 43 percent increase in such groups in 2019, the report found, bolstered by an anti-LGBTQ movement that “continued to enjoy success in mainstreaming its agenda in 2019.”
Overall, the number of hate groups (defined as “an organization that—based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities—has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics) declined in 2019 to 940, from an all-time high of 1,020 in 2018.
The report found significant declines in racist skinhead activity, as well as declines in the total numbers of neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, and Christian Identity hate groups, as well as a slight decline in anti-Muslim groups. Ku Klux Klan group numbers remained largely stable. Antigovernment extremist groups—which are not considered hate groups, though their ideologies may share some values—also declined to 576, down from 612 in 2018.
However, there were increases in anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT hate groups, as well as a rise in white nationalist hate groups to 155, up from 148. Overall, white nationalist groups have been the fastest-growing sector of the far right during the Trump years, but more significantly, the report views the sector as the one most likely to produce acts of violence in the years ahead.
“The white nationalist movement has embraced increasingly extreme rhetoric in 2019. Some in the movement openly advocate violence and terrorism as a way to precipitate a race war. This growing wing refers to itself as ‘accelerationist.’ At the same time, image-conscious groups like the American Identity Movement (AIM)—which refer to themselves as the ‘dissident right’—spent much of 2019 trying to distance themselves from the more extreme elements within the movement.”
Its future prospects are cause for concern:
The movement will likely continue to splinter over the issue of violence. While a number of arrests—like that of a member of The Base for conspiring to vandalize synagogues—have caused worry among accelerationists, there is little to suggest that wing of the movement will mellow in the coming year. Indeed, white nationalists and neo-Nazis across the movement are more openly expressing their belief that violence is, if not desirable, inevitable. This belief will likely gain further support as political tensions increase surrounding the 2020 election.
The report also details the radical right’s multiple connections to domestic terrorism, including such attacks as the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Christchurch, New Zealand, that occurred in 2019. The fear and anger behind this violence, it explains, is the “deep fear of demographic change” that is essential to white nationalist beliefs.
“This fear is encapsulated in the conspiratorial notion that a purposeful ‘white genocide’ is under way and that it’s driving ‘the great replacement’ of white people in their ‘home’ countries by foreign, non-white populations,” the report explains. “Antisemitism adds fuel to this fire; some white supremacists claim that Jews—as well as progressive politicians—are helping to facilitate this demographic change.”
Not all the hate groups were necessarily violent, however, and the SPLC is clear that violence or the lack thereof is not part of the criteria for defining hate groups. Some hate groups pursued their ends by promoting hateful rhetoric that they attempted to translate, sometimes successfully, into official government policy—particularly anti-LGBTQ hate groups such as Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defending Freedom.
The report noted that these hate groups operated with the explicit support of the White House and congressional Republicans, “as the Trump administration pursued anti-LGBTQ policies at the federal level, while state and local lawmakers in many areas followed suit.” It also noted that “three cases with implications for the rights of LGBTQ people came before the Supreme Court. One of those is being argued on the side of limiting LGBTQ rights by the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ hate group.”
The Long Arm of the American Nazi Party Reaches the 2020 Illinois Primary
BY Spencer Sunshine, Truthout
PUBLISHED March 16, 2020
Republicans voting on Tuesday in Illinois’s 3rd congressional district primary will get to decide if they want Art Jones, a lifelong white supremacist, to be their candidate. The state’s GOP is actively campaigning against him. They are still embarrassed that Jones was their 2018 candidate, after the party had forgotten to field a primary opponent to ensure that he wasn’t their candidate in the general election in a strongly Democratic district. And later that year, despite ample publicity of his views, Jones received 57,000 votes (26 percent) in the general election.
But Jones, and his perennial campaigns, are not a random product of one man’s idiosyncratic commitment to bigotry. Rather, they are the direct result of neo-Nazi activity in Chicago, and Illinois more broadly, which goes back to the 1960s. These have included Nazi-led rallies which have drawn thousands, as well as electoral campaigns which have also produced unusually high outcomes.
The continuing influence of neo-Nazi organizing, a half-century after its heyday, should be a warning about the “alt-right.” Even though its influence is subsiding, we should be prepared for the thousands of young adults who’ve become white nationalists through the movement to remain politically active for decades. The alt-right has created a new generation of racist activists, breathing fresh life into what previously was a moribund movement.
A History of White Supremacist Electoralism
Even before World War II, there were Nazis in Chicago; pro-Hitler groups like the German American Bund had a strong base of support there. The leadership of the America First Committee also came from Chicago. This group opposed U.S. entry into the war but not from a pacifist approach; consequently, it was filled with fascists.
Chicago was also the site of the greatest achievement of George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party, which was the first postwar group to openly embrace the Nazi label. Rockwell traveled to Chicago to oppose Martin Luther King Jr.’s Chicago Freedom Movement, which sought to desegregate housing markets. In August 1966, a Rockwell speech in Marquette Park drew 2,000 local residents. A September 1966 march drew 250 people, including many local youths who marched with the Nazis while wearing “White Power” t-shirts.
In order to take advantage of this newfound popularity, Rockwell changed the American Nazi Party’s catchy name to the awkward National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP). But he was assassinated in 1967 and his replacement was unpopular. Many groups splintered off the party, including members of the Chicago chapter, who in 1970 formed a new organization, the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA). They sought to rebuild a base in the same neighborhoods that had supported Rockwell in 1966. The NSPA opened a local storefront office and held public rallies — until the city prevented them from doing so with exorbitant fees. The NSPA responded by threatening to march in Skokie, a nearby suburb where many Jewish Holocaust survivors lived. This ended up in a famous lawsuit in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Nazis, who were backed by the ACLU, on free speech grounds. The NSPA never went to Skokie, however; instead, they held a celebratory march in Marquette Park in July 1978. (This was lampooned in the Blues Brothers movie, where Jake and Elwood run the Nazis off a bridge after declaring, “I hate Illinois Nazis!”)
The NSPA used the ballot box, too; in 1975, their leader won 16 percent in a city council election. Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, the NSWPP’s Art Jones ran political ads — complete with swastikas — in the February 1976 mayoral race, pulling 5.5 percent. And soon after, he moved to Chicago.
Chip Berlet, a veteran researcher of the far right, told Truthout that around this time, “There were three different Nazi groups in Chicago. Jones had a group of youngsters who would parade around in uniform.” The NSPA disbanded in the early 1980s, and Jones tried to fill their shoes. Berlet wrote, “By late 1985 it was clear that neonazi Art Jones and Klan leader Ed Novak, both residents of Marquette Park area neighborhoods, along with their small but growing number of supporters, were making some gains in their attempts to organize the neighborhood against integration and tying that to anti-Semitic, anti–gay, and anti–communist organizing.”
Jones helped pass the flame of bigotry and blame to another generation, too, as Chicago was one of the first U.S. cities to have organized Nazi skinhead groups. For example, Christian Picciolini — who subsequently left the white supremacist movement and now runs the group Free Radicals, to help others leave it — told me he went to a private meeting with Jones in the 1980s.
Today, Jones is still at it, using elections to spread his political talking points. And in addition to him, a number of other activists and organizations which came out of the American Nazi Party/NSWPP are also around today, and — following the party’s original strategy of courting media attention — regularly pop up in the news. Having changed its name a third time, the party itself still exists as New Order. Its most famous former member is David Duke, who was its star student activist in 1970; he later went on to win a seat as a Louisiana State Representative in 1989.
But the former member most influential on today’s alt-right is James Mason, whose book Siege has helped spawn “accelerationism” — an idea that encourages terrorism as part of strategy to collapse society. Mason is also the guru for the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, which has been linked to five murders — at least until last week, when Mason announced the group’s dissolution.
William Pierce also came out of the party. Pierce’s infamous novel, The Turner Diaries, depicts a white supremacist revolution that starts with attacks on federal buildings (which inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) and ends in the “day of the rope” — when Nazis lynch their opponents in the streets. Although Pierce died in 2002, his organization, the National Alliance, still exists, and “the day of the rope” has become an alt-right meme.
The National Socialist Movement, an open neo-Nazi party which was at the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and in 2019 held an armed counterprotest against the Detroit Pride march, was formed by current and former NSWPP members in 1975. Stormfront, at one point the most popular white supremacist website, was founded by former NSWPP member Don Black. Other projects active today which are run by former party members include Rocky Suhayda’s American Nazi Party, Gerhard Lauck’s NSDAP/AO and Karl Hand’s Racial Nationalist Party of America.
Meanwhile, the Northwest Front advocates forming a separate white ethnostate in the Pacific Northwest. Its founder, Harold Covington, was in the NSWPP; he also briefly lead the NSPA, during which he received 43 percent of the vote in the 1980 North Carolina GOP primary for attorney general. He later moved west and formed the Northwest Front, which has continued on after his 2018 death.
Last, the alt-right also venerates Rockwell himself. His books and speeches are circulated along with memes glorifying him.
In the last few years, many thousands of people, mostly white men between their teens and 30s, have floated into the alt-right. They have created a whole new generation of white nationalists, with a limited number of organizational ties to the last generation. The American Nazi Party/NSWPP had a similar, although much smaller, dynamic in the 1960s and 1970s. But this cohort of Nazis remains present in our political landscape, ranging in its approach from Art Jones’s ballot to James Mason’s bullet. Though the alt-right appears to have plateaued in influence, it remains an active movement — and, just like its predecessor, we should expect its members to continue to engage in toxic political organizing for many decades to come.
But Jones, and his perennial campaigns, are not a random product of one man’s idiosyncratic commitment to bigotry. Rather, they are the direct result of neo-Nazi activity in Chicago, and Illinois more broadly, which goes back to the 1960s. These have included Nazi-led rallies which have drawn thousands, as well as electoral campaigns which have also produced unusually high outcomes.
The continuing influence of neo-Nazi organizing, a half-century after its heyday, should be a warning about the “alt-right.” Even though its influence is subsiding, we should be prepared for the thousands of young adults who’ve become white nationalists through the movement to remain politically active for decades. The alt-right has created a new generation of racist activists, breathing fresh life into what previously was a moribund movement.
A History of White Supremacist Electoralism
Even before World War II, there were Nazis in Chicago; pro-Hitler groups like the German American Bund had a strong base of support there. The leadership of the America First Committee also came from Chicago. This group opposed U.S. entry into the war but not from a pacifist approach; consequently, it was filled with fascists.
Chicago was also the site of the greatest achievement of George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party, which was the first postwar group to openly embrace the Nazi label. Rockwell traveled to Chicago to oppose Martin Luther King Jr.’s Chicago Freedom Movement, which sought to desegregate housing markets. In August 1966, a Rockwell speech in Marquette Park drew 2,000 local residents. A September 1966 march drew 250 people, including many local youths who marched with the Nazis while wearing “White Power” t-shirts.
In order to take advantage of this newfound popularity, Rockwell changed the American Nazi Party’s catchy name to the awkward National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP). But he was assassinated in 1967 and his replacement was unpopular. Many groups splintered off the party, including members of the Chicago chapter, who in 1970 formed a new organization, the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA). They sought to rebuild a base in the same neighborhoods that had supported Rockwell in 1966. The NSPA opened a local storefront office and held public rallies — until the city prevented them from doing so with exorbitant fees. The NSPA responded by threatening to march in Skokie, a nearby suburb where many Jewish Holocaust survivors lived. This ended up in a famous lawsuit in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Nazis, who were backed by the ACLU, on free speech grounds. The NSPA never went to Skokie, however; instead, they held a celebratory march in Marquette Park in July 1978. (This was lampooned in the Blues Brothers movie, where Jake and Elwood run the Nazis off a bridge after declaring, “I hate Illinois Nazis!”)
The NSPA used the ballot box, too; in 1975, their leader won 16 percent in a city council election. Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, the NSWPP’s Art Jones ran political ads — complete with swastikas — in the February 1976 mayoral race, pulling 5.5 percent. And soon after, he moved to Chicago.
Chip Berlet, a veteran researcher of the far right, told Truthout that around this time, “There were three different Nazi groups in Chicago. Jones had a group of youngsters who would parade around in uniform.” The NSPA disbanded in the early 1980s, and Jones tried to fill their shoes. Berlet wrote, “By late 1985 it was clear that neonazi Art Jones and Klan leader Ed Novak, both residents of Marquette Park area neighborhoods, along with their small but growing number of supporters, were making some gains in their attempts to organize the neighborhood against integration and tying that to anti-Semitic, anti–gay, and anti–communist organizing.”
Jones helped pass the flame of bigotry and blame to another generation, too, as Chicago was one of the first U.S. cities to have organized Nazi skinhead groups. For example, Christian Picciolini — who subsequently left the white supremacist movement and now runs the group Free Radicals, to help others leave it — told me he went to a private meeting with Jones in the 1980s.
Today, Jones is still at it, using elections to spread his political talking points. And in addition to him, a number of other activists and organizations which came out of the American Nazi Party/NSWPP are also around today, and — following the party’s original strategy of courting media attention — regularly pop up in the news. Having changed its name a third time, the party itself still exists as New Order. Its most famous former member is David Duke, who was its star student activist in 1970; he later went on to win a seat as a Louisiana State Representative in 1989.
But the former member most influential on today’s alt-right is James Mason, whose book Siege has helped spawn “accelerationism” — an idea that encourages terrorism as part of strategy to collapse society. Mason is also the guru for the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, which has been linked to five murders — at least until last week, when Mason announced the group’s dissolution.
William Pierce also came out of the party. Pierce’s infamous novel, The Turner Diaries, depicts a white supremacist revolution that starts with attacks on federal buildings (which inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) and ends in the “day of the rope” — when Nazis lynch their opponents in the streets. Although Pierce died in 2002, his organization, the National Alliance, still exists, and “the day of the rope” has become an alt-right meme.
The National Socialist Movement, an open neo-Nazi party which was at the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and in 2019 held an armed counterprotest against the Detroit Pride march, was formed by current and former NSWPP members in 1975. Stormfront, at one point the most popular white supremacist website, was founded by former NSWPP member Don Black. Other projects active today which are run by former party members include Rocky Suhayda’s American Nazi Party, Gerhard Lauck’s NSDAP/AO and Karl Hand’s Racial Nationalist Party of America.
Meanwhile, the Northwest Front advocates forming a separate white ethnostate in the Pacific Northwest. Its founder, Harold Covington, was in the NSWPP; he also briefly lead the NSPA, during which he received 43 percent of the vote in the 1980 North Carolina GOP primary for attorney general. He later moved west and formed the Northwest Front, which has continued on after his 2018 death.
Last, the alt-right also venerates Rockwell himself. His books and speeches are circulated along with memes glorifying him.
In the last few years, many thousands of people, mostly white men between their teens and 30s, have floated into the alt-right. They have created a whole new generation of white nationalists, with a limited number of organizational ties to the last generation. The American Nazi Party/NSWPP had a similar, although much smaller, dynamic in the 1960s and 1970s. But this cohort of Nazis remains present in our political landscape, ranging in its approach from Art Jones’s ballot to James Mason’s bullet. Though the alt-right appears to have plateaued in influence, it remains an active movement — and, just like its predecessor, we should expect its members to continue to engage in toxic political organizing for many decades to come.
New Jersey declared white supremacists a major threat. Here's why that's groundbreaking
2020/2/26 09:27 (EST)
©The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — New Jersey says white supremacist extremism is one of the state’s greatest terrorism threats — higher than al-Qaida and the Islamic State — and in doing so has positioned itself as a national leader in countering domestic terrorism inspired by racism, experts say.
Last week, the state Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness issued a 2020 threat assessment report, for the first time rating the threat of homegrown violent extremism, and specifically white supremacist extremism, as “high,” noting the increased number of plots, attacks and recruitment efforts in 2019. Meanwhile, al-Qaida, an Islamic extremist group founded by Osama bin Laden, and ISIS, which split from al-Qaida in 2014, were both rated in the “low” threat category.
Experts say this assessment is true across the country, but New Jersey, in publicly releasing its research and analysis, may be in a better position than other states to dedicate new resources and personnel to addressing violent white supremacist organizations and countering the ideology.
“They nailed it,” said Colin P. Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a nonprofit threat and security research organization. “I don’t think it’s fearmongering. It’s sounding the alarm in the right way, because it’s now about marshaling the resources to counter the threat and really kind of raising awareness.”
Clarke, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy, said governments have been generally slow to recognize and name the threat posed by rising white supremacist activity. A part of the problem, he said, could be that the demographics of white supremacists — as opposed to those of jihadists — represent a majority of Americans. That’s why New Jersey’s move is significant, he said. He isn’t aware of other states with research and analysis offices that have gone this far.
Earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray elevated addressing “racially motivated violent extremism” to a top-level priority for the bureau, on par with the threat posed by ISIS and its sympathizers.
The threat assessment noted that of 44 domestic terrorist incidents in the United States in 2019, four had a connection to New Jersey. In addition, six of the 41 homegrown violent extremists arrested in the United States last year were arrested in New Jersey or New York. Homegrown violent extremists are defined as people inspired by, not directed by, foreign terrorist organizations.
Jared M. Maples, director of the office that released the report, said in a statement that the “ever-changing threat landscape” requires officials to adjust strategies to “anticipate new threats while remaining ready to combat those already existing.”
Brian Levin, director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said white supremacy has been the most ascendant fatal form of extremism over the last few years, replacing violent jihadists at the top of the list of extremists most likely to commit ideologically motivated homicide.
The most clear example was the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where one person was killed. But the influence is deeper.
“As we have this anti-establishment tilt and this fracturing and splintering of our sociopolitical landscape, what we see is groups that aren’t meeting as much or holding rallies as much still are able to influence the white-supremacist narrative,” Levin said, “but merely as one server in a buffet of hatred and a 24/7 Charlottesville online.”
Also, Levin cautioned that white supremacists “are by far not the only one in a continuing arms race with a diversifying set of extremist movements both here in the United States and worldwide.”
White supremacist groups in New Jersey in particular appear to have ramped up their recruitment in 2019. The state reported there were 168 instances of white supremacist propaganda distribution in 2019, compared with 46 in 2018.
That propaganda is most often in the form of fliers posted in public spaces, a problem the Anti-Defamation League reported was particularly acute on college campuses last year. The group reported 16 Pennsylvania and New Jersey schools were targeted, including the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University, Princeton University and Rutgers University.
The New Jersey European Heritage Foundation was responsible for about 10% of the white supremacist literature distribution nationwide last year, the ADL said.
There have been several other instances of white supremacist extremism in New Jersey, including the presence of the neo-Nazi network the Base. Federal investigators said a Camden County 18-year-old used the network to recruit perpetrators to carry out vandalism of synagogues in the Midwest. The reported founder of the Base, believed to be living in Russia, is a graduate of a Catholic preparatory school in Morristown and has held an address in North Bergen.
In addition, a 41-year-old Philadelphia Navy Yard worker from Salem was arrested in October and charged with lying to federal officials about his ties to a white supremacist group.
But it’s not clear to experts whether threats posed by white supremacist activity is more severe in New Jersey than anywhere else. There were historically hot spots across the country where white supremacists gathered, but much of the activity is now internet-based and increasingly transnational.
“When I think of New Jersey, I certainly don’t think of white supremacy,” Clarke said. “That’s what’s so bedeviling about the threat from white supremacy. The younger generation getting involved with white supremacist extremism looks just like your next-door neighbor.”
In addition to rating white supremacist extremism as a “high” threat, the state also elevated the threat posed by black separatist extremists from “low” to “moderate” after two individuals associated with that ideology targeted police and the Jewish community at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City in December. The gunfight left six people dead, including the assailants and a police officer.
The officials were careful to note that while ISIS has not carried out an attack in the United States, its inspiration of supporters in America still poses “a consistently high threat.”
Last week, the state Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness issued a 2020 threat assessment report, for the first time rating the threat of homegrown violent extremism, and specifically white supremacist extremism, as “high,” noting the increased number of plots, attacks and recruitment efforts in 2019. Meanwhile, al-Qaida, an Islamic extremist group founded by Osama bin Laden, and ISIS, which split from al-Qaida in 2014, were both rated in the “low” threat category.
Experts say this assessment is true across the country, but New Jersey, in publicly releasing its research and analysis, may be in a better position than other states to dedicate new resources and personnel to addressing violent white supremacist organizations and countering the ideology.
“They nailed it,” said Colin P. Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a nonprofit threat and security research organization. “I don’t think it’s fearmongering. It’s sounding the alarm in the right way, because it’s now about marshaling the resources to counter the threat and really kind of raising awareness.”
Clarke, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy, said governments have been generally slow to recognize and name the threat posed by rising white supremacist activity. A part of the problem, he said, could be that the demographics of white supremacists — as opposed to those of jihadists — represent a majority of Americans. That’s why New Jersey’s move is significant, he said. He isn’t aware of other states with research and analysis offices that have gone this far.
Earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray elevated addressing “racially motivated violent extremism” to a top-level priority for the bureau, on par with the threat posed by ISIS and its sympathizers.
The threat assessment noted that of 44 domestic terrorist incidents in the United States in 2019, four had a connection to New Jersey. In addition, six of the 41 homegrown violent extremists arrested in the United States last year were arrested in New Jersey or New York. Homegrown violent extremists are defined as people inspired by, not directed by, foreign terrorist organizations.
Jared M. Maples, director of the office that released the report, said in a statement that the “ever-changing threat landscape” requires officials to adjust strategies to “anticipate new threats while remaining ready to combat those already existing.”
Brian Levin, director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said white supremacy has been the most ascendant fatal form of extremism over the last few years, replacing violent jihadists at the top of the list of extremists most likely to commit ideologically motivated homicide.
The most clear example was the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where one person was killed. But the influence is deeper.
“As we have this anti-establishment tilt and this fracturing and splintering of our sociopolitical landscape, what we see is groups that aren’t meeting as much or holding rallies as much still are able to influence the white-supremacist narrative,” Levin said, “but merely as one server in a buffet of hatred and a 24/7 Charlottesville online.”
Also, Levin cautioned that white supremacists “are by far not the only one in a continuing arms race with a diversifying set of extremist movements both here in the United States and worldwide.”
White supremacist groups in New Jersey in particular appear to have ramped up their recruitment in 2019. The state reported there were 168 instances of white supremacist propaganda distribution in 2019, compared with 46 in 2018.
That propaganda is most often in the form of fliers posted in public spaces, a problem the Anti-Defamation League reported was particularly acute on college campuses last year. The group reported 16 Pennsylvania and New Jersey schools were targeted, including the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University, Princeton University and Rutgers University.
The New Jersey European Heritage Foundation was responsible for about 10% of the white supremacist literature distribution nationwide last year, the ADL said.
There have been several other instances of white supremacist extremism in New Jersey, including the presence of the neo-Nazi network the Base. Federal investigators said a Camden County 18-year-old used the network to recruit perpetrators to carry out vandalism of synagogues in the Midwest. The reported founder of the Base, believed to be living in Russia, is a graduate of a Catholic preparatory school in Morristown and has held an address in North Bergen.
In addition, a 41-year-old Philadelphia Navy Yard worker from Salem was arrested in October and charged with lying to federal officials about his ties to a white supremacist group.
But it’s not clear to experts whether threats posed by white supremacist activity is more severe in New Jersey than anywhere else. There were historically hot spots across the country where white supremacists gathered, but much of the activity is now internet-based and increasingly transnational.
“When I think of New Jersey, I certainly don’t think of white supremacy,” Clarke said. “That’s what’s so bedeviling about the threat from white supremacy. The younger generation getting involved with white supremacist extremism looks just like your next-door neighbor.”
In addition to rating white supremacist extremism as a “high” threat, the state also elevated the threat posed by black separatist extremists from “low” to “moderate” after two individuals associated with that ideology targeted police and the Jewish community at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City in December. The gunfight left six people dead, including the assailants and a police officer.
The officials were careful to note that while ISIS has not carried out an attack in the United States, its inspiration of supporters in America still poses “a consistently high threat.”
Report: White nationalists turn focus to college campuses, with trial run at Kansas State
The Kansas City Star
2/12 15:24 (EST)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The white nationalist movement, tarnished in the aftermath of Charlottesville, is repackaging its bigotry through a new mainstreaming strategy that focuses on college campuses and Trump supporters, according to a report released Tuesday by a national watchdog organization.
Its first test case: a new group at Kansas State University launched by a student whose former organization was the subject of protests on campus.
Known as “Groyper,” the new marketing effort is an attempt by white nationalists to rebrand under a banner that will unite what it describes as “America First conservatives, Christians, anti-globalists and nationalists,” says the report, published by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.
Leading the effort, the report says, are two activists who promoted and participated in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The gathering ended with a white nationalist plowing his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing one.
“This is an attempt to replace the old label of alt-right, which got pretty toxic after Charlottesville, and try to create new coalitions on university campuses and in and around the Trump orbit,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of the institute and co-author of the 64-page report, From Alt-Right to Groyper: White Nationalists Rebrand for 2020 and Beyond.
“Those are the two main targets of recruitment for them right now.”
The strategy will have its trial run, Burghart said, at K-State, where the formation of a new organization, America First Students, was announced last month. The first meeting was Jan. 28, according to its Twitter account.
America First Students is led by Jaden McNeil, a current student and former president of the K-State chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth activist network. That organization was the subject of protests on campus last year by the KSU Young Democrats, which said Turning Point USA was associated with hateful rhetoric and called for the group to be removed from campus.
K-State spokeswoman Michelle Geering said in an email that America First Students “is an independent student organization registered with K-State’s Center for Student Involvement.”
“Independent student organizations are not operated or controlled by the university,” she said.
McNeil did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. At the time of last year’s protest, he said he wished the two sides could come to an understanding.
“Instead of having a protest I wish they could come and discuss our differences because we have a lot more in common then they believe,” he said.
McNeil and other TPUSA officers resigned from the K-State chapter in October. McNeil said in an Oct. 31 tweet that he was parting ways with the organization because “TPUSA constantly cedes cultural ground to the Left.”
Now, the report says, McNeil has joined forces with Nick Fuentes and Pat Casey, whom the institute describes as white nationalists. Fuentes is a far-right YouTuber and podcaster, and Casey is head of the American Identity Movement, formerly known as Identity Evropa, a white nationalist organization known for distributing racist propaganda on college campuses in the past few years. Both Fuentes and Casey attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Fuentes and Casey announced the formation of America First Students at a “Groyper Leadership Summit” in Florida in December, praising McNeil’s efforts.
“Groyper” is the name of a far-right meme based on a cartoon toad — the latest mutation of the Pepe the Frog meme, a symbol used by Trump supporters and co-opted by white nationalists.
“From day one, the ‘Groypers’ have been as slippery as the toad for which they are named — an ever-changing effort to obfuscate their ideology and keep white nationalism germane inside MAGA world and the GOP,” said IREHR research director, Charles Tanner.
As part of their strategy to become more mainstream, the report says, the “Groypers” are holding an “America First Political Action Conference” in Washington, D.C., at the end of the month to coincide with the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Last month, Fuentes congratulated McNeil on the launch of America First Students at Kansas State.
“This project has amazing potential to rally American Nationalists and real conservatives on campus…,” Fuentes said in a tweet. “I am very excited to see what comes next for AFS this year!”
Fuentes and Casey could not be reached for comment Tuesday but have denied being white nationalists. The IREHR says evidence shows otherwise.
“They’ll say this is just liberals trying to taint them, that they’re just traditionalist conservatives who support Christian values,” Burghart said. “But all of the key leadership, the influencers, hold ideals that any rational person would categorize as white nationalist.
“Fuentes and Casey both represent this new generation of white nationalists. It’s a whole new ballgame. These aren’t millennials. This is white nationalism for the Zoomer generation.”
McNeil has described America First Students as “a campus conservative organization defined by our support for closed borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values.”
He added that “Conservatism Inc. has brainwashed many students into believing that globalist policies — particularly free trade and mass immigration — constitute conservatism, when clearly they do not.” He said America First Students would advocate for “the broader goal of defending America against globalism, affirming the vision laid out by President Trump in his inaugural address.”
The organization plans to start chapters at other universities as well, according to its Twitter account.
“We’re going to focus on the Kansas State AFS chapter before branching out to other campuses,” it says.
And on Feb. 5 Fuentes tweeted: “I am exploring the possibility of an America First college tour this Spring. There are several events in the works already…”
Burghart said while it’s too soon to tell whether America First Students is a white nationalist organization, “they’re promoting an agenda aligned with white nationalism.”
“But given that they’re participating in the larger Groyper activity, it’s definitely a sign of concern.”
Its first test case: a new group at Kansas State University launched by a student whose former organization was the subject of protests on campus.
Known as “Groyper,” the new marketing effort is an attempt by white nationalists to rebrand under a banner that will unite what it describes as “America First conservatives, Christians, anti-globalists and nationalists,” says the report, published by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.
Leading the effort, the report says, are two activists who promoted and participated in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The gathering ended with a white nationalist plowing his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing one.
“This is an attempt to replace the old label of alt-right, which got pretty toxic after Charlottesville, and try to create new coalitions on university campuses and in and around the Trump orbit,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of the institute and co-author of the 64-page report, From Alt-Right to Groyper: White Nationalists Rebrand for 2020 and Beyond.
“Those are the two main targets of recruitment for them right now.”
The strategy will have its trial run, Burghart said, at K-State, where the formation of a new organization, America First Students, was announced last month. The first meeting was Jan. 28, according to its Twitter account.
America First Students is led by Jaden McNeil, a current student and former president of the K-State chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth activist network. That organization was the subject of protests on campus last year by the KSU Young Democrats, which said Turning Point USA was associated with hateful rhetoric and called for the group to be removed from campus.
K-State spokeswoman Michelle Geering said in an email that America First Students “is an independent student organization registered with K-State’s Center for Student Involvement.”
“Independent student organizations are not operated or controlled by the university,” she said.
McNeil did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. At the time of last year’s protest, he said he wished the two sides could come to an understanding.
“Instead of having a protest I wish they could come and discuss our differences because we have a lot more in common then they believe,” he said.
McNeil and other TPUSA officers resigned from the K-State chapter in October. McNeil said in an Oct. 31 tweet that he was parting ways with the organization because “TPUSA constantly cedes cultural ground to the Left.”
Now, the report says, McNeil has joined forces with Nick Fuentes and Pat Casey, whom the institute describes as white nationalists. Fuentes is a far-right YouTuber and podcaster, and Casey is head of the American Identity Movement, formerly known as Identity Evropa, a white nationalist organization known for distributing racist propaganda on college campuses in the past few years. Both Fuentes and Casey attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Fuentes and Casey announced the formation of America First Students at a “Groyper Leadership Summit” in Florida in December, praising McNeil’s efforts.
“Groyper” is the name of a far-right meme based on a cartoon toad — the latest mutation of the Pepe the Frog meme, a symbol used by Trump supporters and co-opted by white nationalists.
“From day one, the ‘Groypers’ have been as slippery as the toad for which they are named — an ever-changing effort to obfuscate their ideology and keep white nationalism germane inside MAGA world and the GOP,” said IREHR research director, Charles Tanner.
As part of their strategy to become more mainstream, the report says, the “Groypers” are holding an “America First Political Action Conference” in Washington, D.C., at the end of the month to coincide with the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Last month, Fuentes congratulated McNeil on the launch of America First Students at Kansas State.
“This project has amazing potential to rally American Nationalists and real conservatives on campus…,” Fuentes said in a tweet. “I am very excited to see what comes next for AFS this year!”
Fuentes and Casey could not be reached for comment Tuesday but have denied being white nationalists. The IREHR says evidence shows otherwise.
“They’ll say this is just liberals trying to taint them, that they’re just traditionalist conservatives who support Christian values,” Burghart said. “But all of the key leadership, the influencers, hold ideals that any rational person would categorize as white nationalist.
“Fuentes and Casey both represent this new generation of white nationalists. It’s a whole new ballgame. These aren’t millennials. This is white nationalism for the Zoomer generation.”
McNeil has described America First Students as “a campus conservative organization defined by our support for closed borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values.”
He added that “Conservatism Inc. has brainwashed many students into believing that globalist policies — particularly free trade and mass immigration — constitute conservatism, when clearly they do not.” He said America First Students would advocate for “the broader goal of defending America against globalism, affirming the vision laid out by President Trump in his inaugural address.”
The organization plans to start chapters at other universities as well, according to its Twitter account.
“We’re going to focus on the Kansas State AFS chapter before branching out to other campuses,” it says.
And on Feb. 5 Fuentes tweeted: “I am exploring the possibility of an America First college tour this Spring. There are several events in the works already…”
Burghart said while it’s too soon to tell whether America First Students is a white nationalist organization, “they’re promoting an agenda aligned with white nationalism.”
“But given that they’re participating in the larger Groyper activity, it’s definitely a sign of concern.”
White supremacist propaganda in US more than doubled in 2019, report finds
Anti-Defamation League reported 2,713 cases of circulated propaganda, compared to 1,214 in 2018
Associated Press
the guardian
Wed 12 Feb 2020 09.23 EST
Incidents of white supremacist propaganda distributed across the nation jumped by more than 120% between 2018 and last year, according to a new report, making 2019 the second straight year that the circulation of propaganda material has more than doubled.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reported 2,713 cases of circulated propaganda by white supremacist groups, including flyers, posters and banners, compared with 1,214 cases in 2018.
The printed propaganda distributed by white supremacist organizations includes material that directly spreads messages of discrimination against Jews, LGBTQ+ people and other minority communities – but also items with their prejudice obscured by a focus on gauzier pro-America imagery.
The sharp rise in cases of white supremacist propaganda distribution last year follows a jump of more than 180% between 2017, the first year that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked material distribution, and 2018.
While 2019 saw cases of propaganda circulated on college campuses nearly double, encompassing 433 separate campuses in all but seven states, researchers who compiled the data found that 90% of campuses only saw one or two rounds of distribution.
Oren Segal, director of the league’s Center on Extremism, pointed to the prominence of more subtly biased rhetoric in some of the white supremacist material, emphasizing “patriotism”, as a sign that the groups are attempting “to make their hate more palatable for a 2020 audience”.
By emphasizing language “about empowerment, without some of the blatant racism and hatred”, Segal said, white supremacists are employing “a tactic to try to get eyes onto their ideas in a way that’s cheap, and that brings it to a new generation of people who are learning how to even make sense out of these messages”.
The propaganda incidents tracked for the ADL reporton Wednesday encompasses 49 states and occurred most often in 10 states: California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Washington and Florida.
Last year’s soaring cases of distributed propaganda also came as the ADL found white supremacist groups holding 20% fewer events than in 2018, “preferring not to risk the exposure of pre-publicized events”, according to its report.
That marks a shift from the notably visible public presence that white supremacist organizations mounted in 2017, culminating in that summer’s Charlottesville, Virginia, rally where a self-described white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and badly injuring others.
About two-thirds of the total propaganda incidents in the new report were traced back to a single white supremacist group, Patriot Front, which the ADL describes as “formed by disaffected members” of the white supremacist organization Vanguard America after the Charlottesville rally.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913 to combat antisemitism as well as other biases, has tracked Patriot Front propaganda using messages such as “One nation against invasion” and “America first”. The report to be released Wednesday found that Patriot Front played a major role last year in boosting circulation of white supremacist propaganda on campuses through a push that targeted colleges in the fall.
RELATED: White nationalists are openly operating on Facebook. The company won't act
The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reported 2,713 cases of circulated propaganda by white supremacist groups, including flyers, posters and banners, compared with 1,214 cases in 2018.
The printed propaganda distributed by white supremacist organizations includes material that directly spreads messages of discrimination against Jews, LGBTQ+ people and other minority communities – but also items with their prejudice obscured by a focus on gauzier pro-America imagery.
The sharp rise in cases of white supremacist propaganda distribution last year follows a jump of more than 180% between 2017, the first year that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked material distribution, and 2018.
While 2019 saw cases of propaganda circulated on college campuses nearly double, encompassing 433 separate campuses in all but seven states, researchers who compiled the data found that 90% of campuses only saw one or two rounds of distribution.
Oren Segal, director of the league’s Center on Extremism, pointed to the prominence of more subtly biased rhetoric in some of the white supremacist material, emphasizing “patriotism”, as a sign that the groups are attempting “to make their hate more palatable for a 2020 audience”.
By emphasizing language “about empowerment, without some of the blatant racism and hatred”, Segal said, white supremacists are employing “a tactic to try to get eyes onto their ideas in a way that’s cheap, and that brings it to a new generation of people who are learning how to even make sense out of these messages”.
The propaganda incidents tracked for the ADL reporton Wednesday encompasses 49 states and occurred most often in 10 states: California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Washington and Florida.
Last year’s soaring cases of distributed propaganda also came as the ADL found white supremacist groups holding 20% fewer events than in 2018, “preferring not to risk the exposure of pre-publicized events”, according to its report.
That marks a shift from the notably visible public presence that white supremacist organizations mounted in 2017, culminating in that summer’s Charlottesville, Virginia, rally where a self-described white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and badly injuring others.
About two-thirds of the total propaganda incidents in the new report were traced back to a single white supremacist group, Patriot Front, which the ADL describes as “formed by disaffected members” of the white supremacist organization Vanguard America after the Charlottesville rally.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913 to combat antisemitism as well as other biases, has tracked Patriot Front propaganda using messages such as “One nation against invasion” and “America first”. The report to be released Wednesday found that Patriot Front played a major role last year in boosting circulation of white supremacist propaganda on campuses through a push that targeted colleges in the fall.
RELATED: White nationalists are openly operating on Facebook. The company won't act
Jonah Goldberg says conservatism isn’t supposed to be a tribal identity. But Trumpism has no consistent ideology aside from pro-whiteness
Martin Longman / The Washington Monthly - alternet
January 8, 2020
It’s amusing to watch Jonah Goldberg use the No True Scotsman fallacy to defend true conservatism. In a recent piece he argued that conservatives were succumbing to it. Be that as it may, it’s still somewhat refreshing to see Goldberg pleading with Republicans to have some respect for the concept of honesty.
I struggle when I read these thought pieces by conservative commentators that are intended for strictly conservative audiences. It requires me to enter into their bubble of alternative facts, and I find it frustrating to have to accept the things they take for granted just so I can follow along.
It’s an article of faith on the right that the Democrats are hopelessly wedded to identity politics and that conservatives don’t care what color anybody is because they’re all about principles. This is Goldberg’s starting point, but what concerns him is that too many conservatives are beginning to act in a tribal manner with respect to Donald Trump. He’s careful to say that he expects officeholders to be partisan and dishonest, but he’d like to hold everyone else to a higher standard.
The most obvious problem here is that the Republican Party has long been a party that identifies with America’s majority race and majority religion. This is the reason that the Republican base spends their evenings flipping between Fox News and reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. They want a return to a world where other races and religions are invisible. So, Trump’s white nationalism is less an innovation than the same old thing with a few examination points thrown in for flair. Likewise, the tribalism on display with Trump is not really all about him. It’s more about the joy that comes with gaining the freedom to be openly tribal as a white person. Trumpism is identity politics for whites, and the undisguised racism is what makes it so appealing and pleasurable to folks who are tired of walking on eggshells.
Democrats certainly seek to represent people on the basis of their identity, but Latinos did not automatically support Julian Castro’s candidacy. Blacks did not flock to Kamala Harris or Cory Booker. Those politicians ran campaigns based on policies, only some of which were of special interest to Latinos or blacks. In most examples, those policies are the consensus view of most Democrats, including the white presidential candidates. It’s only the GOP that is based almost entirely on identify at the moment, and that’s because Trumpism has no consistent ideology aside from pro-whiteness.
Goldberg complains that his conservative colleagues sound like idiots when they say, “Shut up … Trump is a hero for wanting to get out of endless wars, and he’s a hero for being willing to get us into another one.” He’s right, they do sound incoherent. But ideology is not what binds people to Trump, or conservatives to each other.
Goldberg thinks things have changed under Trump’s leadership, but they’ve really just become clearer and more explicit. The GOP is a party for white people—and who want an America for white people. This isn’t new at all, but this is the first time these “deplorables” have been offered the unvarnished version. They don’t care if the Republicans remain the party of Wall Street and globalization and ownership just so long as it continues to pursue white nationalism in its messaging and its immigration policies.
A couple of days after Trump was elected, I called this the Southification of the North. But another way of putting it is that the South took over the GOP and then took its message countrywide. In the Deep South, there is a party for whites and a party for blacks. It’s been that way since the Civil War. Before 2016, that’s not how the people in the other parts of the country looked at the two parties. There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who still don’t want to look at politics in this way. I’m glad that Goldberg is one of them.
But he’s basically saying that No True Conservative would eschew all their values and their respect for the truth in pursuit of racist ideals. The problem is: That’s a fallacy and has been a fallacy with respect to the Conservative Movement from the very beginning.
I struggle when I read these thought pieces by conservative commentators that are intended for strictly conservative audiences. It requires me to enter into their bubble of alternative facts, and I find it frustrating to have to accept the things they take for granted just so I can follow along.
It’s an article of faith on the right that the Democrats are hopelessly wedded to identity politics and that conservatives don’t care what color anybody is because they’re all about principles. This is Goldberg’s starting point, but what concerns him is that too many conservatives are beginning to act in a tribal manner with respect to Donald Trump. He’s careful to say that he expects officeholders to be partisan and dishonest, but he’d like to hold everyone else to a higher standard.
The most obvious problem here is that the Republican Party has long been a party that identifies with America’s majority race and majority religion. This is the reason that the Republican base spends their evenings flipping between Fox News and reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. They want a return to a world where other races and religions are invisible. So, Trump’s white nationalism is less an innovation than the same old thing with a few examination points thrown in for flair. Likewise, the tribalism on display with Trump is not really all about him. It’s more about the joy that comes with gaining the freedom to be openly tribal as a white person. Trumpism is identity politics for whites, and the undisguised racism is what makes it so appealing and pleasurable to folks who are tired of walking on eggshells.
Democrats certainly seek to represent people on the basis of their identity, but Latinos did not automatically support Julian Castro’s candidacy. Blacks did not flock to Kamala Harris or Cory Booker. Those politicians ran campaigns based on policies, only some of which were of special interest to Latinos or blacks. In most examples, those policies are the consensus view of most Democrats, including the white presidential candidates. It’s only the GOP that is based almost entirely on identify at the moment, and that’s because Trumpism has no consistent ideology aside from pro-whiteness.
Goldberg complains that his conservative colleagues sound like idiots when they say, “Shut up … Trump is a hero for wanting to get out of endless wars, and he’s a hero for being willing to get us into another one.” He’s right, they do sound incoherent. But ideology is not what binds people to Trump, or conservatives to each other.
Goldberg thinks things have changed under Trump’s leadership, but they’ve really just become clearer and more explicit. The GOP is a party for white people—and who want an America for white people. This isn’t new at all, but this is the first time these “deplorables” have been offered the unvarnished version. They don’t care if the Republicans remain the party of Wall Street and globalization and ownership just so long as it continues to pursue white nationalism in its messaging and its immigration policies.
A couple of days after Trump was elected, I called this the Southification of the North. But another way of putting it is that the South took over the GOP and then took its message countrywide. In the Deep South, there is a party for whites and a party for blacks. It’s been that way since the Civil War. Before 2016, that’s not how the people in the other parts of the country looked at the two parties. There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who still don’t want to look at politics in this way. I’m glad that Goldberg is one of them.
But he’s basically saying that No True Conservative would eschew all their values and their respect for the truth in pursuit of racist ideals. The problem is: That’s a fallacy and has been a fallacy with respect to the Conservative Movement from the very beginning.
of course, it has always been racist, white supremacy is why it was created!!!!
Alec (American Legislative Exchange Council)
Rightwing ‘bill mill’ accused of sowing racist and white supremacist policies
An advocacy group report criticises Alec, a group which brings together conservative lawmakers and corporate interests
Ed Pilkington in New York
the guardian
Tue 3 Dec 2019 02.15 EST
Alec, the rightwing network that brings conservative lawmakers together with corporate lobbyists to create model legislation that is cloned across the US, has been accused of spreading racist and white supremacist policies targeted at minority communities.
A report published on Tuesday by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and other advocacy groups charges Alec with propagating white supremacy.
In one of the sharpest criticisms yet levelled at the controversial “bill mill”, the authors warn that “conservative and corporate interests have captured our political process to harness profit, further entrench white supremacy in the law, and target the safety, human rights and self-governance of marginalised communities”.
The publication comes on the eve of the latest gathering of Alec, officially known as the American Legislative Exchange Council, which will be attended by hundreds of largely Republican state-level legislators and their big business allies.
The four-day States & Nation Policy Summit will open at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Wednesday with an agenda touching on several of Alec’s core principles including “election integrity”, privatisation of education and support for homeschooling, and protection for pharmaceutical companies.
Watchdogs have also learned of a dinner to be held on Wednesday and jointly hosted by Alec and the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBT coalition devoted to re-criminalising homosexuality in the US in the name of Christianity.
The Alec summit will be picketed by protesters convened by organisations at the forefront of the race equality movement such as Black Lives Matter and Puente Arizona. The demonstrators will seek to highlight one of the most contentious legislative moves made by Alec: 2010 Arizona law SB1070, which heralded the most extreme crackdown on undocumented migrants then seen in the US under a model bill drafted at an Alec conference the previous year.
The report, produced by CCR with Dream Defenders, Palestine Legal, the Red Nation and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, calls Alec a “highly effective incubator and platform for spreading a broad swath of corporate and conservative policies”.
The network, it says, amounts to a “shadow state apparatus” in which “private industry seizes control of the authority of the state, writing legislation and public policy for the general public behind the closed doors of a CEO suite”.
To support its contention that Alec is responsible for strengthening white supremacy, the joint report cites four of the network’s most hotly disputed policy interventions.
The first are the “Stand Your Ground” laws that became notorious after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was shot by George Zimmerman in a gated community in Florida.
In 2005, Florida had passed a “Castle Doctrine” law, SB 436, that extended the right to “stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force” to anyone in any public place who “reasonably believes” it is necessary to do so “to prevent death or great bodily harm”.
The law was picked up by Alec and turned into a model bill that, as the report points out, has now been adopted in some form in 27 states.
Alec insists it has never backed legislation allowing gun owners to attack people who pose no imminent threat and that it no longer lends its name to any “stand your ground” law.
The joint report argues the damage has already been done.
It cites studies that show that states that have adopted such laws are much more likely to rule homicides justifiable in cases of white-on-black killings than states that have not adopted such laws.
The second example used in the report is voter ID bills that require proof of identity in order to vote. CCR and its co-authors locate these efforts as part of the long history in the US of attempts to disenfranchise people of colour.
In 2009 Alec approved a “voter ID act” produced by one of its “task forces” that devise new model legislation. The provision required voters to show certain forms of personal identification before being allowed to cast their ballot.
Some 35 states now have voter ID laws. Numerous studies have found that non-white voters are much more likely than whites to lack photographic identification, and therefore face discrimination where ID is made a condition of voting.
Alec has distanced itself publicly from voter suppression efforts and says it now has no policy on voter ID.
Bill Meierling, Alec’s head of external relations, told the Guardian: “Alec members advance individual liberty and free enterprise across the states, creating opportunity for a better life for all Americans.”
He added: “Alec is routinely targeted because its member legislators are nearly 300% as effective as any other group of elected officials. In fact, this year, USA Today reported that of 10,000 bills analyzed in state legislatures from 2010-2018, 2,900 were based on Alec model policy and more than 600 became law.”
The other examples of measures allegedly supporting white supremacy cited in the joint report are “critical infrastructure bills” that originated with a 2017 law introduced in Oklahoma to clamp down on indigenous and other protesters against the Dakota Access pipeline.
Alec turned the Oklahoma template into a model bill that has spread through the US, threatening indigenous protesters with fines and jail time.
The final Alec intervention cited by the authors concerns moves to combat the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to pressure Israel to abide by international human rights laws.
As the Guardian reported last month, Alec has hosted discussions on banning criticism of Israel on US campuses.
A report published on Tuesday by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and other advocacy groups charges Alec with propagating white supremacy.
In one of the sharpest criticisms yet levelled at the controversial “bill mill”, the authors warn that “conservative and corporate interests have captured our political process to harness profit, further entrench white supremacy in the law, and target the safety, human rights and self-governance of marginalised communities”.
The publication comes on the eve of the latest gathering of Alec, officially known as the American Legislative Exchange Council, which will be attended by hundreds of largely Republican state-level legislators and their big business allies.
The four-day States & Nation Policy Summit will open at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Wednesday with an agenda touching on several of Alec’s core principles including “election integrity”, privatisation of education and support for homeschooling, and protection for pharmaceutical companies.
Watchdogs have also learned of a dinner to be held on Wednesday and jointly hosted by Alec and the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBT coalition devoted to re-criminalising homosexuality in the US in the name of Christianity.
The Alec summit will be picketed by protesters convened by organisations at the forefront of the race equality movement such as Black Lives Matter and Puente Arizona. The demonstrators will seek to highlight one of the most contentious legislative moves made by Alec: 2010 Arizona law SB1070, which heralded the most extreme crackdown on undocumented migrants then seen in the US under a model bill drafted at an Alec conference the previous year.
The report, produced by CCR with Dream Defenders, Palestine Legal, the Red Nation and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, calls Alec a “highly effective incubator and platform for spreading a broad swath of corporate and conservative policies”.
The network, it says, amounts to a “shadow state apparatus” in which “private industry seizes control of the authority of the state, writing legislation and public policy for the general public behind the closed doors of a CEO suite”.
To support its contention that Alec is responsible for strengthening white supremacy, the joint report cites four of the network’s most hotly disputed policy interventions.
The first are the “Stand Your Ground” laws that became notorious after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was shot by George Zimmerman in a gated community in Florida.
In 2005, Florida had passed a “Castle Doctrine” law, SB 436, that extended the right to “stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force” to anyone in any public place who “reasonably believes” it is necessary to do so “to prevent death or great bodily harm”.
The law was picked up by Alec and turned into a model bill that, as the report points out, has now been adopted in some form in 27 states.
Alec insists it has never backed legislation allowing gun owners to attack people who pose no imminent threat and that it no longer lends its name to any “stand your ground” law.
The joint report argues the damage has already been done.
It cites studies that show that states that have adopted such laws are much more likely to rule homicides justifiable in cases of white-on-black killings than states that have not adopted such laws.
The second example used in the report is voter ID bills that require proof of identity in order to vote. CCR and its co-authors locate these efforts as part of the long history in the US of attempts to disenfranchise people of colour.
In 2009 Alec approved a “voter ID act” produced by one of its “task forces” that devise new model legislation. The provision required voters to show certain forms of personal identification before being allowed to cast their ballot.
Some 35 states now have voter ID laws. Numerous studies have found that non-white voters are much more likely than whites to lack photographic identification, and therefore face discrimination where ID is made a condition of voting.
Alec has distanced itself publicly from voter suppression efforts and says it now has no policy on voter ID.
Bill Meierling, Alec’s head of external relations, told the Guardian: “Alec members advance individual liberty and free enterprise across the states, creating opportunity for a better life for all Americans.”
He added: “Alec is routinely targeted because its member legislators are nearly 300% as effective as any other group of elected officials. In fact, this year, USA Today reported that of 10,000 bills analyzed in state legislatures from 2010-2018, 2,900 were based on Alec model policy and more than 600 became law.”
The other examples of measures allegedly supporting white supremacy cited in the joint report are “critical infrastructure bills” that originated with a 2017 law introduced in Oklahoma to clamp down on indigenous and other protesters against the Dakota Access pipeline.
Alec turned the Oklahoma template into a model bill that has spread through the US, threatening indigenous protesters with fines and jail time.
The final Alec intervention cited by the authors concerns moves to combat the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to pressure Israel to abide by international human rights laws.
As the Guardian reported last month, Alec has hosted discussions on banning criticism of Israel on US campuses.
pacifying traitors!!!
University kills at least one job after giving millions to preserve white supremacist statue
December 1, 2019
By Sarah K. Burris - raw story
Last week the North Carolina University system announced that it was giving a $2.5 million to a trust that would fund the preservation of Confederate statues, namely the “Silent Sam” statue that was toppled by protesters. Now it seems at least one job has been cut and a North Carolina State employee is questioning if it was as a result of the settlement.
The lawsuit is from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which promotes southern states that waged war against the United States when it tried to abolish slavery.
“The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution,” their website claims. “The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built. Today, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is preserving the history and legacy of these heroes, so future generations can understand the motives that animated the Southern Cause.”
Under the terms outlined in the settlement, the Sons of Confederate Veterans will take the “Silent Sam” statue off campus, after it was toppled last year during protests. The Confederal group will “forever maintain possession of the monument outside any of the 14 counties currently containing a UNC System campus,” while UNC will set up a $2.5 million charitable trust, “using non-state funds,” for “certain limited expenses related to the care and preservation of the monument, including potentially a facility to house and display the monument.”
The statue was dedicated in 1913 where UNC trustee Julian Carr spoke about the importance of adopting white supremacist values.
According to one staffer, his team at NC State lost a position after a “demoralizing” process where his team was forced to “justify your existence” in a budget exercise.
It’s unknown if the budget cuts are related to the $2.5 million settlement, and it’s unclear where the funds came from in the university system for the state. But at least one staffer fears the two are related.
The lawsuit is from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which promotes southern states that waged war against the United States when it tried to abolish slavery.
“The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution,” their website claims. “The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built. Today, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is preserving the history and legacy of these heroes, so future generations can understand the motives that animated the Southern Cause.”
Under the terms outlined in the settlement, the Sons of Confederate Veterans will take the “Silent Sam” statue off campus, after it was toppled last year during protests. The Confederal group will “forever maintain possession of the monument outside any of the 14 counties currently containing a UNC System campus,” while UNC will set up a $2.5 million charitable trust, “using non-state funds,” for “certain limited expenses related to the care and preservation of the monument, including potentially a facility to house and display the monument.”
The statue was dedicated in 1913 where UNC trustee Julian Carr spoke about the importance of adopting white supremacist values.
According to one staffer, his team at NC State lost a position after a “demoralizing” process where his team was forced to “justify your existence” in a budget exercise.
It’s unknown if the budget cuts are related to the $2.5 million settlement, and it’s unclear where the funds came from in the university system for the state. But at least one staffer fears the two are related.
OP-ED RACIAL JUSTICE
Anti-Semitic and Anti-Muslim Murders Are Latest in String of Fascist Attacks
BY Spencer Sunshine, Truthout
PUBLISHED October 18, 2019
Last week’s attack on a synagogue and kebab shop was only a blip in the news in the United States. On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, a fascist tried to storm a synagogue in Halle, Germany. Failing to get through the synagogue’s security door, he murdered a bystander on the street and then another in a nearby kebab shop.
For many people, this is yet another racist and anti-Semitic attack among innumerable others. But looking at the details, it is the latest in a sequence of six attacks in less than a year. And there are likely to be more to come.
An Overlooked Trend
Every year, the far right murders dozens of people in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks these numbers closely, says 413 have been murdered by the U.S. right between 2007 and 2018, including 49 last year.
But these blocks of numbers obscure the patterns within them. The murders include racist prison gang hits, random street arguments that escalate, internecine quarrels and murder-suicides which include family members. Others are the product of conscious plans of right-wing terrorism — plans involving bombings, massacres and assassinations.
Right now, there are two overlapping linked sequences of far-right massacres. The first is a series of misogynistic killings intended to spur an “incel rebellion.” “Incel,” or “involuntary celibate,” is a term used by male supremacists who believe they are entitled to sex and relationships with women, but are being denied those rights because women don’t want to date or have sex with them. This developed out of a much larger online subculture often called men’s rights activists. These incel-perpetrated misogynistic killings include the 10 people killed in May 2014 shootings in Isla Vista, California; 10 more in an April 2018 van attack in Toronto, Canada; and two killed in November 2018 in a Tallahassee, Florida, yoga studio.
The second sequence of far-right massacres includes killings that are committed by fascists who have developed a “toolkit” — a specific way to carry out and publicize the attacks. Eighty-eight people have been killed in these six attacks alone, which have taken place in the United States, Germany and New Zealand.
There is overlap between the incel and fascist subsets. They use similar social media platforms, often look to the same past massacres for inspiration, and carry out their attacks in similar ways.
The attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018, in which 11 were killed, was the first of six linked fascist attacks in the past year. The perpetrator posted on social media beforehand, fixating on immigration as his core popular issue, while blaming a Jewish conspiracy for it.
The largest massacre was the March 2019 attack in Christchurch, New Zealand on two mosques which killed 51. The perpetrator established the toolkit by posting a manifesto on the message board 8chan and livestreaming the attack on Facebook. (8chan was established in 2013 as a more racist version of 4chan message board, which originally birthed the “alt-right.”)
The April 2019 attack on a synagogue in Poway, California which resulted in one death, was the first attempt to emulate Christchurch. The perpetrator put a manifesto on 8chan and attempted to livestream it — although it did not work.
In August, a massacre at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas killed 22. The perpetrator again issued a manifesto on 8chan saying he said he wanted to kill Mexican immigrants.
Seven days after El Paso, in Baerum, Norway a fascist killed his adopted sister, who was born in China, and attempted to attack a mosque. He also issued a statement on EndChan and 4chan, and tried to livestream his attack, although he was unsuccessful.
And then, on October 9, a fascist in Halle, Germany attacked a synagogue and kebab shop, killing two people. He also put out a manifesto on social media and livestreamed it, saying beforehand, “Feminism is the cause of declining birth rates in the West, which acts as a scapegoat for mass immigration, and the root of all these problems is the Jew.” His statement was in English, showing his desire to reach an international audience.
As with other radical social movements, which are inevitably unable to achieve their expansive goals in a short period of time, the revived white nationalist movement has split into different wings. One wants to go mainstream, while the militants are promoting a campaign of terror. After many white nationalists were kicked off U.S.-based social media platforms, they have regrouped on Telegram, an app on which nearly anything goes — so much so that it is where ISIS has disseminated propaganda. There they have many channels, some with thousands of followers, which openly distribute bomb-making manuals and firearms tips.
A number of far-right groups active on Telegram advocate terrorist strategies, including The Base, Sonnenkreig Division, Feuerkrieg Division and Atomwaffen Division. Affiliates of the latter have killed five people since May 2017.
Today, this militant wing has a set plan to offer followers. They are exhorted to “Read Siege,” a neo-Nazi book which encourages terrorism. These white nationalists hold the belief of “accelerationism,” which says that things have to get worse (i.e., more massacres) before they get better (fascist revolution). Telegram is the militant wing’s secure communications network. And their action toolkit is ready: Pick a target of immigrants, Muslims or Jews; write a manifesto; and livestream your massacre. Last, whether they live or die, perpetrators will be praised as “saints” by this network.
Confronting Increasing Fascist Attacks
It’s true that U.S. law enforcement has finally started to pay attention to the far right. Immediately after El Paso, a wave of arrests started and hasn’t stopped. Neo-Nazis and other Far Right activists stockpiling weapons, and people who threatened to commit attacks, have been apprehended. Four members of the Atomwaffen Division and Feuerkrieg Division were arrested since the El Paso massacre. Another Atomwaffen Division member had their firearms seized. 8chan itself finally went offline that month, and apparently will not re-appear in the same form.
But for many reasons, law enforcement won’t be able to stop this violence. These fascist militants have hunkered down in a safe corner. There are some things that can dampen enthusiasm for this tendency: massacre attempts which end in failures, like in Norway; the shutting down of livestreams; and raids on people stockpiling weapons and making threats. So, too, might revulsion from their movement’s supporters.
However, successful acts, like the livestream of the German attack — as well as events which act as triggers for the right wing in general — may inspire further massacres. The most likely trigger is an impeachment of Donald Trump. These militants—although they generally do not support him—are likely to portray this as a crushing of legal, “play-by-the-rules” white nationalism, and will proclaim the only course of action left is terror.
An increase in law enforcement’s involvement should not obscure the reality of this violent fascist moment: There is no reason to believe these six attacks will not be followed by more which use the same toolkit. Platforms like Facebook and Twitch are trying to address the livestreaming problem, but there is not an immediate solution. Telegram isn’t going to suspend fascist channels unless governments step in to force them. And there are just too many fascists who’ve worked themselves into a murderous frenzy to think that a few arrests will have much of an effect.
These attacks are connected, and their common threads are not going away. We must see with clear eyes what is already happening around us in order to think strategically about how to confront white nationalist violence moving forward.
For many people, this is yet another racist and anti-Semitic attack among innumerable others. But looking at the details, it is the latest in a sequence of six attacks in less than a year. And there are likely to be more to come.
An Overlooked Trend
Every year, the far right murders dozens of people in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks these numbers closely, says 413 have been murdered by the U.S. right between 2007 and 2018, including 49 last year.
But these blocks of numbers obscure the patterns within them. The murders include racist prison gang hits, random street arguments that escalate, internecine quarrels and murder-suicides which include family members. Others are the product of conscious plans of right-wing terrorism — plans involving bombings, massacres and assassinations.
Right now, there are two overlapping linked sequences of far-right massacres. The first is a series of misogynistic killings intended to spur an “incel rebellion.” “Incel,” or “involuntary celibate,” is a term used by male supremacists who believe they are entitled to sex and relationships with women, but are being denied those rights because women don’t want to date or have sex with them. This developed out of a much larger online subculture often called men’s rights activists. These incel-perpetrated misogynistic killings include the 10 people killed in May 2014 shootings in Isla Vista, California; 10 more in an April 2018 van attack in Toronto, Canada; and two killed in November 2018 in a Tallahassee, Florida, yoga studio.
The second sequence of far-right massacres includes killings that are committed by fascists who have developed a “toolkit” — a specific way to carry out and publicize the attacks. Eighty-eight people have been killed in these six attacks alone, which have taken place in the United States, Germany and New Zealand.
There is overlap between the incel and fascist subsets. They use similar social media platforms, often look to the same past massacres for inspiration, and carry out their attacks in similar ways.
The attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018, in which 11 were killed, was the first of six linked fascist attacks in the past year. The perpetrator posted on social media beforehand, fixating on immigration as his core popular issue, while blaming a Jewish conspiracy for it.
The largest massacre was the March 2019 attack in Christchurch, New Zealand on two mosques which killed 51. The perpetrator established the toolkit by posting a manifesto on the message board 8chan and livestreaming the attack on Facebook. (8chan was established in 2013 as a more racist version of 4chan message board, which originally birthed the “alt-right.”)
The April 2019 attack on a synagogue in Poway, California which resulted in one death, was the first attempt to emulate Christchurch. The perpetrator put a manifesto on 8chan and attempted to livestream it — although it did not work.
In August, a massacre at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas killed 22. The perpetrator again issued a manifesto on 8chan saying he said he wanted to kill Mexican immigrants.
Seven days after El Paso, in Baerum, Norway a fascist killed his adopted sister, who was born in China, and attempted to attack a mosque. He also issued a statement on EndChan and 4chan, and tried to livestream his attack, although he was unsuccessful.
And then, on October 9, a fascist in Halle, Germany attacked a synagogue and kebab shop, killing two people. He also put out a manifesto on social media and livestreamed it, saying beforehand, “Feminism is the cause of declining birth rates in the West, which acts as a scapegoat for mass immigration, and the root of all these problems is the Jew.” His statement was in English, showing his desire to reach an international audience.
As with other radical social movements, which are inevitably unable to achieve their expansive goals in a short period of time, the revived white nationalist movement has split into different wings. One wants to go mainstream, while the militants are promoting a campaign of terror. After many white nationalists were kicked off U.S.-based social media platforms, they have regrouped on Telegram, an app on which nearly anything goes — so much so that it is where ISIS has disseminated propaganda. There they have many channels, some with thousands of followers, which openly distribute bomb-making manuals and firearms tips.
A number of far-right groups active on Telegram advocate terrorist strategies, including The Base, Sonnenkreig Division, Feuerkrieg Division and Atomwaffen Division. Affiliates of the latter have killed five people since May 2017.
Today, this militant wing has a set plan to offer followers. They are exhorted to “Read Siege,” a neo-Nazi book which encourages terrorism. These white nationalists hold the belief of “accelerationism,” which says that things have to get worse (i.e., more massacres) before they get better (fascist revolution). Telegram is the militant wing’s secure communications network. And their action toolkit is ready: Pick a target of immigrants, Muslims or Jews; write a manifesto; and livestream your massacre. Last, whether they live or die, perpetrators will be praised as “saints” by this network.
Confronting Increasing Fascist Attacks
It’s true that U.S. law enforcement has finally started to pay attention to the far right. Immediately after El Paso, a wave of arrests started and hasn’t stopped. Neo-Nazis and other Far Right activists stockpiling weapons, and people who threatened to commit attacks, have been apprehended. Four members of the Atomwaffen Division and Feuerkrieg Division were arrested since the El Paso massacre. Another Atomwaffen Division member had their firearms seized. 8chan itself finally went offline that month, and apparently will not re-appear in the same form.
But for many reasons, law enforcement won’t be able to stop this violence. These fascist militants have hunkered down in a safe corner. There are some things that can dampen enthusiasm for this tendency: massacre attempts which end in failures, like in Norway; the shutting down of livestreams; and raids on people stockpiling weapons and making threats. So, too, might revulsion from their movement’s supporters.
However, successful acts, like the livestream of the German attack — as well as events which act as triggers for the right wing in general — may inspire further massacres. The most likely trigger is an impeachment of Donald Trump. These militants—although they generally do not support him—are likely to portray this as a crushing of legal, “play-by-the-rules” white nationalism, and will proclaim the only course of action left is terror.
An increase in law enforcement’s involvement should not obscure the reality of this violent fascist moment: There is no reason to believe these six attacks will not be followed by more which use the same toolkit. Platforms like Facebook and Twitch are trying to address the livestreaming problem, but there is not an immediate solution. Telegram isn’t going to suspend fascist channels unless governments step in to force them. And there are just too many fascists who’ve worked themselves into a murderous frenzy to think that a few arrests will have much of an effect.
These attacks are connected, and their common threads are not going away. We must see with clear eyes what is already happening around us in order to think strategically about how to confront white nationalist violence moving forward.
Arkansas: tree honoring 1919 Elaine Massacre victims cut down
Officials investigating after tree planted in remembrance of one of the largest racial mass killings in US history was removed
Guardian staff and agencies
Mon 26 Aug 2019 08.26 EDT
Officials are investigating after someone cut down a willow tree that was planted earlier this year to honor the victims of the 1919 Elaine Massacre in eastern Arkansas.
The willow was planted in April in remembrance of the victims of the massacre, one of the largest racial mass killings in US history.
It occurred during the summer of 1919, when hundreds of African Americans died across the country, at the hands of white mob violence during what came to be known as the “Red Summer”.
Estimates of how many African Americans were killed in Elaine range from the low hundreds to more than 800, which would make it the deadliest such massacre in US history. Mass graves are thought to be situated around the town.
Events are planned for later next month to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre. An Elaine Massacre Memorial will be unveiled, the committee behind it including descendants of those killed and those who carried out the killing.
The Elaine Legacy Center said the willow tree was chopped down at its base last week and a memorial tag was stolen.
The Memphis television station WMC reported that police and state parks officials were investigating.
The willow was planted in April in remembrance of the victims of the massacre, one of the largest racial mass killings in US history.
It occurred during the summer of 1919, when hundreds of African Americans died across the country, at the hands of white mob violence during what came to be known as the “Red Summer”.
Estimates of how many African Americans were killed in Elaine range from the low hundreds to more than 800, which would make it the deadliest such massacre in US history. Mass graves are thought to be situated around the town.
Events are planned for later next month to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre. An Elaine Massacre Memorial will be unveiled, the committee behind it including descendants of those killed and those who carried out the killing.
The Elaine Legacy Center said the willow tree was chopped down at its base last week and a memorial tag was stolen.
The Memphis television station WMC reported that police and state parks officials were investigating.
White supremacists look to remake the map of America
After El Paso, the trend is clearly pointing in a disturbing direction.
CASEY MICHEL - Thinkprogress
AUG 12, 2019, 8:00 AM
When Dylann Roof, the white supremacist terrorist behind the 2015 Charleston massacre, issued his manifesto, he did so with a specific vision of America in mind.
To Roof’s mind, the United States. was his country — a white man’s nation, worth reclaiming through horrid bloodshed, done in the name of racial supremacy. To Roof, white supremacists could still conquer their country, even if they made up only a fraction of the population.
Ideas that white people in America should pack up and relocate elsewhere were ludicrous to Roof. Movements to cleave part of the country — say, the Pacific Northwest— into a whites-only utopia were anathema to Roof’s endgame. “I think this idea is beyond stupid. Why should I for example, give up the beauty and history of [South Carolina?],” Roof claimed. “The whole idea is pathetic and just another way to run from the problem without facing it.”
Fast forward four years, to last weekend. In El Paso, Texas, a white supremacist picked up where Roof left off. In a reprise of the Charleston shooter’s slaughter, the alleged El Paso shooter murdered some 22 individuals at a local Wal-Mart, all in the name of white nationalism. A manifesto purportedly written by the shooter lays out his extremism: how he was specifically targeting Hispanics, how his massacre would help prevent Texas from becoming a Democratic stronghold, how he aimed to end “racial mixing.”
The alleged El Paso manifesto however, carries a different vision for an American future than that pushed by Roof — one overlooked in the days following the attack, and one that may portend a growing shift in the end-goals of white supremacist extremists. To the shooter, America was, in a sense, beyond saving. Instead, the shooter wrote, the country must fracture entirely.
“You’re going to have people who are unstable, who are going to say, ‘I’m tired of waiting. Now I want to make it happen. I want to kick off this race war.'”
In the shooter’s vision, there would be no more United States. In its place, would be an America “divide[d]… into a confederacy of territories with at least 1 territory for each race.” Such a proposal would apparently allow “each race self-determination within their respective territory(s) [sic].”
Contra Roof, the alleged El Paso shooter wanted to be done with the United States. To him, there was no U.S. to reclaim — instead, it should be scrapped entirely.
“It sounds like they’re borrowing past ideas and putting renewed emphasis on it,” Daryl Johnson, a former Department of Homeland Security official focused on monitoring the far-right, told ThinkProgress. “It’s getting new traction if these guys are quoting it in their manifestos.”
While the idea of breaking the United States into separate racial territories is, of course, ludicrous, it doesn’t come without a support. And if anything, that support is growing, with flames fanned by actors both foreign and domestic. American state fracture — breaking up the country. outright — has gained increasing credence among the far-right over the past few years. And with last weekend’s terrorist attack, the domestic push to dissolve the United States outright entered a new phase — one whose end remains unclear.
Racial States of America
The record of attempts to break the country into racial regions has, of course, a lengthy history. Andrew Jackson’s administration, for instance, pushed the notion of creating a “Western Territory” peopled solely with Native Americans, many of whom would be ethnically cleansed from the American Southeast by both Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren. To the Jackson administration, the territory would eventually gain statehood outright: a state populated by, and for, the indigenous nations conquered through America’s white supremacist expansionism. (The proposal crumbled in the face of Congressional pushback.)
Indeed, the root for such a race-based division largely took place in the American West. Oregon celebrated its ascension to statehood with a constitution barring any black settlement outright. Anti-Chinese pogroms in Nevada and Idaho and Wyoming aimed to drive competing non-white laborers from the territories, as did anti-South Asian riots in Washington State. Genocidal massacres of indigenous nations in California in the mid-19th century — against Wintus, against Pomos, against Tolowas — achieved much the same, all in the name of forcing non-whites from newly American territory. And Texas was no different, with Texas Rangers responsible for much of the attempts at ethnic cleansing along the Texas-Mexico border.
Of course, it’s not as if the American West had a monopoly on these platforms of ethnic cleansing, or of racial reorganization. Post-Civil War white supremacist terrorism in the U.S. — lynchings, armed uprisings, political violence — aimed at driving formerly enslaved populations and their descendants from the American South, one of the primary drivers behind the Great Migration, itself part economic exodus and part refugee movement.
But for decades, the idea of breaking the U.S. into racial regions was a fringe fantasy. White supremacists — from the Ku Klux Klan to white nationalist extremists in the militia movement — wanted a return to white racial hegemony across the entirety of the United States. Ideas of a whites-only nation-state started resurfacing in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Johnson, and percolated especially in the Pacific Northwest. But only a small minority of extremists shared these views; such was the idea Roof ridiculed in his 2015 manifesto.
Over the past few years, though, the notion of state fracture and racial reorganization, may have gained credence among far-right voices — and backers have been finding support from the highest ranks of the American government.
White separatism
The recent interest in creating a whites-only state within the U.S. can be seen in a selection in terminology. Whereas “white supremacists” claim precisely what their name implies — the supremacy of the white race, however they define it — “white nationalists” often fall back on myopic claims that they are, in fact, not racist, but simply prefer people of the white race to others. These claims are belied by the fact that the most prominent white nationalists of the past few years — Richard Spencer, Matthew Heimbach, and the like — also happen to be inveterate anti-Semites who regularly spew racist diatribes, and clearly use the term “white nationalist” as a linguistic defense against their own white supremacy.
But it’s also true that there appears more interest over the past few years on the far-right in the interest of unwinding the U.S. entirely — an interest that culminated in a massacre in El Paso last weekend.
Take Heimbach. While the former head of the Traditionalist Workers Party has transformed into a laughingstock, after being arrested for an altercation with his step-father-in-law after sleeping with the man’s wife — Heimbach’s his step-mother-in-law.
He gained notoriety in 2016 as one of the faces of a rising generation of white supremacists. To Heimbach, the solution to America’s ails was simple: Balkanization. “Every ethnic group should be able to opt out of multiculturalism if it wants to,” Heimbach said. “Multiculturalism leads to violence. Multiculturalism leads to disunity. Different cultures want to live differently.”
Spencer, likewise, echoed Heimbach. Another prominent face of the fascists who rose to prominence in 2016, Spencer — accused of domestic abuse, to go along with his white supremacy — has advocated the creation of a white ethno-state. While Spencer hasn’t specified where such a state would exist, one of his allies, former KKK lawyer Sam Dickson, fleshed out Spencer’s idea in late 2015. As the Southern Poverty Law Center related, “Dickson claimed African Americans could ‘be given Manhattan,’ describing his version of a Balkanization of America.”
Other semi-prominent extreme right voices have picked up the threads since. Patrick Little, another anti-Semitic white supremacist, announced in 2018 that he supported the “Balkanization” of the U.S. “I’m a fan of Balkanization,” Little claimed. The backing of “Balkanization” fits into broader trends of American white supremacists looking to the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the kind of ethnic cleansing resultant, for inspiration. (Former president Barack Obama specifically pointed to “ethnic cleansing in the Balkans” in his statement following the El Paso shooting.)
And just this week, the SPLC outed a State Department official named Matthew Gebert as a white supremacist — one who claimed white Americans need a new country, one that could boast its own nuclear arsenal. “That’s all we need,” Gebert said. “We need a country founded for white people with a nuclear deterrent. And you watch how the world trembles.”
White House
Having someone as outwardly racist and sympathetic to white nationalist rhetoric in power as President Trump in some ways mitigates the push for outright state fracture. So long as Trump remains ensconced in Washington, the ludicrous notion of territorial reordering in the United States remains at bay.
“I don’t think they’ve thought about [the structure of an all-white society],” Johnson told ThinkProgress. “It’s this idealistic utopia, and they don’t sit there and say, ‘Well, how are we going to govern, how are we going to tax,’ things like that.”
“The fact that these people are talking about doing this should disturb Americans of all stripes.”
But that doesn’t mean things can’t change — or that Trump himself wouldn’t be sympathetic to the movement at some point in the future. After all, just this week Trump took to Twitter to boost a fired Google employee. The man Trump publicly praised also happened to be a vocal supporter of Richard Spencer.
Nor is this swelling white supremacist push for the disintegration of the country, which spilled into bloodshed in Texas last weekend, purely of domestic interest.
Look at recent Russian interference efforts. Not only have Kremlin-funded groups previously cultivated ties with neo-Confederates in the U.S., but some of the most prominent fake social media accounts specifically, and successfully, targeted secessionists with racist rhetoric through and after the 2016 election. (American secessionists also happened to flock to Moscow before the 2016 vote.) Just a few months ago, we learned of an aborted plan to try to stoke racial discontent with the ultimate aim of cracking apart the nation into racial polities.
“Regardless of whether or not these plans are an amateurish thought experiment, the fact that these people are talking about doing this should disturb Americans of all stripes,” a former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI told NBC.
Elsewhere, rhetoric advocating the fracturing of America has begun to seep beyond just white supremacist messaging. Far-right pundits like Kurt Schlichter and Jesse Kelly, who claim to be “patriots,” have floated the idea of destroying the United States. Kelly claimed he wants an “amicable divorce,” but it’s unclear why he thinks any dissolution would be peaceful.
Just this week, 538 ran an interview with “Chris, a 35-year-old white man from rural Pennsylvania,” who backed up the idea of dissolution. As Chris revealed, he thinks American dissolution is effectively a fait accompli. “I feel like it’s going to happen one way or the other,” he said. “Maybe if we can control the process a little it won’t be quite as bad.” His support for dissolution rests largely on the racists surrounding him, pointing out that those in his community regularly refer to Martin Luther King Day with racial slurs. “It’s the N-word,” Chris said, noting how people describe the holiday. “N-Day is kinda what they say. Even the people who don’t say it chuckle at it.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the recent rhetoric advocating for U.S. dissolution — whether from white supremacists or otherwise — is predicated on the belief that American socio-political divides remain at the state level: that the supposed Red State/Blue State divide remains insoluble. But the notion that America’s divide remains on a state-by-state basis is years out of date. Instead, as recent elections indicate, the split is far more centered on rural-urban divides.
Just look at Texas. Two decades ago, Austin was viewed as a “blue island” in a “sea of red.” In the second half of this decade, Texas’s major urban areas — Houston and Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth — have all tilted Democratic. Texas is no different from other Republican-leaning states, where major cities — Louisville, Ky.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Missoula, Montana — have voted Democratic in recent years. And there’s little reason to think that trajectory will shift in the foreseeable future.
But then, that allegedly was one of the factors driving the shooter responsible for the killings in El Paso. It’s also one of the reasons domestic terrorists like him have begun turning toward trying to dissolve the nation, rather than returning to what they view as the halcyon days of white supremacy.
“I think the closer we get to the 2020 election, the more scary it’s going to get,” Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist who renounced the movement to run anti-extremist programs, told ThinkProgress.
“If the Democrats win — and I’m not predicting anything, this is just my opinion — if the Democrats win, I think you will see a lot of activity in states that are heavily Republican starting to talk about secession, starting to say, ‘Do we want to be part of this liberal, socialist, whatever-they’re-calling-it America?’ And I think you’ll have discussions about that,” Picciolini said.
“But on other hand, you’re going to have people who are unstable, who are going to say, ‘I’m tired of waiting. Now I want to make it happen. I want to kick off this race war’.”
To Roof’s mind, the United States. was his country — a white man’s nation, worth reclaiming through horrid bloodshed, done in the name of racial supremacy. To Roof, white supremacists could still conquer their country, even if they made up only a fraction of the population.
Ideas that white people in America should pack up and relocate elsewhere were ludicrous to Roof. Movements to cleave part of the country — say, the Pacific Northwest— into a whites-only utopia were anathema to Roof’s endgame. “I think this idea is beyond stupid. Why should I for example, give up the beauty and history of [South Carolina?],” Roof claimed. “The whole idea is pathetic and just another way to run from the problem without facing it.”
Fast forward four years, to last weekend. In El Paso, Texas, a white supremacist picked up where Roof left off. In a reprise of the Charleston shooter’s slaughter, the alleged El Paso shooter murdered some 22 individuals at a local Wal-Mart, all in the name of white nationalism. A manifesto purportedly written by the shooter lays out his extremism: how he was specifically targeting Hispanics, how his massacre would help prevent Texas from becoming a Democratic stronghold, how he aimed to end “racial mixing.”
The alleged El Paso manifesto however, carries a different vision for an American future than that pushed by Roof — one overlooked in the days following the attack, and one that may portend a growing shift in the end-goals of white supremacist extremists. To the shooter, America was, in a sense, beyond saving. Instead, the shooter wrote, the country must fracture entirely.
“You’re going to have people who are unstable, who are going to say, ‘I’m tired of waiting. Now I want to make it happen. I want to kick off this race war.'”
In the shooter’s vision, there would be no more United States. In its place, would be an America “divide[d]… into a confederacy of territories with at least 1 territory for each race.” Such a proposal would apparently allow “each race self-determination within their respective territory(s) [sic].”
Contra Roof, the alleged El Paso shooter wanted to be done with the United States. To him, there was no U.S. to reclaim — instead, it should be scrapped entirely.
“It sounds like they’re borrowing past ideas and putting renewed emphasis on it,” Daryl Johnson, a former Department of Homeland Security official focused on monitoring the far-right, told ThinkProgress. “It’s getting new traction if these guys are quoting it in their manifestos.”
While the idea of breaking the United States into separate racial territories is, of course, ludicrous, it doesn’t come without a support. And if anything, that support is growing, with flames fanned by actors both foreign and domestic. American state fracture — breaking up the country. outright — has gained increasing credence among the far-right over the past few years. And with last weekend’s terrorist attack, the domestic push to dissolve the United States outright entered a new phase — one whose end remains unclear.
Racial States of America
The record of attempts to break the country into racial regions has, of course, a lengthy history. Andrew Jackson’s administration, for instance, pushed the notion of creating a “Western Territory” peopled solely with Native Americans, many of whom would be ethnically cleansed from the American Southeast by both Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren. To the Jackson administration, the territory would eventually gain statehood outright: a state populated by, and for, the indigenous nations conquered through America’s white supremacist expansionism. (The proposal crumbled in the face of Congressional pushback.)
Indeed, the root for such a race-based division largely took place in the American West. Oregon celebrated its ascension to statehood with a constitution barring any black settlement outright. Anti-Chinese pogroms in Nevada and Idaho and Wyoming aimed to drive competing non-white laborers from the territories, as did anti-South Asian riots in Washington State. Genocidal massacres of indigenous nations in California in the mid-19th century — against Wintus, against Pomos, against Tolowas — achieved much the same, all in the name of forcing non-whites from newly American territory. And Texas was no different, with Texas Rangers responsible for much of the attempts at ethnic cleansing along the Texas-Mexico border.
Of course, it’s not as if the American West had a monopoly on these platforms of ethnic cleansing, or of racial reorganization. Post-Civil War white supremacist terrorism in the U.S. — lynchings, armed uprisings, political violence — aimed at driving formerly enslaved populations and their descendants from the American South, one of the primary drivers behind the Great Migration, itself part economic exodus and part refugee movement.
But for decades, the idea of breaking the U.S. into racial regions was a fringe fantasy. White supremacists — from the Ku Klux Klan to white nationalist extremists in the militia movement — wanted a return to white racial hegemony across the entirety of the United States. Ideas of a whites-only nation-state started resurfacing in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Johnson, and percolated especially in the Pacific Northwest. But only a small minority of extremists shared these views; such was the idea Roof ridiculed in his 2015 manifesto.
Over the past few years, though, the notion of state fracture and racial reorganization, may have gained credence among far-right voices — and backers have been finding support from the highest ranks of the American government.
White separatism
The recent interest in creating a whites-only state within the U.S. can be seen in a selection in terminology. Whereas “white supremacists” claim precisely what their name implies — the supremacy of the white race, however they define it — “white nationalists” often fall back on myopic claims that they are, in fact, not racist, but simply prefer people of the white race to others. These claims are belied by the fact that the most prominent white nationalists of the past few years — Richard Spencer, Matthew Heimbach, and the like — also happen to be inveterate anti-Semites who regularly spew racist diatribes, and clearly use the term “white nationalist” as a linguistic defense against their own white supremacy.
But it’s also true that there appears more interest over the past few years on the far-right in the interest of unwinding the U.S. entirely — an interest that culminated in a massacre in El Paso last weekend.
Take Heimbach. While the former head of the Traditionalist Workers Party has transformed into a laughingstock, after being arrested for an altercation with his step-father-in-law after sleeping with the man’s wife — Heimbach’s his step-mother-in-law.
He gained notoriety in 2016 as one of the faces of a rising generation of white supremacists. To Heimbach, the solution to America’s ails was simple: Balkanization. “Every ethnic group should be able to opt out of multiculturalism if it wants to,” Heimbach said. “Multiculturalism leads to violence. Multiculturalism leads to disunity. Different cultures want to live differently.”
Spencer, likewise, echoed Heimbach. Another prominent face of the fascists who rose to prominence in 2016, Spencer — accused of domestic abuse, to go along with his white supremacy — has advocated the creation of a white ethno-state. While Spencer hasn’t specified where such a state would exist, one of his allies, former KKK lawyer Sam Dickson, fleshed out Spencer’s idea in late 2015. As the Southern Poverty Law Center related, “Dickson claimed African Americans could ‘be given Manhattan,’ describing his version of a Balkanization of America.”
Other semi-prominent extreme right voices have picked up the threads since. Patrick Little, another anti-Semitic white supremacist, announced in 2018 that he supported the “Balkanization” of the U.S. “I’m a fan of Balkanization,” Little claimed. The backing of “Balkanization” fits into broader trends of American white supremacists looking to the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the kind of ethnic cleansing resultant, for inspiration. (Former president Barack Obama specifically pointed to “ethnic cleansing in the Balkans” in his statement following the El Paso shooting.)
And just this week, the SPLC outed a State Department official named Matthew Gebert as a white supremacist — one who claimed white Americans need a new country, one that could boast its own nuclear arsenal. “That’s all we need,” Gebert said. “We need a country founded for white people with a nuclear deterrent. And you watch how the world trembles.”
White House
Having someone as outwardly racist and sympathetic to white nationalist rhetoric in power as President Trump in some ways mitigates the push for outright state fracture. So long as Trump remains ensconced in Washington, the ludicrous notion of territorial reordering in the United States remains at bay.
“I don’t think they’ve thought about [the structure of an all-white society],” Johnson told ThinkProgress. “It’s this idealistic utopia, and they don’t sit there and say, ‘Well, how are we going to govern, how are we going to tax,’ things like that.”
“The fact that these people are talking about doing this should disturb Americans of all stripes.”
But that doesn’t mean things can’t change — or that Trump himself wouldn’t be sympathetic to the movement at some point in the future. After all, just this week Trump took to Twitter to boost a fired Google employee. The man Trump publicly praised also happened to be a vocal supporter of Richard Spencer.
Nor is this swelling white supremacist push for the disintegration of the country, which spilled into bloodshed in Texas last weekend, purely of domestic interest.
Look at recent Russian interference efforts. Not only have Kremlin-funded groups previously cultivated ties with neo-Confederates in the U.S., but some of the most prominent fake social media accounts specifically, and successfully, targeted secessionists with racist rhetoric through and after the 2016 election. (American secessionists also happened to flock to Moscow before the 2016 vote.) Just a few months ago, we learned of an aborted plan to try to stoke racial discontent with the ultimate aim of cracking apart the nation into racial polities.
“Regardless of whether or not these plans are an amateurish thought experiment, the fact that these people are talking about doing this should disturb Americans of all stripes,” a former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI told NBC.
Elsewhere, rhetoric advocating the fracturing of America has begun to seep beyond just white supremacist messaging. Far-right pundits like Kurt Schlichter and Jesse Kelly, who claim to be “patriots,” have floated the idea of destroying the United States. Kelly claimed he wants an “amicable divorce,” but it’s unclear why he thinks any dissolution would be peaceful.
Just this week, 538 ran an interview with “Chris, a 35-year-old white man from rural Pennsylvania,” who backed up the idea of dissolution. As Chris revealed, he thinks American dissolution is effectively a fait accompli. “I feel like it’s going to happen one way or the other,” he said. “Maybe if we can control the process a little it won’t be quite as bad.” His support for dissolution rests largely on the racists surrounding him, pointing out that those in his community regularly refer to Martin Luther King Day with racial slurs. “It’s the N-word,” Chris said, noting how people describe the holiday. “N-Day is kinda what they say. Even the people who don’t say it chuckle at it.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the recent rhetoric advocating for U.S. dissolution — whether from white supremacists or otherwise — is predicated on the belief that American socio-political divides remain at the state level: that the supposed Red State/Blue State divide remains insoluble. But the notion that America’s divide remains on a state-by-state basis is years out of date. Instead, as recent elections indicate, the split is far more centered on rural-urban divides.
Just look at Texas. Two decades ago, Austin was viewed as a “blue island” in a “sea of red.” In the second half of this decade, Texas’s major urban areas — Houston and Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth — have all tilted Democratic. Texas is no different from other Republican-leaning states, where major cities — Louisville, Ky.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Missoula, Montana — have voted Democratic in recent years. And there’s little reason to think that trajectory will shift in the foreseeable future.
But then, that allegedly was one of the factors driving the shooter responsible for the killings in El Paso. It’s also one of the reasons domestic terrorists like him have begun turning toward trying to dissolve the nation, rather than returning to what they view as the halcyon days of white supremacy.
“I think the closer we get to the 2020 election, the more scary it’s going to get,” Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist who renounced the movement to run anti-extremist programs, told ThinkProgress.
“If the Democrats win — and I’m not predicting anything, this is just my opinion — if the Democrats win, I think you will see a lot of activity in states that are heavily Republican starting to talk about secession, starting to say, ‘Do we want to be part of this liberal, socialist, whatever-they’re-calling-it America?’ And I think you’ll have discussions about that,” Picciolini said.
“But on other hand, you’re going to have people who are unstable, who are going to say, ‘I’m tired of waiting. Now I want to make it happen. I want to kick off this race war’.”
Alt-right women and the "white baby challenge"
Within white supremacy circles, women are expressing some of the loudest calls for white-baby making
ALEXANDRA MINNA STERN - Salon
JULY 14, 2019 3:00PM (UTC)
If the alt-right is galvanized by one overarching narrative, it is that demographic change will reduce whites to a hated minority and eventually lead to white extinction. The alt-right frequently expounds on and alludes to the declining white birth rate and refers to concerning numbers of suicide among middle-aged white men, as well as the devastating opioid epidemic and its impact on white families. Recent surveys do show that American women of all backgrounds are having fewer babies, less than the replacement level of 2.1, mainly due to deep economic concerns like the high costs of child care. Depending on how race and ethnicity data in the US Census is interpreted, non-Hispanic whites will constitute less than 50 percent of the population around 2050. Alt-righters weaponize census projections relying on the narrowest percentages to count whites (as non-Hispanic whites with no mixed-race identity), and thereby hype their claims of impending white genocide. These problematic projections serve the alt-right well in whipping up demographic fear, which is propagated by mainstream right-wing pundits like Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, and Tucker Carlson. The alt-right twists these fertility and mortality statistics away from questions of health disparities and income equality to prima facie evidence of a nearly conspiratorial campaign of white extinction.
One response to looming “white extinction anxiety” is to produce white babies—many more white babies—principally of Northern and Western European ancestry. Unlike immigration or refugee bans, forced deportations, or the reintroduction of racial segregation, which require heavy-handed policies, white nationalism can grow through procreative means, boosted by pronatalist programs. As one contributor to Counter-Currents proposes: “Having three—or five or eight—White children is probably the most ‘pro-White’ thing a person can do—and the most resistant to any charge of ‘racism.’ How about that?”28 Propagating wildly does mean that alt-right men will need to convince themselves that procreation and coupling—and a likely future of vanilla sex with a wife—are enticing. This tamed path of husband and father is far afield from the erotic conquests and hook-ups prioritized in the manosphere. Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents broaches the difficulties of convincing horny and entitled 20- and 30-somethings to bite the bullet and breed. The smackdown he gives this audience focuses on the urgency of perpetuating ancestral white bloodlines: “If you are worried about having kids, or you’re not sure if it’s a good idea, or you’re not sure if you’re up to it, or you’re afraid that you’re bringing them into a terrible world, just think about all of the ancestors that you had going back to the very beginning of our race. Every one of these people probably had it harder than you.” He asks them the berating question: ”Are you going to be the whiny little maggot who brings all of their striving and struggles to oblivion because you just can’t get your act together and decide to go off the goddamn pill or stop using condoms or whatever and just take the plunge and carry the race forward one more generation?”
Appeals to ancestry abound in the alt-right, and nationalist women express some of the loudest calls for white-baby making. In 2017, Wife with a Purpose, the alt-right social media activist who chronicles her life as a proud nationalist and Mormon mother, was taken with a tweet posted by Iowa representative Steve King. Itself riffing off a tweet from the acerbic right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders about the threat of Muslims to the Netherlands and the foreseen demographic disappearance of whites, King aped, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” This resulted in swift condemnation and ridicule in many quarters of the mainstream media, and King himself received bemused and angry tweets from congressional colleagues, some posting photos of their smiling multiracial children. Wife with a Purpose, who asserts that “her primary duty is having children and supporting her husband,” issued a “white baby challenge,” throwing down the breeding gauntlet: “As a mother of 6, I challenge families to have as many white babies as I have contributed.” Once her challenge went viral on social media, Wife with a Purpose received much censure. Telling, however, were the thousands of comments praising and defending her on her YouTube channel: “I stand in solidarity with Ayla,” “Love This Woman!,” “She is 100% right,” and “Make White Babies Great Again!”
Red Ice’s Radio 3Fourteen, hosted by Lana Lokteff, is the most visible online arena for discussions of nationalism from a female alt-right perspective. Lokteff’s interviews and vlogs receive 10,000 to 200,00 views, depending on the topics, which range from the benefits of New Age herbs to the wonders of being a traditional wife, and from criticisms of the positive depictions of interracial couples on the mainstream media to the hazards of “migrant invasions.” Lokteff and Red Ice TV provide the online base camp for a networked public of alt-right women, who act as a chorus to demand preservation of the exalted Western civilization that their white men built. In her vlog They Want You Dead White Man! Lokteff delivers an impassioned commentary as a cascade of sensationalistic headlines flash across the screen and paint a frenzied picture of relentless attacks on white men in Europe and the United States. Lokteff reminds her viewers that straight white men are the world’s great inventors and creators and, moreover, that these tolerant and kind souls always are the ones to come to rescue the less fortunate. What would the world be like without these saviors? It would be “hell on earth,” she proclaims, behind a backdrop of film clips of brown and black people rioting and rickety boats of North African refugees. In a not-so-veiled threat, Lokteff warns that SJWs are taking political correctness and diversity campaigns “way too far, too fast,” and are “waking a sleeping giant.” Once roused, this mighty force of white saviors will take control, restore order, and reclaim Western civilization. The video weaves white male victimhood with racism through scaremongering and foregrounding the themes of imminent white genocide, the bias of the liberal media, and the fortification of the tribe. Lana praises alt-right men as “fighting for a future for women and children.” In her words, they are not “fags” but want to have sex and procreate with women.
As a home for the small but active alt-right sisterhood, Radio 3Fourteen brings together female alt-righters with their followers on social media. Regulars include Wife with a Purpose (Ayla Stewart), Bre Faucheux (before and after her online departure), Canadian white nationalists Lauren Southern and Faith Goldy, Lacey Lynn, and Blonde in the Belly of the Beast, who shares her experiences as a red-pilled anti-feminist living in the liberal bastion of Seattle. Also in the mix is TheBlondeButterMaker, who vlogs about organic recipes designed to nourish her family, including butter with pesto and bone broth, while endorsing a brand of white European paganism. The power of these alt-right women to push the Overton window and move alt-right discourse into the mainstream should not be underestimated. These are not just amicable Google chats with women with conservative leanings but virtual salons that make scorching and simplistic critiques of feminism, globalism, diversity, and multiculturalism sound urgent, sexy, and like plain old common sense to some ears. These women position themselves as the new counterculture, pitting themselves against a more backward Left. According to Lokteff, “A lot of these liberal women, they’re not risk-takers, even though they have piercings or blue hair. . . . What we do, the things we talk about, I don’t think it can get any more high-risk.” They fancy themselves alt-right handmaidens of a reinvigorated white culture and spokeswomen for their ostensibly beleaguered male defenders.
Alt-right women are traversing a tightrope, and they seem to believe it’s a sturdy one gripped firmly by their white male heroes. Yet the experiences of women like Faucheux, who unwittingly left social media under clouded circumstances and now, only with the protection of a wedding ring, can plot her return, reveals the precariousness of this balancing act. Nevertheless, any examination of the alt-right must explore the networked and affective domains of white nationalist women. As wobbly as their position may be, they inarguably are one of the movement’s greatest assets.
One response to looming “white extinction anxiety” is to produce white babies—many more white babies—principally of Northern and Western European ancestry. Unlike immigration or refugee bans, forced deportations, or the reintroduction of racial segregation, which require heavy-handed policies, white nationalism can grow through procreative means, boosted by pronatalist programs. As one contributor to Counter-Currents proposes: “Having three—or five or eight—White children is probably the most ‘pro-White’ thing a person can do—and the most resistant to any charge of ‘racism.’ How about that?”28 Propagating wildly does mean that alt-right men will need to convince themselves that procreation and coupling—and a likely future of vanilla sex with a wife—are enticing. This tamed path of husband and father is far afield from the erotic conquests and hook-ups prioritized in the manosphere. Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents broaches the difficulties of convincing horny and entitled 20- and 30-somethings to bite the bullet and breed. The smackdown he gives this audience focuses on the urgency of perpetuating ancestral white bloodlines: “If you are worried about having kids, or you’re not sure if it’s a good idea, or you’re not sure if you’re up to it, or you’re afraid that you’re bringing them into a terrible world, just think about all of the ancestors that you had going back to the very beginning of our race. Every one of these people probably had it harder than you.” He asks them the berating question: ”Are you going to be the whiny little maggot who brings all of their striving and struggles to oblivion because you just can’t get your act together and decide to go off the goddamn pill or stop using condoms or whatever and just take the plunge and carry the race forward one more generation?”
Appeals to ancestry abound in the alt-right, and nationalist women express some of the loudest calls for white-baby making. In 2017, Wife with a Purpose, the alt-right social media activist who chronicles her life as a proud nationalist and Mormon mother, was taken with a tweet posted by Iowa representative Steve King. Itself riffing off a tweet from the acerbic right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders about the threat of Muslims to the Netherlands and the foreseen demographic disappearance of whites, King aped, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” This resulted in swift condemnation and ridicule in many quarters of the mainstream media, and King himself received bemused and angry tweets from congressional colleagues, some posting photos of their smiling multiracial children. Wife with a Purpose, who asserts that “her primary duty is having children and supporting her husband,” issued a “white baby challenge,” throwing down the breeding gauntlet: “As a mother of 6, I challenge families to have as many white babies as I have contributed.” Once her challenge went viral on social media, Wife with a Purpose received much censure. Telling, however, were the thousands of comments praising and defending her on her YouTube channel: “I stand in solidarity with Ayla,” “Love This Woman!,” “She is 100% right,” and “Make White Babies Great Again!”
Red Ice’s Radio 3Fourteen, hosted by Lana Lokteff, is the most visible online arena for discussions of nationalism from a female alt-right perspective. Lokteff’s interviews and vlogs receive 10,000 to 200,00 views, depending on the topics, which range from the benefits of New Age herbs to the wonders of being a traditional wife, and from criticisms of the positive depictions of interracial couples on the mainstream media to the hazards of “migrant invasions.” Lokteff and Red Ice TV provide the online base camp for a networked public of alt-right women, who act as a chorus to demand preservation of the exalted Western civilization that their white men built. In her vlog They Want You Dead White Man! Lokteff delivers an impassioned commentary as a cascade of sensationalistic headlines flash across the screen and paint a frenzied picture of relentless attacks on white men in Europe and the United States. Lokteff reminds her viewers that straight white men are the world’s great inventors and creators and, moreover, that these tolerant and kind souls always are the ones to come to rescue the less fortunate. What would the world be like without these saviors? It would be “hell on earth,” she proclaims, behind a backdrop of film clips of brown and black people rioting and rickety boats of North African refugees. In a not-so-veiled threat, Lokteff warns that SJWs are taking political correctness and diversity campaigns “way too far, too fast,” and are “waking a sleeping giant.” Once roused, this mighty force of white saviors will take control, restore order, and reclaim Western civilization. The video weaves white male victimhood with racism through scaremongering and foregrounding the themes of imminent white genocide, the bias of the liberal media, and the fortification of the tribe. Lana praises alt-right men as “fighting for a future for women and children.” In her words, they are not “fags” but want to have sex and procreate with women.
As a home for the small but active alt-right sisterhood, Radio 3Fourteen brings together female alt-righters with their followers on social media. Regulars include Wife with a Purpose (Ayla Stewart), Bre Faucheux (before and after her online departure), Canadian white nationalists Lauren Southern and Faith Goldy, Lacey Lynn, and Blonde in the Belly of the Beast, who shares her experiences as a red-pilled anti-feminist living in the liberal bastion of Seattle. Also in the mix is TheBlondeButterMaker, who vlogs about organic recipes designed to nourish her family, including butter with pesto and bone broth, while endorsing a brand of white European paganism. The power of these alt-right women to push the Overton window and move alt-right discourse into the mainstream should not be underestimated. These are not just amicable Google chats with women with conservative leanings but virtual salons that make scorching and simplistic critiques of feminism, globalism, diversity, and multiculturalism sound urgent, sexy, and like plain old common sense to some ears. These women position themselves as the new counterculture, pitting themselves against a more backward Left. According to Lokteff, “A lot of these liberal women, they’re not risk-takers, even though they have piercings or blue hair. . . . What we do, the things we talk about, I don’t think it can get any more high-risk.” They fancy themselves alt-right handmaidens of a reinvigorated white culture and spokeswomen for their ostensibly beleaguered male defenders.
Alt-right women are traversing a tightrope, and they seem to believe it’s a sturdy one gripped firmly by their white male heroes. Yet the experiences of women like Faucheux, who unwittingly left social media under clouded circumstances and now, only with the protection of a wedding ring, can plot her return, reveals the precariousness of this balancing act. Nevertheless, any examination of the alt-right must explore the networked and affective domains of white nationalist women. As wobbly as their position may be, they inarguably are one of the movement’s greatest assets.
The deep roots of America's white nationalism
Meteor Blades
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday March 14, 2019 · 8:30 PM PDT
At The Atlantic, Adam Serwer writes--White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots. A long-overdue excavation of the book that Hitler called his “bible,” and the man who wrote it:
The concept of “white genocide”—extinction under an onslaught of genetically or culturally inferior nonwhite interlopers—may indeed seem like a fringe conspiracy theory with an alien lineage, the province of neo-Nazis and their fellow travelers. In popular memory, it’s a vestige of a racist ideology that the Greatest Generation did its best to scour from the Earth. History, though, tells a different story. [Rep. Steve] King’s recent question, posed in a New York Times interview, may be appalling: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” But it is apt. “That language” has an American past in need of excavation. Without such an effort, we may fail to appreciate the tenacity of the dogma it expresses, and the difficulty of eradicating it. The president’s rhetoric about “shithole countries” and “invasion” by immigrants invites dismissal as crude talk, but behind it lie ideas whose power should not be underestimated.
The seed of Nazism’s ultimate objective—the preservation of a pure white race, uncontaminated by foreign blood—was in fact sown with striking success in the United States. What is judged extremist today was once the consensus of a powerful cadre of the American elite, well-connected men who eagerly seized on a false doctrine of “race suicide” during the immigration scare of the early 20th century. They included wealthy patricians, intellectuals, lawmakers, even several presidents. Perhaps the most important among them was a blue blood with a very impressive mustache, Madison Grant. He was the author of a 1916 book called The Passing of the Great Race, which spread the doctrine of race purity all over the globe.
Grant’s purportedly scientific argument that the exalted “Nordic” race that had founded America was in peril, and all of modern society’s accomplishments along with it, helped catalyze nativist legislators in Congress to pass comprehensive restrictionist immigration policies in the early 1920s. His book went on to become Adolf Hitler’s “bible,” as the führer wrote to tell him. Grant’s doctrine has since been rejuvenated and rebranded by his ideological descendants as “white genocide” (the term genocide hadn’t yet been coined in Grant’s day). In an introduction to the 2013 edition of another of Grant’s works, the white nationalist Richard Spencer warns that “one possible outcome of the ongoing demographic transformation is a thoroughly miscegenated, and thus homogeneous and ‘assimilated,’ nation, which would have little resemblance to the White America that came before it.” This language is vintage Grant.
Most Americans, however, quickly forgot who Grant was—but not because the country had grappled with his vision’s dangerous appeal and implications. Reflexive recoil was more like it: When Nazism reflected back that vision in grotesque form, wartime denial set in. Jonathan Peter Spiro, a historian and the author of Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant (2009), described the backlash to me this way: “Even though the Germans had been directly influenced by Madison Grant and the American eugenics movement, when we fought Germany, because Germany was racist, racism became unacceptable in America. Our enemy was racist; therefore we adopted antiracism as our creed.” Ever since, a strange kind of historical amnesia has obscured the American lineage of this white-nationalist ideology.
Madison grant came from old money. Born in Manhattan seven months after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, he attended Yale and then Columbia Law School. He was an outdoorsman and a conservationist, knowledgeable about wildlife and interested in the dangers of extinction, expertise that he soon became intent on applying to humanity. When he opened a law practice on Wall Street in the early 1890s, the wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe was nearing its height. “As he was jostled by Greek ragpickers, Armenian bootblacks, and Jewish carp vendors, it was distressingly obvious to him that the new arrivals did not know this nation’s history or understand its republican form of government,” Spiro writes in his biography.
Jews troubled Grant the most. “The man of the old stock,” he later wrote in The Passing of the Great Race, is being “driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews.” But as the title of his 1916 work indicated, Grant’s fear of dispossession ran wide and deep:
These immigrants adopt the language of the native American, they wear his clothes, they steal his name, and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race.Grant was not the first proponent of “race science.” In 1853, across the Atlantic, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, a French count, first identified the “Aryan” race as “great, noble, and fruitful in the works of man on this earth.” Half a century later, as the eugenics movement gathered force in the U.S., “experts” began dividing white people into distinct races. In 1899, William Z. Ripley, an economist, concluded that Europeans consisted of “three races”: the brave, beautiful, blond “Teutons”; the stocky “Alpines”; and the swarthy “Mediterraneans.” Another leading academic contributor to race science in turn-of-the-century America was a statistician named Francis Walker, who argued in The Atlantic that the new immigrants lacked the pioneer spirit of their predecessors; they were made up of “beaten men from beaten races,” whose offspring were crowding out the fine “native” stock of white people. In 1901 the sociologist Edward A. Ross, who similarly described the new immigrants as “masses of fecund but beaten humanity from the hovels of far Lombardy and Galicia,” coined the term race suicide.[...]
READ COMPLETE ARTICLE AT THE ATLANTIC
The concept of “white genocide”—extinction under an onslaught of genetically or culturally inferior nonwhite interlopers—may indeed seem like a fringe conspiracy theory with an alien lineage, the province of neo-Nazis and their fellow travelers. In popular memory, it’s a vestige of a racist ideology that the Greatest Generation did its best to scour from the Earth. History, though, tells a different story. [Rep. Steve] King’s recent question, posed in a New York Times interview, may be appalling: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” But it is apt. “That language” has an American past in need of excavation. Without such an effort, we may fail to appreciate the tenacity of the dogma it expresses, and the difficulty of eradicating it. The president’s rhetoric about “shithole countries” and “invasion” by immigrants invites dismissal as crude talk, but behind it lie ideas whose power should not be underestimated.
The seed of Nazism’s ultimate objective—the preservation of a pure white race, uncontaminated by foreign blood—was in fact sown with striking success in the United States. What is judged extremist today was once the consensus of a powerful cadre of the American elite, well-connected men who eagerly seized on a false doctrine of “race suicide” during the immigration scare of the early 20th century. They included wealthy patricians, intellectuals, lawmakers, even several presidents. Perhaps the most important among them was a blue blood with a very impressive mustache, Madison Grant. He was the author of a 1916 book called The Passing of the Great Race, which spread the doctrine of race purity all over the globe.
Grant’s purportedly scientific argument that the exalted “Nordic” race that had founded America was in peril, and all of modern society’s accomplishments along with it, helped catalyze nativist legislators in Congress to pass comprehensive restrictionist immigration policies in the early 1920s. His book went on to become Adolf Hitler’s “bible,” as the führer wrote to tell him. Grant’s doctrine has since been rejuvenated and rebranded by his ideological descendants as “white genocide” (the term genocide hadn’t yet been coined in Grant’s day). In an introduction to the 2013 edition of another of Grant’s works, the white nationalist Richard Spencer warns that “one possible outcome of the ongoing demographic transformation is a thoroughly miscegenated, and thus homogeneous and ‘assimilated,’ nation, which would have little resemblance to the White America that came before it.” This language is vintage Grant.
Most Americans, however, quickly forgot who Grant was—but not because the country had grappled with his vision’s dangerous appeal and implications. Reflexive recoil was more like it: When Nazism reflected back that vision in grotesque form, wartime denial set in. Jonathan Peter Spiro, a historian and the author of Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant (2009), described the backlash to me this way: “Even though the Germans had been directly influenced by Madison Grant and the American eugenics movement, when we fought Germany, because Germany was racist, racism became unacceptable in America. Our enemy was racist; therefore we adopted antiracism as our creed.” Ever since, a strange kind of historical amnesia has obscured the American lineage of this white-nationalist ideology.
Madison grant came from old money. Born in Manhattan seven months after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, he attended Yale and then Columbia Law School. He was an outdoorsman and a conservationist, knowledgeable about wildlife and interested in the dangers of extinction, expertise that he soon became intent on applying to humanity. When he opened a law practice on Wall Street in the early 1890s, the wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe was nearing its height. “As he was jostled by Greek ragpickers, Armenian bootblacks, and Jewish carp vendors, it was distressingly obvious to him that the new arrivals did not know this nation’s history or understand its republican form of government,” Spiro writes in his biography.
Jews troubled Grant the most. “The man of the old stock,” he later wrote in The Passing of the Great Race, is being “driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews.” But as the title of his 1916 work indicated, Grant’s fear of dispossession ran wide and deep:
These immigrants adopt the language of the native American, they wear his clothes, they steal his name, and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race.Grant was not the first proponent of “race science.” In 1853, across the Atlantic, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, a French count, first identified the “Aryan” race as “great, noble, and fruitful in the works of man on this earth.” Half a century later, as the eugenics movement gathered force in the U.S., “experts” began dividing white people into distinct races. In 1899, William Z. Ripley, an economist, concluded that Europeans consisted of “three races”: the brave, beautiful, blond “Teutons”; the stocky “Alpines”; and the swarthy “Mediterraneans.” Another leading academic contributor to race science in turn-of-the-century America was a statistician named Francis Walker, who argued in The Atlantic that the new immigrants lacked the pioneer spirit of their predecessors; they were made up of “beaten men from beaten races,” whose offspring were crowding out the fine “native” stock of white people. In 1901 the sociologist Edward A. Ross, who similarly described the new immigrants as “masses of fecund but beaten humanity from the hovels of far Lombardy and Galicia,” coined the term race suicide.[...]
READ COMPLETE ARTICLE AT THE ATLANTIC
op-ed: White Supremacists Are Infiltrating the GOP From the Ground Up
BY
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED
March 9, 2019
After it was over, Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Kirstjen Nielsen got most of the attention for the astonishing barge of deceptive nonsense she piloted into the Homeland Security Committee’s immigration hearing last Thursday, and justly so. Leave it to a Trump appointee to refuse to acknowledge that children who are clearly being housed in cages at the southern border are actually being housed in cages at the southern border.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) very nearly upstaged the DHS secretary, however, when he delivered a truly antic braincramp analogy to the assemblage. “Perhaps the most famous invasion in the history of the world — D-Day — 73,000 American troops landed in the D-Day invasion,” intoned Higgins. “We have 76,103, according to my numbers, apprehensions along our southern border last month. We have D-Day every month on our southern border.”
Yes, because men, women, and children undertaking a long and perilous journey to flee economic chaos and unchecked violence in search of a better life with little more than the clothes on their backs are exactly like thousands of soldiers running headlong into a wall of flying steel in order to defeat Nazis. Thank you for your input, Representative Higgins. If you listen very closely, you can hear the souls interred at Colleville-sur-Mer whirling in their graves.
Representative Higgins does not have to reach all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border to find a metaphor related to Nazis. According to a disturbing report by Splinter News, overt Nazis (or their close cousins) may be more present than we realized in Higgins’s own caucus. Members of the far-right white nationalist organization Identity Evropa (IE) are laboring to make the Republican Party an even better home for white supremacists.
“More than 235,000 logs on the chat platform Discord show users claiming to be members of the group Identity Evropa openly discussing their desire to infiltrate and take over the GOP,” reports Erin Corbett for Splinter News. “The group, now led by Patrick Casey (who has been a member of the group since its early days and previously used the name Reinhard Wolff), currently focuses its efforts on recruiting white college-aged men through campus flyering campaigns and banner drops, and specifically chooses to brand itself as a pro-white, ‘identitarian’ organization.”
The leaked Discord chat logs provide a harrowing glimpse of the goals of white nationalist organizing. “What are our long range goals? Other than taking over the GOP and spreading white identity?” asks “@Steven Bennet,” an apparent pseudonym for Casey, in a Discord post from October 2018. One telling reply reads, “We have 6 years until he [Donald Trump] is out of office — 6 years that shouldn’t go to waste. 6 years we should all spend on taking over our local GOP in every locality we can.” Another reads, “Not that I’d ever advocate for something underhanded. But seriously: remove the old fossil GOPe [sic], insert America First.”
There can be no doubt that Trump was a vivid inspiration for white nationalists, white supremacists and fascists even before the violent calamity in Charlottesville, Virginia. Within white nationalist circles, however, the consequences stemming from that far-right protest have served to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
Faced with arrests, lawsuits and loss of employment after their involvement in Charlottesville was publicly exposed, some white supremacist groups scattered to the four winds. Jeff Schoep, former leader of a neo-Nazi organization called the National Socialist Movement (NSM), was so overwhelmed by the bad press and legal consequences of the Charlottesville rally that he signed control of the group over to a Black attorney named James Hart Stern just to get out from under. Beautifully, Stern intends to convert the NSM’s website into a Holocaust memorial.
Identity Evropa and groups like it, on the other hand, have chosen to take a different tack. While initially inspired to act by Trump’s dog-whistle racism, the shine came off the apple after the president was defeated and humiliated in his quest to build a wall at the border. No longer looking to their Oval Office savior, Identity Evropa has begun bending its efforts toward recruiting new members on college campuses. Perhaps more ominously, the group intends to move covertly into the Republican Party by disguising their intentions beneath strategic silence and some MAGA gear.
“Today I decided to get involved with my county’s Republican party,” reads another “Bennet” post from October of 2017. “Everyone can do this without fear of getting doxed. The GOP is essentially the White man’s party at this point (it gets Whiter every election cycle), so it makes far more sense for us to subvert it than to create our own party. If we’re going to win this, it’s going to take time, effort and sacrifice. If you’re unable to do activism for various reasons, I’d like to encourage you to join your local Republican party. Present as a Trump supporter/nationalist. No need to broadcast your radical views.”
Translation: Even the laziest white supremacist can make a difference by joining the GOP. “It’s actually quite easy to run for and win local offices,” concludes “Bennet.” “Let’s make this happen!”
To be fair, a number of local Republican organizations have been confronted with overt white nationalists who have boll-weeviled their way into the party, and have summarily bounced them. “One person involved with both IE and College Republicans had relative success making his way through the ranks of his county GOP,” reports Splinter News, “though he was promptly ejected.” A white nationalist YouTube personality named James Allsup managed to get himself elected as a precinct committee officer for the Whitman County GOP in Washington State before he also was discovered and ejected.
“Nonetheless,” continues the Splinter News report, “Allsup set a precedent for other members of IE. As one member of the Discord server said in an October 2018 conversation: ‘Once I graduate I plan to infiltrate my local GOP Allsup style.’” While Republican organizations may be credited for purging these people from their ranks, it is easy to believe that more than a few fish have slipped the nets. Indeed, one look at men like Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon leaves you wondering if that infiltration has not already reached the highest levels of government.
Plenty of ripe examples of vocal, overt racists can already be found in Congress. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has made a career out of being a bog-standard white nationalist, and makes no bones about his leanings. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has made his own form of brazen racism into a kind of performance art. On Thursday, 23 House Republicans voted against a resolution condemning racism because it contained language denouncing anti-Muslim hatred. Included in that list were two of the three top House Republican leaders, Committee Chairwoman Liz Cheney and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise.
The Republican Party has itself a problem here, and it isn’t going away. As that Discord poster correctly noted, the GOP is becoming whiter with every election cycle. It is also becoming older and more out of touch with the actual mainstream in the U.S. the party incorrectly believes it represents. Meanwhile, propaganda efforts and infiltration attempts by the fascist right have increased exponentiallyunder Trump even as the GOP finds itself slowly but steadily running out of voters.
It would be political suicide for the GOP to publicly embrace these people, not to mention morally repugnant. However, if the slow bleed the Republican Party is enduring continues, which it will according to every available data point, they may well entertain the idea of a surreptitious merger with the far right, assuming they haven’t done so already.
The demographic numbers are self-evident, and the party has already shown itself to be almost comically bumbling in its attempts at rebranding. Hard times make for hard choices, and the fascists already have their MAGA hats. It’s a match made in Hell.
I’ve never been a Republican staring political extinction in the face, so my perspective may be skewed. All I’m saying is this: If someone tipped me off about a bunch of online white nationalists who were planning to sneak into my house because they thought I wouldn’t notice, I would burn the house down and leave town, asking myself some hard questions as I poured the gasoline about what made my home attractive to them in the first place. Take a memo, GOP: Groucho Marx was right.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) very nearly upstaged the DHS secretary, however, when he delivered a truly antic braincramp analogy to the assemblage. “Perhaps the most famous invasion in the history of the world — D-Day — 73,000 American troops landed in the D-Day invasion,” intoned Higgins. “We have 76,103, according to my numbers, apprehensions along our southern border last month. We have D-Day every month on our southern border.”
Yes, because men, women, and children undertaking a long and perilous journey to flee economic chaos and unchecked violence in search of a better life with little more than the clothes on their backs are exactly like thousands of soldiers running headlong into a wall of flying steel in order to defeat Nazis. Thank you for your input, Representative Higgins. If you listen very closely, you can hear the souls interred at Colleville-sur-Mer whirling in their graves.
Representative Higgins does not have to reach all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border to find a metaphor related to Nazis. According to a disturbing report by Splinter News, overt Nazis (or their close cousins) may be more present than we realized in Higgins’s own caucus. Members of the far-right white nationalist organization Identity Evropa (IE) are laboring to make the Republican Party an even better home for white supremacists.
“More than 235,000 logs on the chat platform Discord show users claiming to be members of the group Identity Evropa openly discussing their desire to infiltrate and take over the GOP,” reports Erin Corbett for Splinter News. “The group, now led by Patrick Casey (who has been a member of the group since its early days and previously used the name Reinhard Wolff), currently focuses its efforts on recruiting white college-aged men through campus flyering campaigns and banner drops, and specifically chooses to brand itself as a pro-white, ‘identitarian’ organization.”
The leaked Discord chat logs provide a harrowing glimpse of the goals of white nationalist organizing. “What are our long range goals? Other than taking over the GOP and spreading white identity?” asks “@Steven Bennet,” an apparent pseudonym for Casey, in a Discord post from October 2018. One telling reply reads, “We have 6 years until he [Donald Trump] is out of office — 6 years that shouldn’t go to waste. 6 years we should all spend on taking over our local GOP in every locality we can.” Another reads, “Not that I’d ever advocate for something underhanded. But seriously: remove the old fossil GOPe [sic], insert America First.”
There can be no doubt that Trump was a vivid inspiration for white nationalists, white supremacists and fascists even before the violent calamity in Charlottesville, Virginia. Within white nationalist circles, however, the consequences stemming from that far-right protest have served to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
Faced with arrests, lawsuits and loss of employment after their involvement in Charlottesville was publicly exposed, some white supremacist groups scattered to the four winds. Jeff Schoep, former leader of a neo-Nazi organization called the National Socialist Movement (NSM), was so overwhelmed by the bad press and legal consequences of the Charlottesville rally that he signed control of the group over to a Black attorney named James Hart Stern just to get out from under. Beautifully, Stern intends to convert the NSM’s website into a Holocaust memorial.
Identity Evropa and groups like it, on the other hand, have chosen to take a different tack. While initially inspired to act by Trump’s dog-whistle racism, the shine came off the apple after the president was defeated and humiliated in his quest to build a wall at the border. No longer looking to their Oval Office savior, Identity Evropa has begun bending its efforts toward recruiting new members on college campuses. Perhaps more ominously, the group intends to move covertly into the Republican Party by disguising their intentions beneath strategic silence and some MAGA gear.
“Today I decided to get involved with my county’s Republican party,” reads another “Bennet” post from October of 2017. “Everyone can do this without fear of getting doxed. The GOP is essentially the White man’s party at this point (it gets Whiter every election cycle), so it makes far more sense for us to subvert it than to create our own party. If we’re going to win this, it’s going to take time, effort and sacrifice. If you’re unable to do activism for various reasons, I’d like to encourage you to join your local Republican party. Present as a Trump supporter/nationalist. No need to broadcast your radical views.”
Translation: Even the laziest white supremacist can make a difference by joining the GOP. “It’s actually quite easy to run for and win local offices,” concludes “Bennet.” “Let’s make this happen!”
To be fair, a number of local Republican organizations have been confronted with overt white nationalists who have boll-weeviled their way into the party, and have summarily bounced them. “One person involved with both IE and College Republicans had relative success making his way through the ranks of his county GOP,” reports Splinter News, “though he was promptly ejected.” A white nationalist YouTube personality named James Allsup managed to get himself elected as a precinct committee officer for the Whitman County GOP in Washington State before he also was discovered and ejected.
“Nonetheless,” continues the Splinter News report, “Allsup set a precedent for other members of IE. As one member of the Discord server said in an October 2018 conversation: ‘Once I graduate I plan to infiltrate my local GOP Allsup style.’” While Republican organizations may be credited for purging these people from their ranks, it is easy to believe that more than a few fish have slipped the nets. Indeed, one look at men like Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon leaves you wondering if that infiltration has not already reached the highest levels of government.
Plenty of ripe examples of vocal, overt racists can already be found in Congress. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has made a career out of being a bog-standard white nationalist, and makes no bones about his leanings. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has made his own form of brazen racism into a kind of performance art. On Thursday, 23 House Republicans voted against a resolution condemning racism because it contained language denouncing anti-Muslim hatred. Included in that list were two of the three top House Republican leaders, Committee Chairwoman Liz Cheney and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise.
The Republican Party has itself a problem here, and it isn’t going away. As that Discord poster correctly noted, the GOP is becoming whiter with every election cycle. It is also becoming older and more out of touch with the actual mainstream in the U.S. the party incorrectly believes it represents. Meanwhile, propaganda efforts and infiltration attempts by the fascist right have increased exponentiallyunder Trump even as the GOP finds itself slowly but steadily running out of voters.
It would be political suicide for the GOP to publicly embrace these people, not to mention morally repugnant. However, if the slow bleed the Republican Party is enduring continues, which it will according to every available data point, they may well entertain the idea of a surreptitious merger with the far right, assuming they haven’t done so already.
The demographic numbers are self-evident, and the party has already shown itself to be almost comically bumbling in its attempts at rebranding. Hard times make for hard choices, and the fascists already have their MAGA hats. It’s a match made in Hell.
I’ve never been a Republican staring political extinction in the face, so my perspective may be skewed. All I’m saying is this: If someone tipped me off about a bunch of online white nationalists who were planning to sneak into my house because they thought I wouldn’t notice, I would burn the house down and leave town, asking myself some hard questions as I poured the gasoline about what made my home attractive to them in the first place. Take a memo, GOP: Groucho Marx was right.
Here are 10 ways white people are way more racist than they realize
KALI HOLLOWAY, ALTERNET - COMMENTARY - raw story
21 JAN 2019 AT 05:57 ET
If there’s anything our fraught national dialogue on race has taught us, it’s that there are no racists in this country. (In fact, not only do multiple studies confirm that most white Americans generally believe racism is over — just 16 percent say there’s a lot of racial discrimination — it turns out that many actually believe white people experience more discrimination than black people.) It’s a silly idea, of course, but it’s easy to delude ourselves into thinking that inequality is a result of cultural failures, racial pathology and a convoluted narrative involving black-on-black crime, hoodies, rap music and people wearing their pants too low. To admit that racism is fundamental to who we are, that it imbues our thinking in ways we wouldn’t and couldn’t believe without the application of the scientific method, is infinitely harder. And yet, there’s endless evidence to prove it.
For those who recognize racism is real and pervasive, it’s also comforting to believe that discrimination is something perpetuated by other people, overlooking the ways we are personally complicit in its perpetuation. But fruitful conversations about race require acknowledging that racism sits at the very core of our thinking. By something akin to osmosis, culturally held notions around race mold and shape the prejudices of everyone within the dominant culture. People of color unwittingly internalize these notions as well, despite the fact that doing so contributes to our own marginalization. Most of us know the destructive outcomes systemic racism produces (higher rates of poverty, incarceration, infant mortality, etc.). Accepting that implicit bias is happening at every level makes it awful hard to chalk those issues up to black and brown failure.
Here’s a look at just some of the ways our internalized biases add up to devastating consequences for lives, communities and society.
1. College professors, across race/ethnicity and gender, are more likely to respond to queries from students they believe are white males. Despite universities frequently being described as bastions of progressivism and liberal indoctrination centers, a recent study found that faculty of colleges and universities are more likely to ignore requests for mentorship from minority and/or female students. Researchers sent more than 6,500 professors at 259 schools in 89 disciplines identical letters that differed only in the name and implied race/gender of the fictitious student sender (e.g., “Mei Chen” as an Asian female; “Keisha Thomas” as a black female; “Brad Anderson” as a white male). The study found that regardless of discipline (with the sole exception of fine arts), faculty more consistently responded to perceived white males. Two notable additional findings: 1) professors at public institutions were significantly more likely than their private institution counterparts to respond to students of color, and 2) the students most discriminated against were perceived East Asian women, followed by South Asian men. You can look at the numbers up close here.
2. White people, including white children, are less moved by the pain of people of color, including children of color, than by the pain of fellow whites. Three distinct studies support this finding. The first found that around age 7, white children began to believe black children are less susceptible to pain than white children. Another study found that emergency room personnel are less likely to give African American and Latino/Hispanic children pain medication, even when they are experiencing severe abdominal pain. The same study also found that even when the same tests are ordered, black and Hispanic children face significantly longer emergency room stays. A third study found that white people feel less empathy toward black people in pain than they do for whites experiencing pain.
3. White people are more likely to have done illegal drugs than blacks or Latinos, but are far less likely to go to to jail for it. A 2011 study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive found white people were more likely to use illegal and prescription opiates (heroin, oxycontin), hallucinogens, and cocaine than blacks and Hispanics by significant margins. Black people just edged out white people on marijuana and crack use (which incurred disproportionate sentences for decades). Yet, a 2009 Human Rights Watch study found that each year from 1980 to 2007, blacks were arrested on drug charges at rates 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than whites.
4. Black men are sentenced to far lengthier prison sentences than white men for the same crimes. A 2012 study by the United States Sentencing Commission found black men were sentenced to prison terms nearly 20 percent longer than white men for similar crimes. To break those numbers down further, from January 2005 to December 2007, sentences for black males were 15.2 percent longer than those of their white counterparts. From December 2007 to September 2011, that number actually increased, with differences in sentencing growing to 19.5 percent.
5. White people, including police, see black children as older and less innocent than white children. A UCLA psychological study surveyed mostly white, male police officers to determine “prejudice and unconscious dehumanization of black people.” Researchers found a correlation between officers who unconsciously dehumanized blacks and those who had used force against black children in custody. The study also found that white female college students saw black and white children as equally innocent until age 9, after which they perceived black boys as significantly older — by about four and half years — and less innocent than their white peers. UCLA researcher Phillip Atiba Goff wrote, “Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent.” Which leads right to our next stats.
6. Black children are more likely to be tried as adults and are given harsher sentences than white children. A Stanford University study uncovered this sobering information: “[S]imply bringing to mind a black (vs. white) juvenile offender led [white study] participants to view juveniles in general as significantly more similar to adults in their inherent culpability and to express more support for severe sentencing.” That is, when white respondents thought the child on trial was black, they were more like to endorse “sentencing all juveniles to life without parole when they have committed serious violent crimes.” That might explain why, of the roughly 2,500 juveniles in the U.S. who have been sentenced to life without parole, nearly all (97 percent) were male and (60 percent) black. Interesting study note: for black kids, killing a white person was a good way to end up behind bars for their entire adult life. For white kids, killing a black person actually helped their chances of ensuring their prison stay would be temporary. From the report: “[T]he proportion of African American [juveniles sentenced to life without parole] for the killing of a white person (43.4 percent) is nearly twice the rate at which African American juveniles overall have taken a white person’s life (23.2 percent). What’s more, we find that the odds of a [juvenile life without probation] sentence for a white offender who killed a black victim are only about half as likely (3.6 percent) as the proportion of white juveniles arrested for killing blacks (6.4 percent).”
7. White people are more likely to support the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, when they think it’s disproportionately punitive toward black people. That’s right: white people agree with criminal justice outcomes more when they think race
disproportionately targets black people for incarceration. According to a 2012 Stanford study conducted in “liberal” San Francisco and New York City, when white people were told that black people were unfairly impacted by punitive criminal justice policies like three-strikes laws and stop-and-frisk, they were less likely to advocate for criminal justice reform. In a similar vein, researchers found in 2007 that telling whites about racist sentencing laws made them favor harsher sentences. That is, racism made them like those sentences more. The study authors write: “[O]ur most startling finding is that many whites actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it discriminates against blacks.”
8. The more “stereotypically black” a defendant looks in a murder case, the higher the likelihood he will be sentenced to death. This is perhaps one of the most horrifying findings in a list of horrifying findings. To quote the study, “the degree to which the defendant is perceived to have a stereotypically black appearance (e.g., broad nose, thick lips, dark skin)” could mean the difference between a sentence of life or death, particularly if his victim was white. Read the whole study; it’s fascinating.
9. Conversely, white people falsely recall black men they perceive as being “smart” as being lighter-skinned. Here’s another incredible, though not entirely surprising study finding. When white people encounter the faces of African American men they are primed to believe are “educated,” they later recall those individuals as being lighter-skinned than they actually were. The researchers developed a name for this phenomenon: “skin tone memory bias.” This compulsion was chalked up to stereotypical beliefs about dark skin and its correlation with negative traits. To reckon with the cognitive dissonance created by perceiving a black man as “educated,” white participants unconsciously realigned that intelligence with skin that more closely approximated whiteness.
10. A number of studies find white people view lighter-skinned African Americans (and Latinos) as more intelligent, competent, trustworthy and reliable than their darker-skinned peers. A 2006 study found that dark-skinned black men with MBAs were less likely to be hired than lighter-skinned black men who only possessed bachelor’s degrees. A 2010 study in North Carolina found that light-skinned black women received shorter prison terms than darker-skinned black women. And a 2012 Villanova University study found that, “African American and Latino respondents with the lightest skin are several times more likely to be seen by whites as intelligent compared with those with the darkest skin.”
The implications of these findings are hugely significant, and lend credence to the often expressed feeling of tokenization by black people who are deemed smart, successful or intelligent by whites. That is, the feeling that white people perceive certain African Americans as exceptional or “not like the others.” It also adds an important layer to the conversation around colorism, which privileges light skin above darker skin both within and outside of communities of color. (And has helped skin lightening products become a booming global industry in places like India, the Philippines and some parts of Africa.)
Unfortunately, I could go on and on. About how, for example, black students — even preschoolers — are far more likely to be suspended from school than white students. (That fact is even truer for dark-skinned black students.) The same products, when displayed by black hands on the Internet, are less likely to sell than when they are held by white hands. One study even found that white people basically think black people are paranormal entities, an idea so ludicrous it begs that you read an explanation, here.
Racism is comfortable and easy; it helps us make quick, baseless decisions without the taxing act of thinking. The next time you catch yourself having a racist thought or feeling, try not brushing it off. Ask yourself where it came from, what it means and how you can unpack it. Because if the evidence above suggests anything, it’s that critical self-examination is our only hope of moving the needle at all on this thing. Stop imagining that being racist is something that only other people do, and start looking closely at your own beliefs.
Especially the ones you’ve never admitted to yourselves that you hold.
For those who recognize racism is real and pervasive, it’s also comforting to believe that discrimination is something perpetuated by other people, overlooking the ways we are personally complicit in its perpetuation. But fruitful conversations about race require acknowledging that racism sits at the very core of our thinking. By something akin to osmosis, culturally held notions around race mold and shape the prejudices of everyone within the dominant culture. People of color unwittingly internalize these notions as well, despite the fact that doing so contributes to our own marginalization. Most of us know the destructive outcomes systemic racism produces (higher rates of poverty, incarceration, infant mortality, etc.). Accepting that implicit bias is happening at every level makes it awful hard to chalk those issues up to black and brown failure.
Here’s a look at just some of the ways our internalized biases add up to devastating consequences for lives, communities and society.
1. College professors, across race/ethnicity and gender, are more likely to respond to queries from students they believe are white males. Despite universities frequently being described as bastions of progressivism and liberal indoctrination centers, a recent study found that faculty of colleges and universities are more likely to ignore requests for mentorship from minority and/or female students. Researchers sent more than 6,500 professors at 259 schools in 89 disciplines identical letters that differed only in the name and implied race/gender of the fictitious student sender (e.g., “Mei Chen” as an Asian female; “Keisha Thomas” as a black female; “Brad Anderson” as a white male). The study found that regardless of discipline (with the sole exception of fine arts), faculty more consistently responded to perceived white males. Two notable additional findings: 1) professors at public institutions were significantly more likely than their private institution counterparts to respond to students of color, and 2) the students most discriminated against were perceived East Asian women, followed by South Asian men. You can look at the numbers up close here.
2. White people, including white children, are less moved by the pain of people of color, including children of color, than by the pain of fellow whites. Three distinct studies support this finding. The first found that around age 7, white children began to believe black children are less susceptible to pain than white children. Another study found that emergency room personnel are less likely to give African American and Latino/Hispanic children pain medication, even when they are experiencing severe abdominal pain. The same study also found that even when the same tests are ordered, black and Hispanic children face significantly longer emergency room stays. A third study found that white people feel less empathy toward black people in pain than they do for whites experiencing pain.
3. White people are more likely to have done illegal drugs than blacks or Latinos, but are far less likely to go to to jail for it. A 2011 study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive found white people were more likely to use illegal and prescription opiates (heroin, oxycontin), hallucinogens, and cocaine than blacks and Hispanics by significant margins. Black people just edged out white people on marijuana and crack use (which incurred disproportionate sentences for decades). Yet, a 2009 Human Rights Watch study found that each year from 1980 to 2007, blacks were arrested on drug charges at rates 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than whites.
4. Black men are sentenced to far lengthier prison sentences than white men for the same crimes. A 2012 study by the United States Sentencing Commission found black men were sentenced to prison terms nearly 20 percent longer than white men for similar crimes. To break those numbers down further, from January 2005 to December 2007, sentences for black males were 15.2 percent longer than those of their white counterparts. From December 2007 to September 2011, that number actually increased, with differences in sentencing growing to 19.5 percent.
5. White people, including police, see black children as older and less innocent than white children. A UCLA psychological study surveyed mostly white, male police officers to determine “prejudice and unconscious dehumanization of black people.” Researchers found a correlation between officers who unconsciously dehumanized blacks and those who had used force against black children in custody. The study also found that white female college students saw black and white children as equally innocent until age 9, after which they perceived black boys as significantly older — by about four and half years — and less innocent than their white peers. UCLA researcher Phillip Atiba Goff wrote, “Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent.” Which leads right to our next stats.
6. Black children are more likely to be tried as adults and are given harsher sentences than white children. A Stanford University study uncovered this sobering information: “[S]imply bringing to mind a black (vs. white) juvenile offender led [white study] participants to view juveniles in general as significantly more similar to adults in their inherent culpability and to express more support for severe sentencing.” That is, when white respondents thought the child on trial was black, they were more like to endorse “sentencing all juveniles to life without parole when they have committed serious violent crimes.” That might explain why, of the roughly 2,500 juveniles in the U.S. who have been sentenced to life without parole, nearly all (97 percent) were male and (60 percent) black. Interesting study note: for black kids, killing a white person was a good way to end up behind bars for their entire adult life. For white kids, killing a black person actually helped their chances of ensuring their prison stay would be temporary. From the report: “[T]he proportion of African American [juveniles sentenced to life without parole] for the killing of a white person (43.4 percent) is nearly twice the rate at which African American juveniles overall have taken a white person’s life (23.2 percent). What’s more, we find that the odds of a [juvenile life without probation] sentence for a white offender who killed a black victim are only about half as likely (3.6 percent) as the proportion of white juveniles arrested for killing blacks (6.4 percent).”
7. White people are more likely to support the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, when they think it’s disproportionately punitive toward black people. That’s right: white people agree with criminal justice outcomes more when they think race
disproportionately targets black people for incarceration. According to a 2012 Stanford study conducted in “liberal” San Francisco and New York City, when white people were told that black people were unfairly impacted by punitive criminal justice policies like three-strikes laws and stop-and-frisk, they were less likely to advocate for criminal justice reform. In a similar vein, researchers found in 2007 that telling whites about racist sentencing laws made them favor harsher sentences. That is, racism made them like those sentences more. The study authors write: “[O]ur most startling finding is that many whites actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it discriminates against blacks.”
8. The more “stereotypically black” a defendant looks in a murder case, the higher the likelihood he will be sentenced to death. This is perhaps one of the most horrifying findings in a list of horrifying findings. To quote the study, “the degree to which the defendant is perceived to have a stereotypically black appearance (e.g., broad nose, thick lips, dark skin)” could mean the difference between a sentence of life or death, particularly if his victim was white. Read the whole study; it’s fascinating.
9. Conversely, white people falsely recall black men they perceive as being “smart” as being lighter-skinned. Here’s another incredible, though not entirely surprising study finding. When white people encounter the faces of African American men they are primed to believe are “educated,” they later recall those individuals as being lighter-skinned than they actually were. The researchers developed a name for this phenomenon: “skin tone memory bias.” This compulsion was chalked up to stereotypical beliefs about dark skin and its correlation with negative traits. To reckon with the cognitive dissonance created by perceiving a black man as “educated,” white participants unconsciously realigned that intelligence with skin that more closely approximated whiteness.
10. A number of studies find white people view lighter-skinned African Americans (and Latinos) as more intelligent, competent, trustworthy and reliable than their darker-skinned peers. A 2006 study found that dark-skinned black men with MBAs were less likely to be hired than lighter-skinned black men who only possessed bachelor’s degrees. A 2010 study in North Carolina found that light-skinned black women received shorter prison terms than darker-skinned black women. And a 2012 Villanova University study found that, “African American and Latino respondents with the lightest skin are several times more likely to be seen by whites as intelligent compared with those with the darkest skin.”
The implications of these findings are hugely significant, and lend credence to the often expressed feeling of tokenization by black people who are deemed smart, successful or intelligent by whites. That is, the feeling that white people perceive certain African Americans as exceptional or “not like the others.” It also adds an important layer to the conversation around colorism, which privileges light skin above darker skin both within and outside of communities of color. (And has helped skin lightening products become a booming global industry in places like India, the Philippines and some parts of Africa.)
Unfortunately, I could go on and on. About how, for example, black students — even preschoolers — are far more likely to be suspended from school than white students. (That fact is even truer for dark-skinned black students.) The same products, when displayed by black hands on the Internet, are less likely to sell than when they are held by white hands. One study even found that white people basically think black people are paranormal entities, an idea so ludicrous it begs that you read an explanation, here.
Racism is comfortable and easy; it helps us make quick, baseless decisions without the taxing act of thinking. The next time you catch yourself having a racist thought or feeling, try not brushing it off. Ask yourself where it came from, what it means and how you can unpack it. Because if the evidence above suggests anything, it’s that critical self-examination is our only hope of moving the needle at all on this thing. Stop imagining that being racist is something that only other people do, and start looking closely at your own beliefs.
Especially the ones you’ve never admitted to yourselves that you hold.
op - ed: White Supremacy Apologists Are Having a Field Day
BY
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED
December 7, 2018
The Washington Post popped a story Tuesday night describing yet another instance of the Trump administration going out of its way to coddle white nationalists. This version featured Georgia Coffey, chief diversity specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), who was shut down last year by Trump appointee John Ullyot when she tried to craft a statement on behalf of the department denouncing the racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The issue was pressing to Coffey for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which was the definite need to represent the viewpoint of the VA staffers. “A statement from VA leaders was necessary, Coffey wrote in one email to Ullyot, because the agency’s workforce was unsettled by the uproar caused by the Charlottesville violence,” reports The Post. “Minorities make up more than 40 percent of VA’s 380,000 employees, the federal government’s second-largest agency.”
The clash between Coffey and Ullyot came after President Trump’s ham-fisted defense of the white nationalists, fascists and Klansmen whose Charlottesville rally exploded in violence, leaving Heather Heyer dead and many others injured. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms,” said Trump, “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.” Trump refused to explain what “many sides” meant, but his refusal to condemn the actual agitators in Charlottesville was what poker players call a great big “tell.” Coffey has since left the agency.
The silencing of Coffey by Ullyot was no accident, nor was it the act of a Trump appointee gone rogue. “Ullyot told Coffey to stand down,” continues The Post report. “A person familiar with their dispute, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Post that Ullyot was enforcing a directive from the White House, where officials were scrambling to contain the fallout from Trump’s comments, and they did not want government officials to call further attention to the controversy.”
“Enforcing a directive from the White House.” This is the same White House that continues to employ senior adviser Stephen Miller, whose gaudy white nationalist résumé goes all the way back to his time at Duke University. The same White House that appointed Ian Smith to the Department of Homeland Security despite his having most of the leading lights of the white supremacy movement on speed dial. The same White House who employs Larry Kudlow as a top economic advisor despite his predilection for having white nationalist house guests over for birthday parties and other social events. The same White House that thought hiring Steve Bannon, friend to neo-Nazis and racists everywhere, was a grand idea.
The same White House where the son of the president constantly retweets white nationalist memes. The same White House where the president himself retweets white nationalist videos.
It is difficult enough to encompass the unavoidable fact that the White House has become a brazen think tank for the promotion of white supremacy in the US and abroad. We must also contend with the fact that the nation’s leading newspaper, The New York Times, is now lending its editorial page to the promotion of white supremacy in the gauzy guise of yet another George H.W. Bush hagiography.
On Wednesday, The Times let fly with a verbose defense of white power written by columnist Ross Douthat, who replaced Bill Kristol as the paper’s conservative voice. His op-ed, titled “Why We Miss the WASPs,” (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) is a long lament that mourns the loss of power and influence allegedly being suffered by old-guard prep-school Ivy League white men like himself, who were so well-represented by the departed 41st president.
It seems someone forgot to inform newly minted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that he and his ilk, according to Douthat, have run their race. The op-ed is a challenge to fathom on many levels; there are points where I felt I could craft a better argument by throwing my keyboard down a flight of stairs. Douthat’s main beef seems to be with what he calls the “meritocracy,” or the idea that simply having the proper white pedigree now takes a back seat to actually working to earn one’s position. (Douthat’s definition of meritocracy — and the notion that a meritocracy truly exists in this country — require a genuinely galactic suspension of disbelief.) For example:
[O]ne of the lessons of the age of meritocracy is that building a more democratic and inclusive ruling class is harder than it looks, and even perhaps a contradiction in terms. You can get rid of the social registers and let women into your secret societies and privilege SATs over recommendations from the rector of Justin and the headmaster of Saint Grottlesex … and you still end up with something that is clearly a self-replicating upper class, a powerful elite, filling your schools and running your public institutions.
Not only that, but you even end up with an elite that literally uses the same strategy of exclusion that WASPs once used against Jews to preserve its particular definition of diversity from high-achieving Asians — with the only difference being that our elite is more determined to deceive itself about how and why it’s discriminating.
An interesting argument, that. According to Douthat, any who come to be “elite” – be it through merit or old money – is going to wind up being as terrible as the WASPs, so we should put the WASPs back in charge because they are at least self-aware of their own loathsome qualities. That second paragraph deserves a spot in the Gibberish Hall of Fame, but it is left in deep shade by the brazen white male privilege packed within Douthat’s windy closing argument:
So as an American in the old dispensation, you didn’t have to like the establishment — and certainly its members were often eminently hateable — to prefer their leadership to many of the possible alternatives. And as an American today, you don’t have to miss everything about the WASPs, or particularly like their remaining heirs, to feel nostalgic for their competence.
Indeed, their competence at keeping the status quo running was noteworthy. The old white guard was crackerjack at maintaining separate but equal drinking fountains, lynching, sanctioned police violence and all the other touchstones of enforced systemic racism, along with institutionalized misogyny, violent disdain for workers who dared to organize, and obliteration for LGBTQ people — or anyone else who dared to peek out from under the gray felt fedora of WASP-power conformity and think maybe, just maybe, these white prep school “elites” are only in it for themselves.
“What he’s talking about is literally a form of white supremacy,” arguesSplinter News journalist Libby Watson regarding Douthat’s op-ed, “just one that he considers more palatable. It’s helpful, really, for those of us who have been arguing since Trump was elected that his differences with the conservative elite are stylistic and not substantive. This is white supremacy, just in boat shoes.”
They’re not hiding anymore. White nationalist messages are broadcast from the White House, white supremacist laments bleed on the pages of the public prints, and all in broad daylight.
We see you.
The issue was pressing to Coffey for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which was the definite need to represent the viewpoint of the VA staffers. “A statement from VA leaders was necessary, Coffey wrote in one email to Ullyot, because the agency’s workforce was unsettled by the uproar caused by the Charlottesville violence,” reports The Post. “Minorities make up more than 40 percent of VA’s 380,000 employees, the federal government’s second-largest agency.”
The clash between Coffey and Ullyot came after President Trump’s ham-fisted defense of the white nationalists, fascists and Klansmen whose Charlottesville rally exploded in violence, leaving Heather Heyer dead and many others injured. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms,” said Trump, “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.” Trump refused to explain what “many sides” meant, but his refusal to condemn the actual agitators in Charlottesville was what poker players call a great big “tell.” Coffey has since left the agency.
The silencing of Coffey by Ullyot was no accident, nor was it the act of a Trump appointee gone rogue. “Ullyot told Coffey to stand down,” continues The Post report. “A person familiar with their dispute, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Post that Ullyot was enforcing a directive from the White House, where officials were scrambling to contain the fallout from Trump’s comments, and they did not want government officials to call further attention to the controversy.”
“Enforcing a directive from the White House.” This is the same White House that continues to employ senior adviser Stephen Miller, whose gaudy white nationalist résumé goes all the way back to his time at Duke University. The same White House that appointed Ian Smith to the Department of Homeland Security despite his having most of the leading lights of the white supremacy movement on speed dial. The same White House who employs Larry Kudlow as a top economic advisor despite his predilection for having white nationalist house guests over for birthday parties and other social events. The same White House that thought hiring Steve Bannon, friend to neo-Nazis and racists everywhere, was a grand idea.
The same White House where the son of the president constantly retweets white nationalist memes. The same White House where the president himself retweets white nationalist videos.
It is difficult enough to encompass the unavoidable fact that the White House has become a brazen think tank for the promotion of white supremacy in the US and abroad. We must also contend with the fact that the nation’s leading newspaper, The New York Times, is now lending its editorial page to the promotion of white supremacy in the gauzy guise of yet another George H.W. Bush hagiography.
On Wednesday, The Times let fly with a verbose defense of white power written by columnist Ross Douthat, who replaced Bill Kristol as the paper’s conservative voice. His op-ed, titled “Why We Miss the WASPs,” (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) is a long lament that mourns the loss of power and influence allegedly being suffered by old-guard prep-school Ivy League white men like himself, who were so well-represented by the departed 41st president.
It seems someone forgot to inform newly minted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that he and his ilk, according to Douthat, have run their race. The op-ed is a challenge to fathom on many levels; there are points where I felt I could craft a better argument by throwing my keyboard down a flight of stairs. Douthat’s main beef seems to be with what he calls the “meritocracy,” or the idea that simply having the proper white pedigree now takes a back seat to actually working to earn one’s position. (Douthat’s definition of meritocracy — and the notion that a meritocracy truly exists in this country — require a genuinely galactic suspension of disbelief.) For example:
[O]ne of the lessons of the age of meritocracy is that building a more democratic and inclusive ruling class is harder than it looks, and even perhaps a contradiction in terms. You can get rid of the social registers and let women into your secret societies and privilege SATs over recommendations from the rector of Justin and the headmaster of Saint Grottlesex … and you still end up with something that is clearly a self-replicating upper class, a powerful elite, filling your schools and running your public institutions.
Not only that, but you even end up with an elite that literally uses the same strategy of exclusion that WASPs once used against Jews to preserve its particular definition of diversity from high-achieving Asians — with the only difference being that our elite is more determined to deceive itself about how and why it’s discriminating.
An interesting argument, that. According to Douthat, any who come to be “elite” – be it through merit or old money – is going to wind up being as terrible as the WASPs, so we should put the WASPs back in charge because they are at least self-aware of their own loathsome qualities. That second paragraph deserves a spot in the Gibberish Hall of Fame, but it is left in deep shade by the brazen white male privilege packed within Douthat’s windy closing argument:
So as an American in the old dispensation, you didn’t have to like the establishment — and certainly its members were often eminently hateable — to prefer their leadership to many of the possible alternatives. And as an American today, you don’t have to miss everything about the WASPs, or particularly like their remaining heirs, to feel nostalgic for their competence.
Indeed, their competence at keeping the status quo running was noteworthy. The old white guard was crackerjack at maintaining separate but equal drinking fountains, lynching, sanctioned police violence and all the other touchstones of enforced systemic racism, along with institutionalized misogyny, violent disdain for workers who dared to organize, and obliteration for LGBTQ people — or anyone else who dared to peek out from under the gray felt fedora of WASP-power conformity and think maybe, just maybe, these white prep school “elites” are only in it for themselves.
“What he’s talking about is literally a form of white supremacy,” arguesSplinter News journalist Libby Watson regarding Douthat’s op-ed, “just one that he considers more palatable. It’s helpful, really, for those of us who have been arguing since Trump was elected that his differences with the conservative elite are stylistic and not substantive. This is white supremacy, just in boat shoes.”
They’re not hiding anymore. White nationalist messages are broadcast from the White House, white supremacist laments bleed on the pages of the public prints, and all in broad daylight.
We see you.
opinion: ‘White supremacy’ is really about white degeneracy
Today’s far-right populists relish the idea that they can be morally contemptible, yet still prevail
Keith Kahn-Harris - the guardian
11/28/18
The concept of “white supremacy” is having a moment right now, and understandably so. White resentment, entitlement and bigotry never went away, but it is closer to the political mainstream now than it has been for decades.
The rhetoric of the likes of Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Steve Bannon and other figures in the ascendant populist right might not openly embrace “white power”, but there is no doubt that open white racists have been emboldened by them. Trump may have not wanted Richard Spencer (who coined the term “alt right”) to gleefully exclaim: “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory” just after the 2016 US election, but he was not particularly bothered by it either.
eOnline and offline, there is a rich and growing milieu of radical racist thinkers and activists. Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, was immersed in it and active on the Gab social network, stirring up hate towards Jews who support refugees.
However, white supremacy, as used to describe a belief in the racial superiority of white people, may not be the best concept to help us understand what is going on here. It’s not that there isn’t a barely concealed attempt to rehabilitate the long and clearly documented history of white racism in “western” democracies. The issue is that I’m not sure that it’s “supremacy” that is the goal here, so much as a licence for a perverse kind of degeneracy.
Consider the contrast between Barack Obama and Trump. Obama is not a perfect human being, nor was he a perfect US president. But it’s impossible to deny his qualities. He is intelligent, competent, witty, plain-speaking, empathetic and has a loving relationship with his family. Obama is also a man who was not born into wealth and power, and worked hard to make something of his life. Trump is the reverse: incompetent, mendacious, rude and seemingly incapable of non-instrumental relationships. The only way he has made anything of his life is through being born into privilege, with sufficient reserves of family capital to allow him to build a “business” based on little more than bragging.
Aside from his politics, Trump is simply a man who falls short of any moral code you could care to imagine. Politicians are often cynical, cruel or corrupt, but a complete absence of human decency is rare. Even George W Bush can pass sweets to Michelle Obama and paint loving portraits of the soldiers he sent off to die.
But for millions of Americans to choose Trump and to continue to support him cannot simply be dismissed as voters “holding their noses” and selecting the individual who could best forward their agenda, regardless of his personal qualities. For a significant proportion of his supporters, it was a deliberate choice for moral degeneracy, even a celebration of it. It is also a reproach to the Obama years and to Obama personally. A bad white man will always be better than a good black man, regardless of the political platforms they support.
The degeneracy of Trump tells us something about changing trends within white racism. Social Darwinism, and “scientific” attempts to prove the superiority of the “white race” still have a presence on the far right. But I don’t think that this is the dominant ideological driver behind the resurgence of white racism. Sure, the Proud Boys, members of whom have been associated with violent assaults on counter-protesters, advocate “western chauvinism”, but this woolly idea is flexible enough not to be tied into pseudoscientific notions of white superiority as a fact.
What I think we are seeing is something rawer, a lust for power, coupled with an unvarnished hatred of non-white others that sees little need to disguise itself. This is a white racism that is predicated on nothing other than a desire to dominate and subjugate. Trump’s brutal expression of his basest urges empowers and licenses a similar abandonment, among his followers, of any pretence that white dominance is unjustifiable. This is not white supremacy as we have understood it. It is a move to demonstrate that whiteness can be as morally degenerate as one wishes it to be and still prevail.
At the heart of this proud degeneracy is an insecurity. A fear of “white genocide” has become normative on the far right, based on conspiracy theories about the likes of George Soros encouraging mass immigration as an attempt to replace the white race. Trump has come very close to trying to validate this myth. At the now infamous rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, the marchers chanted: “You will not replace us”. This suggests an awareness that white power cannot rest on justifiable foundations. Indeed, outside the old-style far right, the very concept of whiteness and race itself is given limited intellectual justification. All there is left is assertion and hate.
Degeneracy is not confined to the openly racist far right – it is a theme that runs through the populist right more generally, even when racism is absent or not emphasised. One of the key features of the populist wave is a certain proud incompetence. There are of course still competent rightwing populists around, but it is frequently the likes of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage or Matteo Salvini who prevail. They are uninterested and incapable of conducting policymaking and government in a systematic, productive way. They make a virtue of their lack of understanding; they cause chaos and delight in destruction. They are a kind of taunt, in the same way as Trump is: we have no idea what we are doing, we will destroy, we are contemptible human beings and still you love us.
Some analyses of the rise of Trump and the populist right claim that they draw their popularity from those who feel “left behind” and see their own flaws gloriously reflected in them. This is only true to an extent. If even a tiny fraction of Brexit-supporting Sunderland was as blithely destructive as Farage, the city would be a smouldering ruin.
No, what these people offer their supporters is a guarantee: we will make sure that however much your life degenerates, our power as degenerate white men should reassure you that there is still hope. Yes, you are better than we are, but you don’t have to be. In a bewildering, chaotic world, this is immensely reassuring.
Perhaps there are opportunities here for anti-racism and opposition to the populist right. If white racism and populism now rests on nothing more than naked power and self-assertion, there will be no need to wade through the academic verbiage about “bell curves” and black crime rates before we can tackle the problem. And perhaps the very degeneracy of Trump and the rest will begin to pall after a while. Most people – “white” or otherwise – are simply much better human beings than the leaders of the populist right. Maybe wallowing in the muck of white degeneracy will become such a sordid experience that an eventual realisation that it is better to be an Obama than a Trump will take hold. Maybe the best approach to resisting white degenerate leaders is to point out to their supporters that, far from being “deplorables”, they are usually better than those who lead them.
The rhetoric of the likes of Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Steve Bannon and other figures in the ascendant populist right might not openly embrace “white power”, but there is no doubt that open white racists have been emboldened by them. Trump may have not wanted Richard Spencer (who coined the term “alt right”) to gleefully exclaim: “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory” just after the 2016 US election, but he was not particularly bothered by it either.
eOnline and offline, there is a rich and growing milieu of radical racist thinkers and activists. Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, was immersed in it and active on the Gab social network, stirring up hate towards Jews who support refugees.
However, white supremacy, as used to describe a belief in the racial superiority of white people, may not be the best concept to help us understand what is going on here. It’s not that there isn’t a barely concealed attempt to rehabilitate the long and clearly documented history of white racism in “western” democracies. The issue is that I’m not sure that it’s “supremacy” that is the goal here, so much as a licence for a perverse kind of degeneracy.
Consider the contrast between Barack Obama and Trump. Obama is not a perfect human being, nor was he a perfect US president. But it’s impossible to deny his qualities. He is intelligent, competent, witty, plain-speaking, empathetic and has a loving relationship with his family. Obama is also a man who was not born into wealth and power, and worked hard to make something of his life. Trump is the reverse: incompetent, mendacious, rude and seemingly incapable of non-instrumental relationships. The only way he has made anything of his life is through being born into privilege, with sufficient reserves of family capital to allow him to build a “business” based on little more than bragging.
Aside from his politics, Trump is simply a man who falls short of any moral code you could care to imagine. Politicians are often cynical, cruel or corrupt, but a complete absence of human decency is rare. Even George W Bush can pass sweets to Michelle Obama and paint loving portraits of the soldiers he sent off to die.
But for millions of Americans to choose Trump and to continue to support him cannot simply be dismissed as voters “holding their noses” and selecting the individual who could best forward their agenda, regardless of his personal qualities. For a significant proportion of his supporters, it was a deliberate choice for moral degeneracy, even a celebration of it. It is also a reproach to the Obama years and to Obama personally. A bad white man will always be better than a good black man, regardless of the political platforms they support.
The degeneracy of Trump tells us something about changing trends within white racism. Social Darwinism, and “scientific” attempts to prove the superiority of the “white race” still have a presence on the far right. But I don’t think that this is the dominant ideological driver behind the resurgence of white racism. Sure, the Proud Boys, members of whom have been associated with violent assaults on counter-protesters, advocate “western chauvinism”, but this woolly idea is flexible enough not to be tied into pseudoscientific notions of white superiority as a fact.
What I think we are seeing is something rawer, a lust for power, coupled with an unvarnished hatred of non-white others that sees little need to disguise itself. This is a white racism that is predicated on nothing other than a desire to dominate and subjugate. Trump’s brutal expression of his basest urges empowers and licenses a similar abandonment, among his followers, of any pretence that white dominance is unjustifiable. This is not white supremacy as we have understood it. It is a move to demonstrate that whiteness can be as morally degenerate as one wishes it to be and still prevail.
At the heart of this proud degeneracy is an insecurity. A fear of “white genocide” has become normative on the far right, based on conspiracy theories about the likes of George Soros encouraging mass immigration as an attempt to replace the white race. Trump has come very close to trying to validate this myth. At the now infamous rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, the marchers chanted: “You will not replace us”. This suggests an awareness that white power cannot rest on justifiable foundations. Indeed, outside the old-style far right, the very concept of whiteness and race itself is given limited intellectual justification. All there is left is assertion and hate.
Degeneracy is not confined to the openly racist far right – it is a theme that runs through the populist right more generally, even when racism is absent or not emphasised. One of the key features of the populist wave is a certain proud incompetence. There are of course still competent rightwing populists around, but it is frequently the likes of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage or Matteo Salvini who prevail. They are uninterested and incapable of conducting policymaking and government in a systematic, productive way. They make a virtue of their lack of understanding; they cause chaos and delight in destruction. They are a kind of taunt, in the same way as Trump is: we have no idea what we are doing, we will destroy, we are contemptible human beings and still you love us.
Some analyses of the rise of Trump and the populist right claim that they draw their popularity from those who feel “left behind” and see their own flaws gloriously reflected in them. This is only true to an extent. If even a tiny fraction of Brexit-supporting Sunderland was as blithely destructive as Farage, the city would be a smouldering ruin.
No, what these people offer their supporters is a guarantee: we will make sure that however much your life degenerates, our power as degenerate white men should reassure you that there is still hope. Yes, you are better than we are, but you don’t have to be. In a bewildering, chaotic world, this is immensely reassuring.
Perhaps there are opportunities here for anti-racism and opposition to the populist right. If white racism and populism now rests on nothing more than naked power and self-assertion, there will be no need to wade through the academic verbiage about “bell curves” and black crime rates before we can tackle the problem. And perhaps the very degeneracy of Trump and the rest will begin to pall after a while. Most people – “white” or otherwise – are simply much better human beings than the leaders of the populist right. Maybe wallowing in the muck of white degeneracy will become such a sordid experience that an eventual realisation that it is better to be an Obama than a Trump will take hold. Maybe the best approach to resisting white degenerate leaders is to point out to their supporters that, far from being “deplorables”, they are usually better than those who lead them.
A historian busts the poisonous myth at the heart of white nationalist ideology
America was never white, and it never will be.
By Joe Krulder / History News Network - alternet
November 25, 2018, 4:53 AM GMT
Events in Charlottesville recently cascaded into domestic terrorism. Three dead and dozens wounded as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other “alt-right” members descended upon the university that Thomas Jefferson built; their purpose, it is alleged, to defend a statue – a monument – to the Confederate Civil War soldier, General Robert E. Lee. These radical rightists arrived from all across the United States upon the college town of Charlottesville to protect, in their words, their “white” heritage. Among the many problems I have with so-called “white supremacists” is their purposeful mixing of “heritage” with “history,” rhetorically pining for a once proud “white” America.
But history proves that America was never white.
That I need to make this statement, and worse, that some may take offense from it, shows the blurring rhetoric between what is Heritage and what is History. I’ll return to this later. For now, some History.
The first successful colonial holding in these current United States was Spanish, at St. Augustine, Florida, established 1565, four decades plus prior to Virginia’s Jamestown.
America was never white.
Speaking of Jamestown, the first Africans were brought into Virginia on a Dutch trading ship in 1619, a year before Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
America was never white.
And nearly half of those Pilgrims could not speak English. Of the near half that couldn’t, most spoke Dutch, with a scattering of German and French. America from the get go was not an English-speaking nation. When the Puritan, William Bradford, arranged the first Indian Treaty signing in 1621, it was with Massasoit, a Pokanoket of the Wampanoag Confederacy. At this time, depending on which archeologist you ask, the native population of North America was anywhere between 8 to 20 million. English speakers? Less than a thousand.
America was never white.
And it was the Dutch who seemed ascendant, as they settled New Amsterdam and the Hudson River Valley beginning in 1625. English-speaking America was in the minority of the European languages spoken by 1670. The French were firmly in place along the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes region, and it may come as some surprise to many Americans, but Green Bay, Wisconsin was once “La Baye des Puants” which is what the French called it when they founded “The Bay of Stinks” in 1634. Spain still reigned in Florida and along the Gulf Coast. Even the Swedes set up shop along the Delaware River taking up large swaths of what is today Delaware and Pennsylvania.
And if you were around in the mid-eighteenth century, don’t ask Benjamin Franklin about the indentured Palatines. In 1751 Franklin penned, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.” where he openly called German-speakers “swarthy” and “stupid,” that they would likely “Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them” unless there was a change to immigration policies.
Of course, one of the more famous eighteenth-century colonial wars, the French and Indian War, lasted nine years, and only after victory was secured in 1763, did English speakers become dominant among the many European powers that settled North America.
Back to Africans, according to SlaveVoyages.org, the activities of the Atlantic slave trade brought 9,507 Africans to mainland America by 1699. Over the next 75-years, or a year before the United States declared its Independence, another 220,000 were brought to slave upon the American mainland. The 1790 census (the first undertaken by the United States) proved 740,054 Africans in America, or 26.5% of the population just a year after the Constitution was ratified.
America was never white.
And the Revolutionary War was not white on white violence, or English speakers against Mother England. There was the famed Ethiopian Brigade, which General George Washington did his best to avoid. Yes, blacks fought on both sides of the war. And Crispus Attucks was black and he was the first to die at the Boston Massacre of 1770. Indians, too, fought in this war, forced to take sides by both British and colonial forces.
America was never white.
Even when the nation was young, and found a bargain from Napoleon to purchase all of Louisiana – yes, we gained the entire Mississippi River watershed, but since France had only just won Louisiana, a trophy for defeating Spain in Europe, and unable to hold on to Haiti in the Caribbean where slaves successfully rebelled, America received the Midwest which was filled with the indigenous mostly, and some Spaniards too.
America was never white.
Equally, the war of 1812, which once again pitted the United States against Britain, was not wholly a white on white conflict. Again, Native Americans took sides, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh had formed a large multi-tribal confederacy and played an enormous role in ensuring that the young United States failed at taking Canada. The great United States Navy admiral, Oliver Hazard Perry, along with Daniel Dobbins, a shipmaster, built a fleet from greenwood on Lake Erie using African Americans to build and then man the fleet. At War’s end, at the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson’s fighting force included Choctaw Indians, and freed blacks.
America was never white.
Texas, and the Mexican-American War which followed its annexation, obviously entailed the gaining of territory inhabited by Native Americans and Hispanics. When gold was all the rage in California, the world landed upon its shores. People from Europe, South America, and yes, Asia (China, in particular) descended and many remained.
America was never white.
In military history the 54th All Black Regiment of the Civil War, the 369th Infantry known as the “The Harlem Hellfighters” in World War One, and the all-Japanese 442th Infantry during the Second World War, still – to this day – remain some of the most wartime decorated units of our country’s fighting forces.
America was never white.
Which brings us to the topic of heritage and history. For this I’ll quote famed historian David Lowenthal. Author of The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Lowenthal remarks that heritage is not history at all: “it is not an inquiry into the past, but a celebration of it … a profession of faith in a past tailored to present-day purposes.”
Monuments, under this definition, are not history. Monuments are memory-makers, celebratory edifices erected to hide History’s complexity, drown curiosity, and feed the simple in the present and in the future.
If we dig past the monuments of the Robert E. Lee’s and the Stonewall Jackson’s erected in the 1920s (Jim Crow era) or the 1950s (Civil Rights era), some in far away Arizona (Arizona achieved statehood in 1912, the Civil War ended in 1865), what we get to is a place called the past where easily traceable demographics prove a country filled with ethnicities from all over the world. What the alt-right desires is an America where whites maintain some semblance of power over anyone of color if not outright ethnic cleansing. Their rhetoric of Heritage is pure myth, a fabrication of a false past, creating memory where none existed.
America was never white, and it never will be.
But history proves that America was never white.
That I need to make this statement, and worse, that some may take offense from it, shows the blurring rhetoric between what is Heritage and what is History. I’ll return to this later. For now, some History.
The first successful colonial holding in these current United States was Spanish, at St. Augustine, Florida, established 1565, four decades plus prior to Virginia’s Jamestown.
America was never white.
Speaking of Jamestown, the first Africans were brought into Virginia on a Dutch trading ship in 1619, a year before Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
America was never white.
And nearly half of those Pilgrims could not speak English. Of the near half that couldn’t, most spoke Dutch, with a scattering of German and French. America from the get go was not an English-speaking nation. When the Puritan, William Bradford, arranged the first Indian Treaty signing in 1621, it was with Massasoit, a Pokanoket of the Wampanoag Confederacy. At this time, depending on which archeologist you ask, the native population of North America was anywhere between 8 to 20 million. English speakers? Less than a thousand.
America was never white.
And it was the Dutch who seemed ascendant, as they settled New Amsterdam and the Hudson River Valley beginning in 1625. English-speaking America was in the minority of the European languages spoken by 1670. The French were firmly in place along the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes region, and it may come as some surprise to many Americans, but Green Bay, Wisconsin was once “La Baye des Puants” which is what the French called it when they founded “The Bay of Stinks” in 1634. Spain still reigned in Florida and along the Gulf Coast. Even the Swedes set up shop along the Delaware River taking up large swaths of what is today Delaware and Pennsylvania.
And if you were around in the mid-eighteenth century, don’t ask Benjamin Franklin about the indentured Palatines. In 1751 Franklin penned, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.” where he openly called German-speakers “swarthy” and “stupid,” that they would likely “Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them” unless there was a change to immigration policies.
Of course, one of the more famous eighteenth-century colonial wars, the French and Indian War, lasted nine years, and only after victory was secured in 1763, did English speakers become dominant among the many European powers that settled North America.
Back to Africans, according to SlaveVoyages.org, the activities of the Atlantic slave trade brought 9,507 Africans to mainland America by 1699. Over the next 75-years, or a year before the United States declared its Independence, another 220,000 were brought to slave upon the American mainland. The 1790 census (the first undertaken by the United States) proved 740,054 Africans in America, or 26.5% of the population just a year after the Constitution was ratified.
America was never white.
And the Revolutionary War was not white on white violence, or English speakers against Mother England. There was the famed Ethiopian Brigade, which General George Washington did his best to avoid. Yes, blacks fought on both sides of the war. And Crispus Attucks was black and he was the first to die at the Boston Massacre of 1770. Indians, too, fought in this war, forced to take sides by both British and colonial forces.
America was never white.
Even when the nation was young, and found a bargain from Napoleon to purchase all of Louisiana – yes, we gained the entire Mississippi River watershed, but since France had only just won Louisiana, a trophy for defeating Spain in Europe, and unable to hold on to Haiti in the Caribbean where slaves successfully rebelled, America received the Midwest which was filled with the indigenous mostly, and some Spaniards too.
America was never white.
Equally, the war of 1812, which once again pitted the United States against Britain, was not wholly a white on white conflict. Again, Native Americans took sides, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh had formed a large multi-tribal confederacy and played an enormous role in ensuring that the young United States failed at taking Canada. The great United States Navy admiral, Oliver Hazard Perry, along with Daniel Dobbins, a shipmaster, built a fleet from greenwood on Lake Erie using African Americans to build and then man the fleet. At War’s end, at the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson’s fighting force included Choctaw Indians, and freed blacks.
America was never white.
Texas, and the Mexican-American War which followed its annexation, obviously entailed the gaining of territory inhabited by Native Americans and Hispanics. When gold was all the rage in California, the world landed upon its shores. People from Europe, South America, and yes, Asia (China, in particular) descended and many remained.
America was never white.
In military history the 54th All Black Regiment of the Civil War, the 369th Infantry known as the “The Harlem Hellfighters” in World War One, and the all-Japanese 442th Infantry during the Second World War, still – to this day – remain some of the most wartime decorated units of our country’s fighting forces.
America was never white.
Which brings us to the topic of heritage and history. For this I’ll quote famed historian David Lowenthal. Author of The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Lowenthal remarks that heritage is not history at all: “it is not an inquiry into the past, but a celebration of it … a profession of faith in a past tailored to present-day purposes.”
Monuments, under this definition, are not history. Monuments are memory-makers, celebratory edifices erected to hide History’s complexity, drown curiosity, and feed the simple in the present and in the future.
If we dig past the monuments of the Robert E. Lee’s and the Stonewall Jackson’s erected in the 1920s (Jim Crow era) or the 1950s (Civil Rights era), some in far away Arizona (Arizona achieved statehood in 1912, the Civil War ended in 1865), what we get to is a place called the past where easily traceable demographics prove a country filled with ethnicities from all over the world. What the alt-right desires is an America where whites maintain some semblance of power over anyone of color if not outright ethnic cleansing. Their rhetoric of Heritage is pure myth, a fabrication of a false past, creating memory where none existed.
America was never white, and it never will be.
can't handle the truth!!!
Users of home DNA tests 'cherry pick' results based on race biases, study says
Researchers raise concern over white people misunderstanding their minority roots: ‘It has no consequences for them’
Ashifa Kassam in Toronto
the guardian
Sun 1 Jul 2018 03.00 EDT
People who use home genetic testing kits to unlock the mysteries of their ancestry tend to “cherry pick” the results, relying on preconceived biases to embrace some of the findings while disregarding others, new research suggests.
Home genetic testing has become a multibillion-dollar industry that has seen millions of people around the world sign up for swab kits in hopes of uncovering the secrets hidden in their genomes.
Researchers at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia focused on how the results shape perceptions of race and ethnicity. They interviewed 100 Americans from various ethnic and racial backgrounds who had taken the tests, returning to them 18 months later to examine whether the tests had gradually shifted how they saw their identity.
The findings, published this week in the American Journal of Sociology,showed that most of participants – 59% – did not alter their views on their identity, despite receiving new information from the tests.
“I was surprised to find that, for most people, they didn’t adopt the ancestries suggested by the test,” said Wendy Roth, a sociologist and lead author of the study
Those who did heed the results did so on a selective basis, she added. “They didn’t embrace them full-scale – they cherry picked.”
Participants tended to embrace identities that they saw positively or that they thought others would accept. Test results that were disliked were simply rejected or ignored in some cases.
“So it’s not like people were seeing this genetic information as being definitive. They were really allowing their social desires and influences to change how they reacted to it,” she said.
One of the participants who identified as a white Mexican American before the test was found to have Native American, Celtic and Jewish ancestry. Researchers found he embraced his Jewish roots over the other ancestries highlighted in the test.
Another participant was adopted and had always believed herself to be Native American. After the test suggested she had no Native American ancestry, she dismissed it as inaccurate and continued to identify as Native American anyway.
A notable exception was among some of the white respondents, who were more likely to embrace new racial identities as long as they felt others would still accept them. “They were really excited to try on this identity that made them anything other than just white,” said Roth.
Some of this might be explained by the type of person who takes this test, said Roth. “Many of these people were looking for a sense of belonging. They didn’t know where their family came from, many of them were adopted and they were just looking for a place to belong.”
The findings suggest that genetic testing could end up reinforcing race privilege, said Roth, citing the example of someone who has always identified as white but now, based on the test results, takes on a new identity as white and black, or white and Native American.
“It doesn’t have any consequences for them. They can try it on, mention it when it’s to their advantage and ignore it otherwise. So it doesn’t have the same consequences as race does for non-white people,” she said. “That can really lead whites in particular to think that race is like that for everyone.”
Among those in her study who embraced their test results, more than 80% of them went on to document this change in the census – upending the tradition of racial categories based solely on appearance or knowledge of descent. “If that becomes commonplace, that’s a real concern,” she said. “That means that those inequalities are going to be underestimated.”
Roth is now carrying out similar research on randomly selected samples to see if the findings – which hint at the myriad of social factors that plays into our concept of race – carries over.
“It really emphasises to me that race is much more complex than just information that’s encoded within your genes,” she said. “Even if they are getting this information, they still interpret this information in terms of who they want to be, how they want to present themselves and what they think society will accept. And then they chose to either embrace it or ignore it based on that.”
Home genetic testing has become a multibillion-dollar industry that has seen millions of people around the world sign up for swab kits in hopes of uncovering the secrets hidden in their genomes.
Researchers at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia focused on how the results shape perceptions of race and ethnicity. They interviewed 100 Americans from various ethnic and racial backgrounds who had taken the tests, returning to them 18 months later to examine whether the tests had gradually shifted how they saw their identity.
The findings, published this week in the American Journal of Sociology,showed that most of participants – 59% – did not alter their views on their identity, despite receiving new information from the tests.
“I was surprised to find that, for most people, they didn’t adopt the ancestries suggested by the test,” said Wendy Roth, a sociologist and lead author of the study
Those who did heed the results did so on a selective basis, she added. “They didn’t embrace them full-scale – they cherry picked.”
Participants tended to embrace identities that they saw positively or that they thought others would accept. Test results that were disliked were simply rejected or ignored in some cases.
“So it’s not like people were seeing this genetic information as being definitive. They were really allowing their social desires and influences to change how they reacted to it,” she said.
One of the participants who identified as a white Mexican American before the test was found to have Native American, Celtic and Jewish ancestry. Researchers found he embraced his Jewish roots over the other ancestries highlighted in the test.
Another participant was adopted and had always believed herself to be Native American. After the test suggested she had no Native American ancestry, she dismissed it as inaccurate and continued to identify as Native American anyway.
A notable exception was among some of the white respondents, who were more likely to embrace new racial identities as long as they felt others would still accept them. “They were really excited to try on this identity that made them anything other than just white,” said Roth.
Some of this might be explained by the type of person who takes this test, said Roth. “Many of these people were looking for a sense of belonging. They didn’t know where their family came from, many of them were adopted and they were just looking for a place to belong.”
The findings suggest that genetic testing could end up reinforcing race privilege, said Roth, citing the example of someone who has always identified as white but now, based on the test results, takes on a new identity as white and black, or white and Native American.
“It doesn’t have any consequences for them. They can try it on, mention it when it’s to their advantage and ignore it otherwise. So it doesn’t have the same consequences as race does for non-white people,” she said. “That can really lead whites in particular to think that race is like that for everyone.”
Among those in her study who embraced their test results, more than 80% of them went on to document this change in the census – upending the tradition of racial categories based solely on appearance or knowledge of descent. “If that becomes commonplace, that’s a real concern,” she said. “That means that those inequalities are going to be underestimated.”
Roth is now carrying out similar research on randomly selected samples to see if the findings – which hint at the myriad of social factors that plays into our concept of race – carries over.
“It really emphasises to me that race is much more complex than just information that’s encoded within your genes,” she said. “Even if they are getting this information, they still interpret this information in terms of who they want to be, how they want to present themselves and what they think society will accept. And then they chose to either embrace it or ignore it based on that.”
What is White Supremacy?
*Workshop Definition* White Supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.
BY Elizabeth Martínez ~ soa WATCH.ORG
I. What does it mean to say it is a system?
The most common mistake people make when they talk about racism is to think it is a collection of prejudices and individual acts of discrimination. They do not see that it is a system, a web of interlocking, reinforcing institutions: economic, military, legal, educational, religious, and cultural. As a system, racism affects every aspect of life in a country.
By not seeing that racism is systemic (part of a system), people often personalize or individualize racist acts. For example, they will reduce racist police behavior to "a few bad apples" who need to be removed, rather than seeing it exists in police departments all over the country and is basic to the society. This mistake has real consequences: refusing to see police brutality as part of a system, and that the system needs to be changed, means that the brutality will continue.
The need to recognize racism as being systemic is one reason the term White Supremacy has been more useful than the term racism. They refer to the same problem but:
A. The purpose of racism is much clearer when we call it "white supremacy." Some people think of racism as just a matter of prejudice. "Supremacy" defines a power relationship.
B. Race is an unscientific term. Although racism is a social reality, it is based on a term which has no biological or other scientific reality.
C. The term racism often leads to dead-end debates about whether a particular remark or action by an individual white person was really racist or not. We will achieve a clearer understanding of racism if we analyze how a certain action relates to the system of White Supremacy.
D. The term White Supremacy gives white people a clear choice of supporting or opposing a system, rather than getting bogged down in claims to be anti-racist (or not) in their personal behavior.
II. What does it mean to say White Supremacy is historically based?
Every nation has a creation myth, or origin myth, which is the story people are taught of how the nation came into being. Ours says the United States began with Columbus's so-called "discovery" of America, continued with settlement by brave Pilgrims, won its independence from England with the American Revolution, and then expanded westward until it became the enormous, rich country you see today.
That is the origin myth. It omits three key facts about the birth and growth of the United States as a nation. Those facts demonstrate that White Supremacy is fundamental to the existence of this country.
A. The United States is a nation state created by military conquest in several stages. The first stage was the European seizure of the lands inhabited by indigenous peoples, which they called Turtle Island. Before the European invasion, there were between nine and eighteen million indigenous people in North America. By the end of the Indian Wars, there were about 250,000 in what is now called the United States, and about 123,000 in what is now Canada (source of these population figures from the book _The State of Native America_ ed. by M. Annette Jaimes, South End Press, 1992). That process must be called genocide, and it created the land base of this country. The elimination of indigenous peoples and seizure of their land was the first condition for its existence.
B. The United States could not have developed economically as a nation without enslaved African labor. When agriculture and industry began to grow in the colonial period, a tremendous labor shortage existed. Not enough white workers came from Europe and the European invaders could not put indigenous peoples to work in sufficient numbers. It was enslaved Africans who provided the labor force that made the growth of the United States possible.
That growth peaked from about 1800 to 1860, the period called the Market Revolution. During this period, the United States changed from being an agricultural/commercial economy to an industrial corporate economy. The development of banks, expansion of the credit system, protective tariffs, and new transportation systems all helped make this possible. But the key to the Market Revolution was the export of cotton, and this was made possible by slave labor.
C. The third major piece in the true story of the formation of the United States as a nation was the take-over of half of Mexico by war -- today's Southwest. This enabled the U.S. to expand to the Pacific, and thus open up huge trade with Asia -- markets for export, goods to import and sell in the U.S. It also opened to the U.S. vast mineral wealth in Arizona, agricultural wealth in California, and vast new sources of cheap labor to build railroads and develop the economy.
The United States had already taken over the part of Mexico we call Texas in 1836, then made it a state in 1845. The following year, it invaded Mexico and seized its territory under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. A few years later, in 1853, the U.S. acquired a final chunk of Arizona from Mexico by threatening to renew the war. This completed the territorial boundaries of what is now the United States.
Those were the three foundation stones of the United States as a nation. One more key step was taken in 1898, with the takeover of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and Cuba by means of the Spanish-American War. Since then, all but Cuba have remained U.S. colonies or neo-colonies, providing new sources of wealth and military power for the United States. The 1898 take-over completed the phase of direct conquest and colonization, which had begun with the murderous theft of Native American lands five centuries before.
Many people in the United States hate to recognize these truths. They prefer the established origin myth. They could be called the Premise Keepers.
III. What does it mean to say that White Supremacy is a system of exploitation?
The roots of U.S. racism or White Supremacy lie in establishing economic exploitation by the theft of resources and human labor, then justifying that exploitation by institutionalizing the inferiority of its victims. The first application of White Supremacy or racism by the EuroAmericans who control U.S. society was against indigenous peoples. Then came Blacks, originally as slaves and later as exploited waged labor. They were followed by Mexicans, who lost their means of survival when they lost their land holdings, and also became wage-slaves. Mexican labor built the Southwest, along with Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and other workers.
In short, White Supremacy and economic power were born together. The United States is the first nation in the world to be born racist (South Africa came later) and also the first to be born capitalist. That is not a coincidence. In this country, as history shows, capitalism and racism go hand in hand.
IV. Origins of Whiteness and White Supremacy as Concepts
The first European settlers called themselves English, Irish, German, French, Dutch, etc. -- not white. Over half of those who came in the early colonial period were servants. By 1760 the population reached about two million, of whom 400,000 were enslaved Africans. An elite of planters developed in the southern colonies. In Virginia, for example, 50 rich white families held the reins of power but were vastly outnumbered by non-whites. In the Carolinas, 25,000 whites faced 40,000 Black slaves and 60,000 indigenous peoples in the area. Class lines hardened as the distinction between rich and poor became sharper. The problem of control loomed large and fear of revolt from below grew.
There had been slave revolts from the beginning but elite whites feared even more that discontented whites -- servants, tenant farmers, the urban poor, the property-less, soldiers and sailors -- would join Black slaves to overthrow the existing order. As early as 1663, indentured white servants and Black slaves in Virginia had formed a conspiracy to rebel and gain their freedom. In 1676 came Bacon's Rebellion by white frontiersmen and servants alongside Black slaves. The rebellion shook up Virginia's planter elite. Many other rebellions followed, from South Carolina to New York. The main fear of elite whites everywhere was a class fear. Their solution: divide and control. Certain privileges were given to white indentured servants. They were allowed to join militias, carry guns, acquire land, and have other legal rights not allowed to slaves. With these privileges they were legally declared white on the basis of skin color and continental origin. That made them "superior" to Blacks (and Indians). Thus whiteness was born as a racist concept to prevent lower-class whites from joining people of color, especially Blacks, against their class enemies. The concept of whiteness became a source of unity and strength for the vastly outnumbered Euroamericans -- as in South Africa, another settler nation. Today, unity across color lines remains the biggest threat in the eyes of a white ruling class.
White Supremacy
In the mid-1800s, new historical developments served to strengthen the concept of whiteness and insitutionalize White Supremacy. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny, born at a time of aggressive western expansion, said that the United States was destined by God to take over other peoples and lands. The term was first used in 1845 by the editor of a popular journal, who affirmed "the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government."
Since the time of Jefferson, the United States had had its eye on expanding to the Pacific Ocean and establishing trade with Asia. Others in the ruling class came to want more slave states, for reasons of political power, and this also required westward expansion. Both goals pointed to taking over part of Mexico. The first step was Texas, which was acquired for the United States by filling the territory with Anglos who then declared a revolution from Mexico in 1836. After failing to purchase more Mexican territory, President James Polk created a pretext for starting a war with the declared goal of expansion. The notoriously brutal, two-year war was justfied in the name of Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Destiny is a profoundly racist concept. For example, a major force of opposition to gobbling up Mexico at the time came from politicians saying "the degraded Mexican-Spanish" were unfit to become part of the United States; they were "a wretched people . . . mongrels." In a similar way, some influential whites who opposed slavery in those years said Blacks should be removed from U.S. soil, to avoid "contamination" by an inferior people (source of all this information is the book _Manifest Destiny_ by Anders Stephanson, Hill & Wang, 1995).
Earlier, Native Americans had been the target of white supremacist beliefs which not only said they were dirty, heathen "savages," but fundamentally inferior in their values. For example, they did not see land as profitable real estate but as Our Mother.
The doctrine of Manifest Destiny facilitated the geographic extension and economic development of the United States while confirming racist policies and practices. It established White Supremacy more firmly than ever as central to the U.S. definition of itself. The arrogance of asserting that God gave white people (primarily men) the right to dominate everything around them still haunts our society and sustains its racist oppression.
The most common mistake people make when they talk about racism is to think it is a collection of prejudices and individual acts of discrimination. They do not see that it is a system, a web of interlocking, reinforcing institutions: economic, military, legal, educational, religious, and cultural. As a system, racism affects every aspect of life in a country.
By not seeing that racism is systemic (part of a system), people often personalize or individualize racist acts. For example, they will reduce racist police behavior to "a few bad apples" who need to be removed, rather than seeing it exists in police departments all over the country and is basic to the society. This mistake has real consequences: refusing to see police brutality as part of a system, and that the system needs to be changed, means that the brutality will continue.
The need to recognize racism as being systemic is one reason the term White Supremacy has been more useful than the term racism. They refer to the same problem but:
A. The purpose of racism is much clearer when we call it "white supremacy." Some people think of racism as just a matter of prejudice. "Supremacy" defines a power relationship.
B. Race is an unscientific term. Although racism is a social reality, it is based on a term which has no biological or other scientific reality.
C. The term racism often leads to dead-end debates about whether a particular remark or action by an individual white person was really racist or not. We will achieve a clearer understanding of racism if we analyze how a certain action relates to the system of White Supremacy.
D. The term White Supremacy gives white people a clear choice of supporting or opposing a system, rather than getting bogged down in claims to be anti-racist (or not) in their personal behavior.
II. What does it mean to say White Supremacy is historically based?
Every nation has a creation myth, or origin myth, which is the story people are taught of how the nation came into being. Ours says the United States began with Columbus's so-called "discovery" of America, continued with settlement by brave Pilgrims, won its independence from England with the American Revolution, and then expanded westward until it became the enormous, rich country you see today.
That is the origin myth. It omits three key facts about the birth and growth of the United States as a nation. Those facts demonstrate that White Supremacy is fundamental to the existence of this country.
A. The United States is a nation state created by military conquest in several stages. The first stage was the European seizure of the lands inhabited by indigenous peoples, which they called Turtle Island. Before the European invasion, there were between nine and eighteen million indigenous people in North America. By the end of the Indian Wars, there were about 250,000 in what is now called the United States, and about 123,000 in what is now Canada (source of these population figures from the book _The State of Native America_ ed. by M. Annette Jaimes, South End Press, 1992). That process must be called genocide, and it created the land base of this country. The elimination of indigenous peoples and seizure of their land was the first condition for its existence.
B. The United States could not have developed economically as a nation without enslaved African labor. When agriculture and industry began to grow in the colonial period, a tremendous labor shortage existed. Not enough white workers came from Europe and the European invaders could not put indigenous peoples to work in sufficient numbers. It was enslaved Africans who provided the labor force that made the growth of the United States possible.
That growth peaked from about 1800 to 1860, the period called the Market Revolution. During this period, the United States changed from being an agricultural/commercial economy to an industrial corporate economy. The development of banks, expansion of the credit system, protective tariffs, and new transportation systems all helped make this possible. But the key to the Market Revolution was the export of cotton, and this was made possible by slave labor.
C. The third major piece in the true story of the formation of the United States as a nation was the take-over of half of Mexico by war -- today's Southwest. This enabled the U.S. to expand to the Pacific, and thus open up huge trade with Asia -- markets for export, goods to import and sell in the U.S. It also opened to the U.S. vast mineral wealth in Arizona, agricultural wealth in California, and vast new sources of cheap labor to build railroads and develop the economy.
The United States had already taken over the part of Mexico we call Texas in 1836, then made it a state in 1845. The following year, it invaded Mexico and seized its territory under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. A few years later, in 1853, the U.S. acquired a final chunk of Arizona from Mexico by threatening to renew the war. This completed the territorial boundaries of what is now the United States.
Those were the three foundation stones of the United States as a nation. One more key step was taken in 1898, with the takeover of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and Cuba by means of the Spanish-American War. Since then, all but Cuba have remained U.S. colonies or neo-colonies, providing new sources of wealth and military power for the United States. The 1898 take-over completed the phase of direct conquest and colonization, which had begun with the murderous theft of Native American lands five centuries before.
Many people in the United States hate to recognize these truths. They prefer the established origin myth. They could be called the Premise Keepers.
III. What does it mean to say that White Supremacy is a system of exploitation?
The roots of U.S. racism or White Supremacy lie in establishing economic exploitation by the theft of resources and human labor, then justifying that exploitation by institutionalizing the inferiority of its victims. The first application of White Supremacy or racism by the EuroAmericans who control U.S. society was against indigenous peoples. Then came Blacks, originally as slaves and later as exploited waged labor. They were followed by Mexicans, who lost their means of survival when they lost their land holdings, and also became wage-slaves. Mexican labor built the Southwest, along with Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and other workers.
In short, White Supremacy and economic power were born together. The United States is the first nation in the world to be born racist (South Africa came later) and also the first to be born capitalist. That is not a coincidence. In this country, as history shows, capitalism and racism go hand in hand.
IV. Origins of Whiteness and White Supremacy as Concepts
The first European settlers called themselves English, Irish, German, French, Dutch, etc. -- not white. Over half of those who came in the early colonial period were servants. By 1760 the population reached about two million, of whom 400,000 were enslaved Africans. An elite of planters developed in the southern colonies. In Virginia, for example, 50 rich white families held the reins of power but were vastly outnumbered by non-whites. In the Carolinas, 25,000 whites faced 40,000 Black slaves and 60,000 indigenous peoples in the area. Class lines hardened as the distinction between rich and poor became sharper. The problem of control loomed large and fear of revolt from below grew.
There had been slave revolts from the beginning but elite whites feared even more that discontented whites -- servants, tenant farmers, the urban poor, the property-less, soldiers and sailors -- would join Black slaves to overthrow the existing order. As early as 1663, indentured white servants and Black slaves in Virginia had formed a conspiracy to rebel and gain their freedom. In 1676 came Bacon's Rebellion by white frontiersmen and servants alongside Black slaves. The rebellion shook up Virginia's planter elite. Many other rebellions followed, from South Carolina to New York. The main fear of elite whites everywhere was a class fear. Their solution: divide and control. Certain privileges were given to white indentured servants. They were allowed to join militias, carry guns, acquire land, and have other legal rights not allowed to slaves. With these privileges they were legally declared white on the basis of skin color and continental origin. That made them "superior" to Blacks (and Indians). Thus whiteness was born as a racist concept to prevent lower-class whites from joining people of color, especially Blacks, against their class enemies. The concept of whiteness became a source of unity and strength for the vastly outnumbered Euroamericans -- as in South Africa, another settler nation. Today, unity across color lines remains the biggest threat in the eyes of a white ruling class.
White Supremacy
In the mid-1800s, new historical developments served to strengthen the concept of whiteness and insitutionalize White Supremacy. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny, born at a time of aggressive western expansion, said that the United States was destined by God to take over other peoples and lands. The term was first used in 1845 by the editor of a popular journal, who affirmed "the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government."
Since the time of Jefferson, the United States had had its eye on expanding to the Pacific Ocean and establishing trade with Asia. Others in the ruling class came to want more slave states, for reasons of political power, and this also required westward expansion. Both goals pointed to taking over part of Mexico. The first step was Texas, which was acquired for the United States by filling the territory with Anglos who then declared a revolution from Mexico in 1836. After failing to purchase more Mexican territory, President James Polk created a pretext for starting a war with the declared goal of expansion. The notoriously brutal, two-year war was justfied in the name of Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Destiny is a profoundly racist concept. For example, a major force of opposition to gobbling up Mexico at the time came from politicians saying "the degraded Mexican-Spanish" were unfit to become part of the United States; they were "a wretched people . . . mongrels." In a similar way, some influential whites who opposed slavery in those years said Blacks should be removed from U.S. soil, to avoid "contamination" by an inferior people (source of all this information is the book _Manifest Destiny_ by Anders Stephanson, Hill & Wang, 1995).
Earlier, Native Americans had been the target of white supremacist beliefs which not only said they were dirty, heathen "savages," but fundamentally inferior in their values. For example, they did not see land as profitable real estate but as Our Mother.
The doctrine of Manifest Destiny facilitated the geographic extension and economic development of the United States while confirming racist policies and practices. It established White Supremacy more firmly than ever as central to the U.S. definition of itself. The arrogance of asserting that God gave white people (primarily men) the right to dominate everything around them still haunts our society and sustains its racist oppression.
tim wise
What Does It Mean to Be Wrong For So Long? Reflections on Black Reality and White Delusion
July 20, 2016
Although there was no such thing as polling back then, I suspect that if you had asked a representative sample of Londoners in the early 1770s whether or not the American colonists were getting a fair shake from King George, most would have said yes. It is doubtful they would have thought much about any supposed grievances that were at that very moment fueling the rise of a revolutionary movement, soon to burst onto the scene. Loyal to the system of which they were a part, and believing that system fair, they might well have wondered what all the fuss was about.
Whenever we benefit from a system as it is, taking that system for granted becomes second nature. We don’t see what others who are harmed by that system see, because we don’t have to. There’s no mystery here and very little that is controversial, at least in theory; as such, it should be apparent that most Brits in the mid-18th century would have found the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to be foolish upstarts and trouble-makers. And no doubt, looking back at what would have been the dominant British view at that time, most Americans would probably feel smug in asserting the absurdity of such a perspective in retrospect. Even most Brits would likely acknowledge the fatuousness of their ancestors’ denials and unwillingness to see the colonists’ point. It’s always easier to admit one was wrong many generations after the error has occurred.
So too, in what became the United States, most slaveowners never questioned the legitimacy of their system, and most whites — including those who didn’t own slaves — neither joined the abolitionist movement nor supported it. Indeed, most whites have been implacably aligned with white supremacy for the entirety of our nation’s history, only condemning even its most blatant iterations (like slavery and indigenous genocide) many generations after the formal manifestations of those had ended, and when doing so took no more courage than crossing the street.
That may sound harsh. It may be difficult to hear. But just because truth isn’t pleasing to one’s ears doesn’t mean it’s any less accurate. And the fact is — and it is at the heart of our current troubles — most white Americans have never believed that it was necessary for blacks to agitate for their rights and liberties (or their lives)—at least not at the time that particular agitation was happening. Just as Londoners wouldn’t have seen the unfairness directed at the American colonists (and let’s be clear, what King George did to white colonists was nothing compared to what those white colonists did to Africans and indigenous persons), so too, most whites have never been able to see the unfairness of the system vis-a-vis black people in the moment. Oh sure, fifty years later, we can look back and view Dr. King as a secular saint and talk about how great the civil rights movement was, and then we can contrast it with that “horrible, awful” Black Lives Matter movement, as Bill O’Reilly recently did. But when Dr. King and the movement were actually doing the things for which we remember them, most white folks stood in firm opposition, saw no need for their actions, and believed they were more “divisive” than unifying.
Sound familiar?
Whenever we benefit from a system as it is, taking that system for granted becomes second nature. We don’t see what others who are harmed by that system see, because we don’t have to. There’s no mystery here and very little that is controversial, at least in theory; as such, it should be apparent that most Brits in the mid-18th century would have found the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to be foolish upstarts and trouble-makers. And no doubt, looking back at what would have been the dominant British view at that time, most Americans would probably feel smug in asserting the absurdity of such a perspective in retrospect. Even most Brits would likely acknowledge the fatuousness of their ancestors’ denials and unwillingness to see the colonists’ point. It’s always easier to admit one was wrong many generations after the error has occurred.
So too, in what became the United States, most slaveowners never questioned the legitimacy of their system, and most whites — including those who didn’t own slaves — neither joined the abolitionist movement nor supported it. Indeed, most whites have been implacably aligned with white supremacy for the entirety of our nation’s history, only condemning even its most blatant iterations (like slavery and indigenous genocide) many generations after the formal manifestations of those had ended, and when doing so took no more courage than crossing the street.
That may sound harsh. It may be difficult to hear. But just because truth isn’t pleasing to one’s ears doesn’t mean it’s any less accurate. And the fact is — and it is at the heart of our current troubles — most white Americans have never believed that it was necessary for blacks to agitate for their rights and liberties (or their lives)—at least not at the time that particular agitation was happening. Just as Londoners wouldn’t have seen the unfairness directed at the American colonists (and let’s be clear, what King George did to white colonists was nothing compared to what those white colonists did to Africans and indigenous persons), so too, most whites have never been able to see the unfairness of the system vis-a-vis black people in the moment. Oh sure, fifty years later, we can look back and view Dr. King as a secular saint and talk about how great the civil rights movement was, and then we can contrast it with that “horrible, awful” Black Lives Matter movement, as Bill O’Reilly recently did. But when Dr. King and the movement were actually doing the things for which we remember them, most white folks stood in firm opposition, saw no need for their actions, and believed they were more “divisive” than unifying.
Sound familiar?
How History and Reality Means Many of Us Have to Fight to Not be a White Supremacist
The very foundations of my way of life are in white supremacy.
By Emily Pothast / The Establishment
From Alternet: ...How am I a white supremacist? Well, I was born and raised in the United States of America, a country built by slave labor on stolen land, and every privilege I’ve ever enjoyed has come at the expense of someone else’s oppression. The education I received was white supremacist education, from its demand that I learn to write and speak “proper English” to its reliance on a literary, scientific, and artistic canon comprised of and curated almost exclusively by white men. My aesthetic tastes are permeated with subtle coding that extends subconscious preference to those who look like me and communicate themselves in a way I can identify with. I have interjected my unwanted, unwarranted opinion into conversations that are out of my lane, and I have chosen to look the other way rather than confront instances of racism because of cowardice, complacency, and a misplaced sense of politeness. The very foundations of my way of life are in white supremacy, and the list of microaggressions I have committed, and will no doubt continue to commit in spite of my “good intentions” for as long as I’m alive, is virtually endless.
Does this mean I should just give up trying to fight my own colonizing, racist impulses? On the contrary, I see this as a call to fight harder, to never stop working on this part of myself. But at no point, now or in the future, will I ever be entitled to declare this work done. I will never be able to truthfully announce, “There is not a racist bone in my body!” as though racism is something that could be surgically removed. My racism is a chronic, inherited condition. I can medicate the symptoms, and with effort I can even loosen its grip around my soul, but it will always be part of me, like green eyes or a predilection for dumb puns.
Now, if you’re like many well-meaning white people, you might be feeling defensive at the implication that, like me, you might be a white supremacist too. I have noticed that there is an ugly tendency for liberal, well-meaning white people to take loud umbrage at being called “racist” or a “white supremacist.” And I can understand the reaction. When I started paying attention to social justice conversations a few short years ago, I also found some of the language shocking to my sensibilities. The first time someone called me a white supremacist in an online forum, I found it ridiculous. After all, I’m from Texas—I know “real” white supremacists, the kind of people who watch Fox News and sport Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. The idea that there was no difference between me and those people, or even that we might be perceived as different shades on the same shitty gradient, struck me as absurd.
But once I began unpacking the implications of the words “white supremacy,” I realized that there really is no better way to describe the system of murder and exploitation that benefits some of us at the expense of others, and there is no better way to describe my behavior when I reinforce those oppressive dynamics with my actions. I realize this is a bleak reality to absorb. But in comparison to the suffering on which we’ve built our entire way of life—and which we continue to perpetuate even in our finest moments—it really is a small thing to have to come to terms with.
Responding to accusations of racism with defensiveness is a common way that white people make our own emotions the center of the conversation, thereby creating the all-too-familiar vicious circle of a conversation that goes nowhere. Social psychologists call this behavioral response “self-justification.” It is a natural human tendency to rationalize our own actions, to minimize the discomfort of cognitive dissonance by maintaining an internal narrative in which we basically play the good guy. And so we often defend ourselves rather than listen, lashing out at the criticism until it leaves us alone with our ego intact.
Racism is not a quality that very many of us would put into our idealized versions of self, and so the idea that we are capable of being racist, or that we might even be white supremacists deep down in our kind, well-meaning souls, is something we have a very deep aversion to confronting head-on. It’s much more pleasant to imagine that the “real racists” are somewhere else, like Idaho, or that gun show your cousin Cody goes to every spring. But pointing a finger at everyone but ourselves is an exercise in self-righteousness, not an antidote to the deep foundation of white supremacy underlying and permeating our entire culture.[...]
Does this mean I should just give up trying to fight my own colonizing, racist impulses? On the contrary, I see this as a call to fight harder, to never stop working on this part of myself. But at no point, now or in the future, will I ever be entitled to declare this work done. I will never be able to truthfully announce, “There is not a racist bone in my body!” as though racism is something that could be surgically removed. My racism is a chronic, inherited condition. I can medicate the symptoms, and with effort I can even loosen its grip around my soul, but it will always be part of me, like green eyes or a predilection for dumb puns.
Now, if you’re like many well-meaning white people, you might be feeling defensive at the implication that, like me, you might be a white supremacist too. I have noticed that there is an ugly tendency for liberal, well-meaning white people to take loud umbrage at being called “racist” or a “white supremacist.” And I can understand the reaction. When I started paying attention to social justice conversations a few short years ago, I also found some of the language shocking to my sensibilities. The first time someone called me a white supremacist in an online forum, I found it ridiculous. After all, I’m from Texas—I know “real” white supremacists, the kind of people who watch Fox News and sport Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. The idea that there was no difference between me and those people, or even that we might be perceived as different shades on the same shitty gradient, struck me as absurd.
But once I began unpacking the implications of the words “white supremacy,” I realized that there really is no better way to describe the system of murder and exploitation that benefits some of us at the expense of others, and there is no better way to describe my behavior when I reinforce those oppressive dynamics with my actions. I realize this is a bleak reality to absorb. But in comparison to the suffering on which we’ve built our entire way of life—and which we continue to perpetuate even in our finest moments—it really is a small thing to have to come to terms with.
Responding to accusations of racism with defensiveness is a common way that white people make our own emotions the center of the conversation, thereby creating the all-too-familiar vicious circle of a conversation that goes nowhere. Social psychologists call this behavioral response “self-justification.” It is a natural human tendency to rationalize our own actions, to minimize the discomfort of cognitive dissonance by maintaining an internal narrative in which we basically play the good guy. And so we often defend ourselves rather than listen, lashing out at the criticism until it leaves us alone with our ego intact.
Racism is not a quality that very many of us would put into our idealized versions of self, and so the idea that we are capable of being racist, or that we might even be white supremacists deep down in our kind, well-meaning souls, is something we have a very deep aversion to confronting head-on. It’s much more pleasant to imagine that the “real racists” are somewhere else, like Idaho, or that gun show your cousin Cody goes to every spring. But pointing a finger at everyone but ourselves is an exercise in self-righteousness, not an antidote to the deep foundation of white supremacy underlying and permeating our entire culture.[...]